Free Association as a Bridging Concept between Dynamic and Cognitive Processes and the Nature of Psychotherapeutic Change

Abstract

The target article is a subtle, but important, step in the direction of weakening two persisting barriers in psychoanalytically relevant research. First, the authors’ investigation of free association through a verbal fluency task and their discovery of the role of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in this process demonstrate that “cognitive” concepts such as executive function, attention, and working memory and “analytic” concepts such as free association, defense, and resistance all belong in a single category of mental functions. Second, by understanding free association through its effect on executive function and the DLPFC, one can see that the therapeutic action of psychodynamic, cognitive, and interpersonal treatments may not be fundamentally different.

Keywords:

• free association
• psychotherapy
• therapeutic change
• attention
• fMRI
• DLPFC