ABSTRACT
It is an aspect of experience in which accuracy of perception is necessary in order to survive. War is in a way the ultimate reality because it can maim or kill, consequently it mobilizes defences that arm the individual against external reality. Additionally, if the threat comes from the outside world that awareness can exonerate those individuals who are caught up in wars. Dominated as these were by the emotional drama of childhood, in them the external world served but as a faint stage setting compared to those linked to the perception of the past in the chance encounter with a sensation from the past: they were self-centred. In recognition of the chance factor, Freud recommended free association as the method most likely to achieve this goal. He discouraged consciously directed attention by both analyst and patient, and he was proven correct in most instances until he saw the usefulness of constructions in analysis.
