Why should the patient indulge in free association? I am asked what are the theoretical motivations that, more than a hundred years after its birth, still characterize this fundamental assumption of the psychoanalytic practice.
With free associations you understand your subconscious mind. This is the most important tool in psychoanalysis because then you do not have to repeat dysfunctional defense mechanisms that do not work AND you do not have to substitute unresolved or misinterpreted issues with symptoms like e.g. fears and phobias or tics and so forth. Your new understanding in form of a grown up ego re-interprets misinterpreted events and deliberates you from many no longer necessary symptoms, they just fall off.
S. Béatrice Marianne Ewalds-Kvist thank you for your answer. I agree with you concerning the importance of free associations, but I think your answer is too superficial. I think the importance of the fundamental rule should be found in the heart of the freudian theory, so in the metapsychology. Here, I think, we can approach a good answer to my question.
Interesting considerations about this problem in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH1YGGV9lbc&t=3687s