ABSTRACT
Psychoanalysis and democracy have at least one thing in common: a signature commitment to freedom of thought and speech. This chapter explores how free speech, in democratic society, and free association, in psychoanalysis, share much beyond that essential if aspirational adjective, free. In psychoanalysis, "free association" is the name for a patient's unguided and uncensored thoughts, or rather for the articulation of those thoughts. While psychoanalysis aims to cultivate individual emancipation, democracy aims for majority rule, though of course this is compatible with and may require the advancement of individual liberties and their protection from the tyranny of the majority. Psychoanalysis is often compared invidiously to cognitive behavioral therapy and pharmaceutical interventions. Both emerge as psychoanalysis's chief rivals, and both shine with the luster of so-called empirical validity and scientific credentialing, but often deceptively framed drug treatment efficacy studies.
