ABSTRACT
When we begin to give a patient psycho-analytic treatment we make him acquainted with its fundamental rule to which he has to adhere unconditionally. The behaviour of each patient in regard to that rule varies. In some cases he will easily grasp it and carry it out without particular difficulty; in others he will frequently have to be reminded of the fact that he has to make free associations; and in all cases we meet at times with a failure to associate in this way. Either he will produce the result of his reflected thoughts or say that nothing occurs to him. In such a situation the hour of treatment can sometimes pass without his producing any material whatever in the way of free association. This behaviour indicates a ‘resistance’, and our first task is to make its nature clear to the patient. We regularly learn that the resistance is directed against allowing certain things in the mind from becoming conscious. If at the commencement of the treatment we have explained to the patient that his free associations give us an insight into his unconscious, then his refusal to give free associations of this kind is an almost obvious form for his resistance to take.
