ABSTRACT
Sigmund Freud initiated the practice of using systematic verbal trains of associations to effect a change in a client’s perceptions and behavior. Freud studied with Brentano and through this contact, he had probably become aware of the findings of the Würtzburg school of experimental psychology working under the direction of Külpe: though the answer to a question can be foreseen (provided the question is thoroughly understood), the process of thinking varies from individual to individual and is, therefore, unpredictable. Freud reconceptualized this finding into what he called the technique of “free association.” The patient was to verbally associate with the aim of answering the question of what ails him/her. Thus, the flow of associations was not totally “free” but constrained by the problem to be solved. Freud was convinced that by tracking the course of the associations, the person’s cognitive and deeper personality structure would become apparent: the process of thinking, being based on memory, would lay bare the motivations that guided behavior.
