The "Psychoanalysis" school is the first systematic, theoretically supported branch of modern psychological consultation and psychotherapy.

Many of this school's theoretical knowledge and techniques have been deconstructed and integrated into those familiar frameworks in psychological consultation, even becoming akin to "common sense" concepts.

This results in a sense of disconnection.

When learners discuss the techniques of the "Psychoanalysis" school, they either address methods like "Transference Analysis," "Deep Defense Mechanism," and "Reconstruction of Past Experiences," which seem fundamental and almost unnecessary to systematically study, as most who have learned about consultation know a bit about them;

or they delve into advanced techniques like "Hypnosis," "Dream Interpretation," and "Subconscious Dialogue," which are so profound as to seem somewhat esoteric.

In the recent session, Nan Zhubin instructed the visitor to relax their body and freely imagine the first parent-related event that came to mind, utilizing the "free association method" technique from "Psychoanalysis."

A technique that appears very basic within the "Psychoanalysis" school,

the "free association method" is the core and most iconic technique of the "Psychoanalysis" school. This technique requires the visitor to relax as much as possible, letting go of conscious control and speaking forth everything that comes to mind—thoughts, feelings, images, physical sensations, memories, or word fragments—without selection, judgment, or embellishment.

No matter how trivial, absurd, embarrassing, painful, or illogical these contents may seem.

Simply put, it asks the visitor to "say whatever comes to mind."

While this sounds simple, its deeper function is to analyze the visitor's talked-about free association for fixed patterns, recurring themes, contradictions, emotional changes, pauses, slips of the tongue, etc., in order to understand the subconscious's structure and dynamics.

Implementing this requires a certain level of skill from the consultant: firstly, to let the visitor relax entirely, bypass the visitor's defense mechanisms, and at the same time, to provide comprehensive attention to all expressed information, including speech rate, tone, intonation, and emotional revelations.

This represents both a foundational element and an advanced application in consultation.

Currently, the first thing the visitor freely associates with is a recent dream of theirs.

In his narration, many key elements emerged, including his father, a kitchen knife, pots, a red background, etc.

The intense unease the visitor expressed during this retelling is also a key point worth noting.

With a lingering gaze, Nan Zhubin observed every detail of the visitor.

...

He noticed the visitor furiously furrow their brow and continued narrating: "In this dream, I was always running, and my father was always chasing me."

He maintained the use of the term "father," using such emotionally detached language to lessen his emotional involvement.

This can be seen as the visitor's defense mechanism activating.

And this defense mechanism has been present throughout his prior expressions.

"I remember at first, I was running very fast, and my father couldn't catch up with me, but later..." the visitor's eyes squinted, "he directly threw the knife, and that knife flew towards my back."

"When the knife was about to hit my back, the scene suddenly blurred, and everything disappeared."

"And then, it was like a loop, I appeared at the starting point, I ran, he chased; he threw the knife, everything disappeared before it struck my back..."

Although the visitor was describing his dream, perhaps due to the time that had passed, the details of the dream had been generalized and simplified.

At the same time, the elements presented by the visitor were quite straightforward, with almost no particularly abstract special images.

Thus there was no need for dream interpretation techniques at the moment.

This recollection of the dream is more like the visitor getting into the state through the "free association" technique, laying the groundwork for subsequent narrations.

After finishing the dream, without waiting for Nan Zhubin to speak, the visitor opened his eyes on his own and made eye contact with Nan Zhubin.

He twisted his lower face into a rigid smile: "Uh... Teacher Nan, about this dream, I think it might be related to some of my past experiences... you know, from when I was a child..."

Hearing the visitor's speech begin to break irregularly and become hesitant, Nan Zhubin nodded and guided with a question: "Do these experiences also involve your parents? Can you tell me about them?"

The visitor naturally had the desire to vent, but due to the nature of the topic and his emotions, he triggered a bit of a defense.

Under Nan Zhubin's supportive guidance, the visitor quickly nodded.

—nodded several times.

It was as if he was repeatedly affirming a part of himself, encouraging himself.

As the visitor exhaled deeply, his entire back and neck sank into the sofa.

"There are... two things."

The visitor said: "The first thing happened when I was very young. It should have been in elementary school, but I forgot the specific grade; I think it was second or third grade, or maybe even earlier. At any rate, it was when I was old enough to remember things but was still quite young."

The visitor's tone turned wistful: "At the time, it must have been some kind of festival, as our house was full of relatives, and everyone gathered together to eat."

"In the rural area where I grew up, there's this tradition that during major festivals or on the elderly's birthdays, they gather everyone together. To put it nicely, it's called 'setting up a feast.'"

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