Chapter XII: Determinism, Chance, and Superstitious Beliefs 277 (8)

VI. Since the discussion of speech blunders we have been content to demonstrate that faulty actions have a concealed motive, and through the aid of psychoanalysis we have traced our way to the knowledge of their motivation. The general nature and the peculiarities of the psychic factors brought to expression in these faulty actions we have hitherto left almost without consideration; at any rate, we have not attempted to define them more accurately or to examine into their lawfulness. Nor will we now attempt a thorough elucidation of the subject, as the first steps have already taught us that it is more feasible to enter this structure from another side. Here we can put before ourselves certain questions which I will cite in their order. (1) What is the content and the origin of the thoughts and feelings which show themselves through faulty and chance actions? (2) What are the conditions which force a thought or a feeling to make use of these occurrences as a means of expression and place it in a position to do so? (3) Can constant and definite associations be demonstrated between the manner of the faulty action and the qualities brought to expression through it?

I shall begin by bringing together some material for answering the last question. In the discussion of the examples of speech blunders we found it necessary to go beyond the contents of the intended speech, and we had to seek the cause of the speech disturbance outside the intention. The latter was quite clear in a series of cases, and was known to the consciousness of the speaker. In the example that seemed most simple and transparent it was a similar sounding but different conception of the same thought, which disturbed its expression without any one being able to say why the one succumbed and the other came to the surface (Meringer and Mayers’ _Contaminations_).

In a second group of cases one conception succumbed to a motive which did not, however, prove strong enough to cause complete submersion. The conception which was withheld was clearly presented to consciousness.

Only of the third group can we affirm unreservedly that the disturbing thought differed from the one intended, and it is obvious that it may establish an essential distinction. The disturbing thought is either connected with the disturbed one through a thought association (disturbance through inner contradiction), or it is substantially strange to it, and just the disturbed word is connected with the disturbing thought through a surprising outer association, which is frequently unconscious.

In the examples which I have given from my psychoanalyses it is found that the entire speech is either under the influence of thoughts which have become active simultaneously, or under absolutely unconscious thoughts which betray themselves either through the disturbance itself, or which evince an indirect influence by making it possible for the individual parts of the unconsciously intended speech to disturb one another. The retained or unconscious thoughts from which the disturbances in speech emanate are of most varied origin. A general survey does not reveal any definite direction.

Comparative examinations of examples of mistakes in reading and writing lead to the same conclusions. Isolated cases, as in speech blunders, seem to owe their origin to an unmotivated work of condensation (_e.g._, the _Apel_). But we should be pleased to know whether special conditions must not be fulfilled in order that such condensation, which is considered regular in the dream-work and faulty in our waking thoughts, should take place. No information concerning this can be obtained from the examples themselves. But I merely refuse from this to draw the conclusion that there are no such conditions, as, for instance, the relaxation of conscious attention; for I have learned elsewhere that automatic actions are especially characterized by correctness and reliability. I would rather emphasize the fact that here, as so frequently in biology, it is the normal relations, or those approaching the normal, that are less favourable objects for investigation than the pathological. What remains obscure in the explanation of these most simple disturbances will, according to my expectation, be made clear through the explanation of more serious disturbances.

Also mistakes in reading and writing do not lack examples in which more remote and more complicated motivation can be recognized.

There is no doubt that the disturbances of the speech functions occur more easily and make less demand on the disturbing forces than other psychic acts.

But one is on different ground when it comes to the examination of forgetting in the literal sense--_i.e._, the forgetting of past experiences. (To distinguish this forgetting from the others we designate _sensu strictiori_ the forgetting of proper names and foreign words, as in Chapters I and II, as “slips”; and the forgetting of resolutions as “omissions.”) The principal conditions of the normal process in forgetting are unknown.[82] We are also reminded of the fact that not all is forgotten which we believe to be. Our explanation here deals only with those cases in which the forgetting arouses our astonishment, in so far as it infringes the rule that the unimportant is forgotten, while the important matter is guarded by memory. Analysis of these examples of forgetting which seem to demand a special explanation shows that the motive of forgetting is always an unwillingness to recall something which may evoke painful feelings. We come to the conjecture that this motive universally strives for expression in psychic life, but is inhibited through other and contrary forces from regularly manifesting itself. The extent and significance of this dislike to recall painful impressions seems worthy of the most painstaking psychologic investigation. The question as to what special conditions render possible the universally resistant forgetting in individual cases cannot be solved through this added association.

