A More Natural Conversational Style?

In his pursuit of the laudable goals of more passion, risk-taking, and activity in psychoanalysis Irwin Hoffman, in his keynote address to the Division 39 Spring Meeting in Toronto, made the error of throwing out the baby with the bath water. He dismissed free association and analytic listening in favor of a more natural conversational style of interaction. In doing so Hoffman recommends giving up what is in truth the richest source of the very things he says he is after.

Freud quoted Schiller and his advice to young poets when he described the open attention to what comes to mind. Freud's recognition that he was introducing into therapeutic service a tool of thought used by poets and artists should remind us that rather than a dry and formal routine, the method of free association is rooted in an appreciation of surprise and risk-taking.

'Natural' conversation on the other hand, while apparently more relaxed and informal is heir to all the checks and limits that socialization supplies. Regard for the other's turn in a conversation, indeed for the other's comprehension and general feeling of well-being, place reasonable constraints on what we say in 'natural' conversations. Relaxing these constraints and opening up the possibilities of speech, i.e. the possibilities of what one can say and how one can say it, is a way to let more not less passion enter the discourse.

Hoffman is right that analysis can drag on in a long and lifeless manner. He is also right that it is the analyst's proper responsibility to seek and suggest ways to enliven the work and its effects. However, this is best done by a greater appreciation and attention to the often subtle passion of free association not replacing it with the more obvious expressions of feeling in 'natural' conversations.


--David Lichtenstein

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