Word Association Analysis

Word associations consist of reading words and the person must respond with the first word that comes to mind. I played a version of word association during elementary school following the basic rule but never viewed it as a psychodynamic therapy. This experience, however, was the first time I viewed word association in a therapeutic format. I did not know what to expect and did not know what type of meaning word association gives. I was hesitant at the beginning of the process because word association seemed more like a game than a revealing of the unconscious mind. My expectation for the technique was it was going to be easy and fast and I would not have to think about the words or self-censor myself. The first couple of days followed my expectation. For example, the first list compared to the rest of the list was the easiest after looking at the words my response followed easily without hesitation. I was able to respond without thinking …show more content…
I had difficulty with this, if I found a response seemed weird or out of the norm, I wanted to change it and think of something else. A person in therapy might be more inclined to do this because of harboring feeling or issues. Another limitation is it is difficult to do this by yourself because no one is there to stop you from self-censoring or remind you to respond quickly or in a certain amount of time. Therefore, this is not something people would benefit to do on their own and then report to the therapist. I had difficulty with this because I was able to see the next word and be able to think about it, however, it flowed more easily out of me when I had a friend read a list out to me. A limitation is a person might find this not to be beneficial in anyway when doing the list by themselves. It can seem ridiculous to the person doing the list and more like a joke; several times when doing the list I felt this way and was hard to take it