A different factor steps into the foreground in the forgetting of resolutions; the supposed conflict resulting in the repression of the painful memory becomes tangible, and in the analysis of the examples one regularly recognizes a counter-will which opposes but does not put an end to the resolution. As in previously discussed faulty acts, we here also recognize two types of the psychic process: the counter-will either turns directly against the resolution (in intentions of some consequence) or it is substantially foreign to the resolution itself and establishes its connection with it through an outer association (in almost indifferent resolutions).

The same conflict governs the phenomena of erroneously carried-out actions. The impulse which manifests itself in the disturbances of the action is frequently a counter-impulse. Still oftener it is altogether a strange impulse which only utilizes the opportunity to express itself through a disturbance in the execution of the action. The cases in which the disturbance is the result of an inner contradiction are the most significant ones, and also deal with the more important activities.

The inner conflict in the chance or symptomatic actions then merges into the background. Those motor expressions which are least thought of, or are entirely overlooked by consciousness, serve as the expression of numerous unconscious or restrained feelings. For the most part they represent symbolically wishes and phantoms.

The first question (as to the origin of the thoughts and emotions which find expression in faulty actions) we can answer by saying that in a series of cases the origin of the disturbing thoughts can be readily traced to repressed emotions of the psychic life. Even in healthy persons egotistic, jealous and hostile feelings and impulses, burdened by the pressure of moral education, often utilize the path of faulty actions to express in some way their undeniably existing force which is not recognized by the higher psychic instances. Allowing these faulty and chance actions to continue corresponds in great part to a comfortable toleration of the unmoral. The manifold sexual currents play no insignificant part in these repressed feelings. That they appear so seldom in the thoughts revealed by the analyses of my examples is simply a matter of coincidence. As I have undertaken the analyses of numerous examples from my own psychic life, the selection was partial from the first, and aimed at the exclusion of sexual matters. At other times it seemed that the disturbing thoughts originated from the most harmless objection and consideration.

We have now reached the answer to the second question--that is, what psychologic conditions are responsible for the fact that a thought must seek expression, not in its complete form but, as it were, in parasitic form, as a modification and disturbance of another. From the most striking examples of faulty actions it is quite obvious that this determinant should be sought in a relation to conscious capacity, or in the more or less firmly pronounced character of the “repressed” material. But an examination of this series of examples shows that this character consists of many indistinct elements. The tendency to overlook something because it is wearisome, or because the concerned thought does not really belong to the intended matter--these feelings seem to play the same rôle as motives for the suppression of a thought (which later depends for expression on the disturbance of another), as the moral condemnation of a rebellious emotional feeling, or as the origin of absolutely unconscious trains of thought. An insight into the general nature of the condition of faulty and chance actions cannot be gained in this way.

However, this investigation gives us one single significant fact; the more harmless the motivation of the faulty act the less obnoxious, and hence the less incapable of consciousness, the thought to which it gives expression is; the easier also becomes the solution of the phenomenon after we have turned our attention toward it. The simplest cases of speech blunders are immediately noticed and spontaneously corrected. Where one deals with motivation through actually repressed feelings the solution requires a painstaking analysis, which may sometimes strike against difficulties or turn out unsuccessful.

One is therefore justified in taking the result of this last investigation as an indication of the fact that the satisfactory explanation of the psychologic determinations of faulty and chance actions is to be acquired in another way and from another source. The indulgent reader can therefore see in these discussions the demonstration of the surfaces of fracture in which this theme was quite artificially evolved from a broader connection.

