ABSTRACT
This chapter approaches the problem of the experience of free association from that perspective. It emphasizes the additional experience of satisfaction in the activity of free association. The activity of free association can be satisfying, even when the substance of the communication is most unhappy. Characteristic of transference wishes that patients will try to pursue their satisfaction to the exclusion of the analytic goals. The analyst has the task at such points of reminding the patient of his original commitment to free association and to assist the patient in expanding his awareness of the transference wishes. To gratify the patient's wishes or to fail to assist the patient in expanding the free associations would be to abandon the responsibilities of the analyst. There are certain matters of analytic style and of personality among analysts which are particularly likely to appear as differences in regard to satisfaction in analysis.
