Free Association and its Discontents:  A Controversial Discussion

The Maurice Burke Paper Prize¹

We are at a juncture in which power demands un-free speech, in which inconvenient truths are being purged from public venues and discourses, and in which thought itself is under attack.  During the past year, CCP has embarked upon a trajectory of self-study inspired by the Holmes Commission Report in which the efforts toward race-based silencing in our institutes and beyond have been considered toward a more just and diverse future.  This year, we specifically welcome contributions that move us further towards addressing the concerns the Holmes Commission Report has highlighted, as well as more general contributions towards our appreciation of the role psychoanalysis might play in our efforts to envision a productive and enriching practice of human freedom.

Psychoanalysis positions itself as a psychology of liberation in its enshrinement of free association as its “fundamental” rule.  Any other parameters that exist – conventions of time, payment and the like – have been created in order to protect a space in which the analysand is free to speak – and thus think – anything.  It is a singular space in which thought and speech have been described as having no direct “social consequences²,” no direct implications for immediate action, and thus it can allow for new possibilities in living.  To fulfill that function, Freud and others have noted, externally-imposed limits on this freedom threaten the work as a whole.³

Yet in the external world, the line between speech and action has perhaps never been less clear, as “hate speech” has spawned and been embraced and co-opted by authoritarian social movements that collapse meaning into social oppression, and as the ramifications of limits to speech in the name of protecting vulnerability and diversity are also being reconsidered.  Indeed, one could say that the notion of "free speech" itself has been perversely enshrined in order to destroy that very principle through the mechanisms of its supposed valorization.  Thus the psychoanalytic conundrum of “free speech” is amplified, leading to myriad dilemmas, which submissions are invited to address, such as: 

• What are the implications of the psychoanalytic experiment for our efforts to speak to the political and social catastrophes we are currently facing?
• What are the areas of overlap and divergence between "free association" and  "free speech?"
• What can be spoken in the consulting room?  How much is too much?  Can  there be "too much?"
• What are the clinical consequences of free speech/free association, its therapeutic actions? 
• What are the social and psychological consequences of placing limits on what can be thought and said, or of not doing so? 
• How do limits on speech constrain thought, or even, alternatively, allow for its possibility?  

Submissions in any form are invited, but written submissions should aim to be no more than 15 double-spaced pages .  A prize of $100, publication on the CCP website, a potential for public presentation as can be arranged, and a commemorative plaque will be awarded in each of three categories:⁴

• Members of the general public
• Members of the CCP Community
• Students and Early Careers Professionals (3 years or less post-licensure)

In the meanwhile, we salute the winners of the 2024 Maurice Burke prize:

• Harold Braswell,  Slurring on the Couch (Early Career)
• Erin Trapp, Reverie in Dark Times (CCP Community)
• Jill Gentile, Hate Speech as the Action of Inequality:  A Psychoanalytic and
• Winnicottian Perspective (General Public)

CCP also congratulates those entrants who were shortlisted for the MOB Prize:

• Scott Garlinger, Freed by Association:  Eleven Visions (Early Career)
• Stacy Ruttenberg, Speech Essay (Early Career)
• Danielle Knafo, Free Association and Artificial Intelligence (General Public)
• Ross Tappen, Contrapuntal Understanding in Culture and the Psychiatric Institution (General Public)

 

Deadline for submissions is December  31, 2025 and winners will be announced February 1, 2026.  Please specify under which of the three categories you are applying.  You can submit your work here: paperprize@ccpsa.org

Endnotes:

1. Maurice Burke was a founder, board member and twice president of CCP.  
2. John Friedman, personal communication
3. “It is very remarkable how the whole task becomes impossible if a reservation is allowed at any single place.  But we have only to reflect what would happen if the right of asylum existed at any one point in a town; how long would it be before all the riff-raff of the town had collected there?” (Freud, XII: 136-7)
4. Decisions of the judges will be final, and CCP reserves the right not to award a prize in a given year.