VII. Just a few words to indicate the direction of this broader connection. The mechanism of the faulty and chance actions, as we have learned to know it through the application of analysis, shows in the most essential points an agreement with the mechanism of dream formation, which I have discussed in the chapter “The Dream Work” of my book on the interpretation of dreams. Here, as there, one finds the condensation and compromise formation (“contaminations”); in addition the situation is much the same, since unconscious thoughts find expression as modifications of other thoughts in unusual ways and through outer associations. The incongruities, absurdities, and errors in the dream content by virtue of which the dream is scarcely recognized as a psychic achievement originate in the same way--to be sure, through freer usage of the existing material--as the common error of our everyday life; _here, as there, the appearance of the incorrect function is explained through the peculiar interference of two or more correct actions_.

An important conclusion can be drawn from, this combination: the peculiar mode of operation, whose most striking function we recognize in the dream content, should not be adjudged only to the sleeping state of the psychic life when we possess abundant proof of its activity during the waking state in the form of faulty actions. The same connection also forbids us assuming that these psychic processes which impress us as abnormal and strange are determined by deep-seated decay of psychic activity or by morbid state of function.[83]

The correct understanding of this strange psychic work which allows the faulty actions to originate like the dream pictures will only be possible after we have discovered that the psychoneurotic symptoms, particularly the psychic formations of hysteria and compulsion neurosis, repeat in their mechanisms all the essential features of this mode of operation. The continuation of our investigation would therefore have to begin at this point.

There is still another special interest for us in considering the faulty, chance, and symptomatic actions in the light of this last analogy. If we compare them to the function of the psychoneuroses and the neurotic symptoms, two frequently recurring statements gain in sense and support--namely, that the border-line between the nervous, normal, and abnormal states is indistinct, and that we are all slightly nervous. Regardless of all medical experience, one may construe various types of such barely suggested nervousness, the _formes frustes_ of the neuroses. There may be cases in which only a few symptoms appear, or they may manifest themselves rarely or in mild forms; the extenuation may be transferred to the number, intensity, or to the temporal outbreak of the morbid manifestation. It may also happen that just this type, which forms the most frequent transition between health and disease, may never be discovered. The transition type, whose morbid manifestations come in the form of faulty and symptomatic actions, is characterized by the fact that the symptoms are transformed to the least important psychic activities, while everything that can lay claim to a higher psychic value remains free from disturbance. When the symptoms are disposed of in a reverse manner--that is, when they appear in the most important individual and social activities in a manner to disturb the functions of nourishment and sexual relations, professional and social life--such disposition is found in the severe cases of neuroses, and is perhaps more characteristic of the latter than the multiformity or vividness of the morbid manifestations.

But the common character of the mildest as well as the severest cases, to which the faulty and chance actions contribute, lies _in the ability to refer the phenomena to unwelcome, repressed, psychic material, which, though pushed away from consciousness, is nevertheless not robbed of all capacity to express itself_.

INDEX

Actions--
Accidental, 192
Chance, 215
Symbolic, 210
Symptomatic, 178, 215, 235
Collection of, 238
Examples, 216, 217
Grouping of, 219

Adler, 283, 287

Amnesia, 139
Infantile, 62
Temporary, 35

Analysis of--
Aliquis, 18
Castelvetrano, 50
Ode to Apollo, 29
Signorelli, 4
Young, 44

Anticipations, 72

Association, 11

Auditifs, 63

Awkwardness, accidental, 209

Bed-wetting, 150

Behaviour of paranoiacs, 304

Bernheim, 161

Bleuler, 38, 120, 303, 319

Blood miracle, 20

Blunders, speech, 74

Boileau, quoted from, 114

Brantôme, 93

Breaking of objects, 184, 186, 187, 189

Brill, 19, 29, 32, 101, 102, 103, 130, 147, 169, 170, 197, 241, 249,
258, 293, 316

