Define free association and dream interpretation and provide examples from the Rat Man and the Wolf-Man

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Rat Man
Free association is a technique that encourages clients to talk about any thoughts or images that enter their heads; the assumption is that this kind of free-flowing, uncensored talking will provide clues to unconscious material.
For example, here is how Freud described a session with one of his most famous patients, a 29-year-old lawyer later named the Rat Man because of his obsession that rats would destroy his father and lover. Freud writes, "The next day I made him [Rat Man] pledge himself to submit to the one and only condition of the treatment —namely, to say everything that came into his head even if it was unpleasant to him, or seemed unimportant or irrelevant or senseless. I then gave him leave to start his communications with any subject he pleased.".

Wolf-Man
Dream interpretation is a psychoanalytic technique based on the assumption that dreams contain underlying, hidden meanings and symbols that provide clues to unconscious thoughts and desires.
For example, here is one of the best known dreams in psychoanalytic literature. This dream was told to Freud by a 23-year-old patient who was later named Wolf-Man because he had a phobia of wolves and other animals.
"I dreamt that it was night and that I was lying in my bed. Suddenly the window opened of its own accord, and I was terrified to see that some white wolves were sitting on the big walnut tree in front of the window. . . The wolves were quite white, and looked more like foxes or sheep-dogs, for they had big tails like foxes and they had their ears pricked like dogs when they are attending to something. In great terror, evidently of being eaten up by the wolves, I screamed and woke up. . . I was 3, 4, or at most 5 years old at the time. From then until my 11th or 12th year I was always afraid of seeing something terrible in my dreams.".
Freud's interpretation of this dream was that, as a young boy, Wolf-Man was "transformed" into a wolf and had witnessed his parents' sexual intercourse (looking through the bedroom window). Later, sexual fears created unconscious conflicts and resulted in a phobia of wolves and other animals.