**3. A proposed new definition of FA**

In a previous contribution, we summarized our understanding into an updated definition of FA, the ground rule of psychoanalysis [1].

Free association is an internally energized emotional cognitive mobility that taps into all forms of memory (episodic, implicit, embodied, and unformulated) and facilitates memory reconsolidation and simulation of future possibilities.

This definition offers a perspective of a process that has a spontaneous side (mediated by the default mode network of the brain—the DMN), which is recruited by an internal activation (mainly by the executive network of the brain—EN), with a

*Free Association, Synchrony, and Neural Networks as Evolutionary Exponents in Psychoanalysis DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107964*

variable expansion. A space of "mobility" that accesses all forms of memories includes vestigial somatic preverbal internalizations. Once activated, such memories undergo a process of *reconsolidation*. This refers to a reshaping of a memory according to the emotional experience from the time of recollection [11–13]. One of the essential features of FA as a form of mobility is the fact that its kinetics may extend from analysand to analyst *as a continuously interactive expandable therapeutic space that is synchronized in time (the "timing") by a variety of mirroring mechanisms.* The well-known observation that "the patient speaks, and the analyst freely associates" [14, 15] accurately describes the multiple possibilities of entrance into this space of "mobility" of FA.
