ABSTRACT
The cathartic theory, even in its expanded and elaborate form did not have the guidelines of practice. It took Freud almost two decades to address the guidelines of clinical practice, which were prompted by strictly using free association. Despite that, in all that time, clinical practice was one or another form of free association and interpretation, and in spite of the existence of Freud’s “recommendations” for practice, we had little knowledge of how or what to do in an analysis. Analysts were practising without a clinical theory and formulating their fi ndings in the terminology of a theory; they were no longer practising. It is important to note that Freud used his discoveries in the dualities of the manifest/ latent and explicit/implicit in the normal psychical phenomena (dreams, etc.) to understand the dualities of the Ucs./Cs., as they were manifested in the associations of his patients. His intuitions in that regard were complemented by similar intuitions of his pioneering colleagues. Although they were captives of the cathartic theory they were building-almost unintentionally-a real theory of psychoanalysis. Therefore, the incompatibility of theory and practiceat that time-was unnoticeable, even as the “great” theory of psychoanalysis was in the process of being confi gured.