Chance, 277

Chance numbers, 282, 283

Charcot, 63, 157

Child, intellectual accomplishments of, 62

Childhood activities, trace of, 62

Combined faulty acts, 265
Examples of, 266, 267

Complex--
Ambition, 100
Family, 40
Œdipus, 198
Personal, 38, 49
Professional, 40
Self-reference, 52

Compromise formation, examples of, 81

Consciousness, 10
Bringing hidden ideas to, 19

Contaminations, 72

Contradiction from repression, 26

Counter-will, 170
In resolutions, 170

Damaging things, 190, 191

Darwin, 154

Dattner, B., 129, 232, 233, 239

Daudet, 156

Death and sexuality, 7

_Déjà vu_--
Explanation of, 321
Phenomenon of, 320

Delusions, formation of, 155

Denials, 149

Determinant, inner, 13

Determinism, 277
In mental life, 278
Psychic, 302

Displacement, 4, 10, 57
Retro-active, 58

Disturbance of newly emerging theme, 6

Don Quixote, 202

Dream, prophetic, 312

Element, suppressed, 11

Erroneously carried-out actions, 177, 278, 332
As an expression of self-reproach, 184
Examples of, 178, 179, 180

Errors, 249
Examples of, 250, 251, 253
Of memory, 249
Mechanism of, 256

Examples arbitrarily chosen, 279, 281

Fall, 191

False recollection, 4

Faulty acts, 192
Actions, 326

Faulty actions--
Explanation of, 322
In relation to nervousness, 337
The psychoneurotic symptom, 337
Memory, mechanism of, 10
Relation to the dream, 335

Ferenczi, 33, 43, 46, 98, 204, 324

Folk-lore, 154

Forebodings, 312

Fore-sounds, influence of, 78

Forget, disposition to, 11
Tendency to, 17

Forgetfulness, 168
Due to disturbances of pain, 27
Excusing power of, 165
Psychic mechanism of, 3
Temporary, of proper names, 3, 29, 45

Forgetting--
As a spontaneous process, 135
Defensive tendency of, 153
Examples of, 139, 140, 141, 148, 149
Intentional, 8
Mechanism of, 52, 330
Of experiences, 138
Of foreign words, 17
Of impressions, 135, 138
Of intentions, 159
Of knowledge, 139
Of names, 29, 39, 40, 155, 324
Of resolutions, 135, 173, 332
Pain motive of, 155
Preference for proper names, 3, 4, 11
Psychologic analysis of, 136
Purposive, 24
The order of words, 29, 33, 34
Through neglect, 163

Free will, 303

Freud, 43, 300

Gross, Hans, 154, 304

Hallucination, 313

Henri V. and C., 61

Hitschman, 301

Identification, 100

Impotence, psychic, 34

Injury, self-inflicted, 199, 201

Intention, 159

Intentions--
Forgetting of, 160
Secondary, 163

Interchangings, 72

Jones, E., 31, 51, 97, 109, 127, 129, 148, 151, 155, 163, 179, 221,
239, 267, 290, 292

Jung, C. G., 32, 43, 292

Keys, 179, 180

Lapses in reading, 117, 278
In speech, 117, 256, 278
In writing, 120, 278

Lapsus calami, 122

Maeder, 179, 236, 258

Mayer and Meringer, 71, 177

Memories--
Childhood, 57, 61, 211
Concealing, 57, 58, 64
Cause of, 58
Formation of, 59, 60
Painful, 154

Memory--
Control of, 137
Disturbance, examples of, 155, 157
Psychologic theory of, 135
Reproduction, 10
Tenaciousness of, 136

Meyer, 278

Military service, 161

Mishandling, 192
As a sacrifice, 192

Mislaying--
Analysis of, 145, 146
Examples of, 146, 147
Significance of, 143

Misstep, 191

Mistakes in reading, 71, 117
Examples of, 117, 118
In speech, 71
In writing, 117
Of importance, 195, 197
Of normal persons, 194

