Free association in psychoanalysis and its links to neuroscience contributions

ABSTRACT Free association is still widely accepted as a fundamental component of psychoanalysis. However, despite notable advances in cognitive science, only a limited number of studies of free association by means of neurological methods exist. This review surveys a representative sample of neuroimaging studies on free association available to this date. Neuroimaging findings on free association, mind wandering, meditation, and other forms of spontaneous thought process seem to share significant commonalities. Free association is also examined in view of the literature on free energy, predictive coding, error prediction, and down-regulation of the default mode network. In this sense, the authors propose that free association and the role of the default mode network and the executive network are part of a complex process of adaptive reshaping of thought and autobiographical memory. The authors further propose that FA is an internally energized emotional cognitive mobility that taps into all forms of memory (episodic, implicit, embodied unformulated) and facilitates memory reconsolidation and simulation of future possibilities. In addition, creativity, as an evolutionary potential to form predictions and paradigm shifts, is presented in the context of adaptation and survival. Seen in this context, free association can lead to a creative therapeutic change in treatment that favors introspective, ontoethical, and social adaptation. Further investigation of free association by means of neuroscientific studies will need to include more specific parameters that closely mimic the experience of free association during psychoanalysis.