What is the therapeutic significance of free association, of resistances, and of repression?
Free association was a therapeutic technique used by Freud to treat his patients. The patients were allowed to talk freely, about their life experiences, goals, and challenges. Freud wanted to look into the unconscious mind of his patients.
Freud found that most of his patients, abnormal behavior was related to some repressed back memory of their past. The mind resisted the telling of those incidents. Freud believed that the repressed memories were kept in the unconscious minds, while the conscious mind resisted the coming out of these experiences or incidents.
Using the free association as a therapeutic tool, Freud came to know that these repressed feelings were actually childhood trauma. These traumas majorly included sexual abuse. He paid close attention to his patient’s abnormal behavior, and investigated the childhood trauma that the patient had faced.
He later concluded that all neurotic illnesses had some roots in sexual encounters. Any form of sexual abuse to a child may lead to a disturbed adult behavior. He also applied dream analysis technique, to look into the past memories of his patients. As dreams were the gateways to the most repressed desires.