Moteurs, 63

Motives, unknown, 277

Motor insufficiency, 209

Name--
Incorrect substitutive, 12
Reproduction of lost, 4

Names--
Causes of forgetting of, 52
Distortion of, 97
Escaped, 4
Falsification of, 99
Forgetting of, 4
Substitutive, 4, 13, 98

Negative hallucination, 316

Neologism, analysis of, 293

Nietzsche, 153

Œdipus Complex, 198
Legend, 196

Omissions in writing, 129

Paranoiac interpretation, 306

Personality, over-estimation of, 30

Peterson, 32, 240, 298

Phonetic laws, 95

Phonetics, psychic value of, 72

Pick, A., 152

Playful actions, 227
Occupations, 220

Post-hypnotic suggestion, 161

Potwin, 61

Printers’ errors, 124, 125

Prophetic dream, analysis of, 313

Psychic--
Action, faulty, 277
Apparatus, 153
Determinism, 302
Function, failure of, 3

Psycho-analysis, 65

Psychology of the unconscious, 309

Rank, O., 105, 108, 242, 269, 272, 318

Recollection--
Faulty, 12, 155
Substitutive, 23

Remember, inability to, 8

Reminiscences, childhood, 61

Repressed material, character of, 334

Repression, motivated by, 12, 13

Reproduction--
Disturbance of, 25
Faulty, 29

Resistances, 152

Riklin, 38

Robitsek, Alf., 93

Sachs, 180, 231, 234

Self-betrayal, 101
Examples of, 102

Self-criticism, 184

Self-mutilations, 198

Self-reference, 41

Shakespeare, quoted from, 109, 122

Speech blunders, 74
Psychology of, 329
Disturbance, 75
Lapses in, 177, 256
Mistakes in, 71
Examples of, 81, 82
Showing identification, 94
Substitutions in, 77

Stekel, W., 88, 126, 194

Substitutive formation, 60

Suicide, unconscious, 202

Supernatural forces, 312

Superstition, 306
Motivation of, 309
Origin of, 311
Unconscious motives of, 311

Superstitious beliefs, 277
Person, 308

Suppression, process of, 11

Symptomatic actions, 215, 326

Telepathic experiences, 312

Telepathy, nature of, 316

Traditions, 154

Traumatic hysteria, 192

Unconscious activity, 188
Material, 76
Skill, 147

Van Emden, 206

Visuels, 63

Weiss, 267

Wertheimer and Klein, 304

Wisdom, 169

Word-forgetting without substitutive recollection, 23

Words, disfigurement of, 96

Wundt, 79, 130

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: _Monatsschrift f. Psychiatrie._]

[Footnote 2: This is the usual way of bringing to consciousness hidden ideas. Cf. _The Interpretation of Dreams_, pp. 83-4, translated by A. A. Brill, The Macmillan Company, New York, and Allen, London.]

[Footnote 3: Finer observation reduces somewhat the contrast between the analyses of _Signorelli_ and _aliquis_ as far as the substitutive recollections are concerned. Here, too, the forgetting seems to be accompanied by substitutive formations. When I later asked my companion whether in his effort to recall the forgotten word he did not think of some substitution, he informed me that he was at first tempted to put an ab into the verse: _nostris ab ossibus_ (perhaps the disjointed part of _a-liquis_) and that later the word _exoriare_ obtruded itself with particular distinctness and persistency. Being sceptical, he added that it was apparently due to the fact that it was the first word of the verse. But when I asked him to focus his attention on the associations to _exoriare_ he gave me the word _exorcism_. This makes me think that the reinforcement of _exoriare_ in the reproduction has really the value of such substitution. It probably came through the association _exorcism_ from the names of the saints. However, those are refinements upon which no value need be laid. It seems now quite possible that the appearance of any kind of substitutive recollection is a constant sign--perhaps only characteristic and misleading--of the purposive forgetting motivated by repression. This substitution might also exist in the reinforcement of an element akin to the thing forgotten, even where incorrect substitutive names fail to appear. Thus, in the example Signorelli, as long as the name of the painter remained inaccessible to me, I had more than a clear visual memory of the cycle of his frescoes, and of the picture of himself in the corner; at least it was more intensive than any of my other visual memory traces. In another case, also reported in my essay of 1898, I had hopelessly forgotten the street name and address connected with a disagreeable visit in a strange city, but--as if to mock me--the house number appeared especially vivid, whereas the memory of numbers usually causes me the greatest difficulty.]

