ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the interaction of thrust and opposition and on other inner influences that lead to expression or to failure of expression. The free association method runs into difficulty when the imbalance between thrust and opposition is very great, when either one side or the other appears to be absent. To understand the dynamics of free association it is necessary to take into account more than a vector analysis of thrust and opposition. Thrust and opposition are then closely balanced, but expression tends to diminish the therapeutic alliance when the patient assumes that the analyst withdraws from the coalition in the process. The analyst's attempts to demonstrate unconscious self-criticism lead to the belief that the analyst is critical of the patient, to rationalization, to disavowal, and to other attempts to ward off what is experienced by the patient as an attack.
