The Free Association

How many times you see reactionary comments in someone's blog, attacking both the writer and what he writes?
How many times you yourself relate somebody's character (or rather: whether you like him or not) to his writing or comment in a blog, forum, or mailing list?
Just exactly how much you reveal about yourself in this virtual world?
Certainly not everything, but also not nothing, and might actually be not less than during vis-à-vis contact (hmm... this is beginning to sound like Agatha Christie: it's not the physical appearance which is important, Hasting! It is the psychology - to what things he reacts and how he reacts - says Hercule Poirot a.k.a. peregrin :-D)

Well, those above are just some random thought :-) I am now actually intrigued by the topic of psychoanalysis, the method to investigate the unconscious mind. One of the techniques that is very interesting is the parapraxes, the Freudian slips - an error in speech, memory, or physical action that is believed to be caused by the unconscious mind. One example would be when a man calling his wife or girlfriend by the name of another girl (gotcha!! :-)).
Other techniques are the free association and symbolism. Well, back to the internet, this would happen a lot, wouldn't it? Since we would have time to let our mind works, making free association unconsciously in interpreting others' writing, and eventually we would reveal what has been long in the back of our mind when we give reaction (not necessarily the correct interpretation to what the other person's meant). The other way around also - we often choose carefully what we write, but still symbolism and parapraxes happens, although this wouldn't be obvious to everybody.

In analytical chemistry (as this is my formal field :-)), there is a control, e.g. validity test, to ensure that the data presented to us shows the accurate situation, avoiding false positive and negative. In psychoanalysis, how to control this? How to control, for example, the dream interpretation technique? Could the influence of the psychoanalyst to the patient be totally avoided? I remember the novel by Nicci French - The Memory Game - in which a psychiatrist can emphasize and direct the process of recalling memory of the patient, making her telling things that has not happened.

Well, for the moment I am waiting for a friend to explain to me more about at least the dream interpretation. I guess I have to read more some books since I don't know what to ask first. But this would take a longer time ... *sigh. I don't have so much time to read everything I want :-(