[Footnote 4: I am not fully convinced of the lack of an inner connection between the two streams of thought in the case of _Signorelli_. In carefully following the repressed thought concerning the theme of death and sexual life, one does strike an idea which shows a near relation to the theme of the frescoes of _Orvieto_.]

[Footnote 5: _The Psychology of Dementia Præcox_, translated by F. Peterson and A. A. Brill.]

[Footnote 6: _The Psychology of Dementia Præcox_, p. 45.]

[Footnote 7: _Zentralb. f. Psychoanalyse_, I. 9, 1911.]

[Footnote 8: “Analyse eines Falles von Namenvergessen,” _Zentralb. f. Psychoanalyse_, Jahrg. 11, Heft 2, 1911.]

[Footnote 9: Published in the _Monatsschrift f. Psychiatrie u. Neurologie_, 1899.]

[Footnote 10: “Enquête sur les premiers souvenirs de l’enfance,” _L’Année psychologique_, iii., 1897.]

[Footnote 11: “Study of Early Memories,” _Psychological Review_, 1901.]

[Footnote 12: I assert this as a result of certain investigations made by myself.]

[Footnote 13: The examples are given by the editor.]

[Footnote 14: Those who are interested are referred to pp. 62, 73, and 97 of the author’s work.]

[Footnote 15: _Neue Freie Presse_, August 23, 1900: “Wie man sich versprechen kann.”]

[Footnote 16: _Völker psychologie_, vol. i., pt. i., p. 371, etc., 1900.]

[Footnote 17: Italics are mine.]

[Footnote 18: It turned out that she was under the influence of unconscious thoughts concerning pregnancy and prevention of conception. With the words “shut up like a pocket knife,” which she uttered consciously as a complaint, she meant to describe the position of the child in the womb. The word “earnest” in my remark recalled to her the name (S. Ernst) of the well-known Vienna business firm in Kärthner Strasse, which used to advertise the sale of articles for the prevention of conception.]

[Footnote 19: Similar mistakes dealing with _Officer 666_ were recently reported to me by other psycho-analysts.]

[Footnote 20: It may be observed that aristocrats in particular very frequently distort the names of the physicians they consult, from which we may conclude that inwardly they slight them, in spite of the politeness with which they are wont to greet them. I shall cite here some excellent observations concerning the forgetting of names from the works of Professor E. Jones, of Toronto: _Papers on Psycho-analysis_, chap. iii. p. 49:--

“Few people can avoid feeling a twinge of resentment when they find that their name has been forgotten, particularly if it is by some one with whom they had hoped or expected it would be remembered. They instinctively realize that if they had made a greater impression on the person’s mind he would certainly have remembered them again, for the name is an integral part of the personality. Similarly, few things are more flattering to most people than to find themselves addressed by name by a great personage where they could hardly have anticipated it. Napoleon, like most leaders of men, was a master of this art. In the midst of the disastrous campaign of France in 1814, he gave an amazing proof of his memory in this direction. When in a town near Craonne, he recollected that he had met the mayor, De Bussy, over twenty years ago in the La Fère Regiment. The delighted De Bussy at once threw himself into his service with extraordinary zeal. Conversely, there is no surer way of affronting some one than by pretending to forget his name; the insinuation is thus conveyed that the person is so unimportant in our eyes that we cannot be bothered to remember his name. This device is often exploited in literature. In Turgentev’s _Smoke_ (p. 255) the following passage occurs: “‘So you still find Baden entertaining, M’sieur--Litvinov.’ Ratmirov always uttered Litvinov’s surname with hesitation, every time, as though he had forgotten it, and could not at once recall it. In this way, as well as by the lofty flourish of his hat in saluting him, he meant to insult his pride.” The same author, in his _Fathers and Children_ (p. 107), writes: “The Governor invited Kirsanov and Bazarov to his ball, and within a few minutes invited them a second time, regarding them as brothers, and calling them Kisarov.” Here the forgetting that he had spoken to them, the mistake in the names, and the inability to distinguish between the two young men, constitute a culmination of disparagement. Falsification of a name has the same signification as forgetting it; it is only a step towards complete amnesia.”]

[Footnote 21: _Zentralb. f. Psychoanalyse_, ii., Jahrg. I. Cf. also Brill’s _Psychanalysis: Its Theories and Practical Application_, p. 202. Saunders, Philadelphia and London.]

[Footnote 22: Jones, _Papers on Psycho-analysis_, p. 60.]

[Footnote 23:

“Ce qu’on conçoit bien
S’énonce clairement,
Et les mots pour le dire
Arrivent aisément.”

Boileau, _Art Poétique_.
]

[Footnote 24: _The Interpretation of Dreams_, p. 208.]

[Footnote 25: Bleuler, _Affektivität Suggestibilität, Paranoia_, p. 121, Halle. Marhold, 1906.]

[Footnote 26: A similar situation occurs in _Julius Cæsar_, iii. 3:

“CINNA. Truly, my name is Cinna.

“BURGHER. Tear him to pieces! he is a conspirator.

“CINNA. I am Cinna the poet! not Cinna the conspirator.

“BURGHER. No matter; his name is Cinna; tear the name out of his heart and let him go.”]

[Footnote 27: Ethyl alcohol is, of course, the chemical name for ordinary alcohol.]

[Footnote 28: Jones, _Psycho-analysis_, p. 66.]

[Footnote 29: _Zentralbl. f. Psychoanalyse_, i. 12.]

[Footnote 30: In the course of the conference the details of the previous first visit return to consciousness.]

[Footnote 31: Brill, _loc. cit._, p. 197.]

[Footnote 32: If we inquire of a person whether he suffered from luetic infection ten or fifteen years ago, we are only too apt to forget that psychically the patient has looked upon this disease in an entirely different manner than on, let us say, an acute attack of rheumatism. In the anamneses which parents give about their neurotic daughters, it is hardly possible to distinguish with any degree of certainty the portion forgotten from that hidden, for anything that stands in the way of the girl’s future marriage is systematically set aside by the parents, that is, it becomes repressed. A man who had recently lost his beloved wife from an affection of the lungs reported to me the following case of misleading the doctor, which can only be explained by the theory of such forgetting. “As my poor wife’s pleuritis had not disappeared after many weeks, Dr. P. was called in consultation. While taking the history he asked among others the customary questions whether there were any cases of lung trouble in my wife’s family. My wife denied any such cases, and even I myself could not remember any. While Dr. P. was taking leave the conversation accidentally turned to excursions, and my wife said: ‘Yes, even to Landgersdorf, where my poor brother lies buried, is a long journey.’ This brother died about fifteen years ago, after having suffered for years from tuberculosis. My wife was very fond of him, and often spoke about him. Indeed, I recall that when her malady was diagnosed as pleurisy she was very worried and sadly remarked: ‘My brother also died of lung trouble.’ But the memory was so very repressed that even after the above-cited conversation about the trip to L. she found no occasion to correct her information concerning the diseases in her family. I myself was struck by this forgetting at the very moment she began to talk about Landgersdorf.” A perfectly analogous experience is related by Ernest Jones in his work. A physician whose wife suffered from some obscure abdominal malady remarked to her: “It is comforting to think that there has been no tuberculosis in your family.” She turned to him very astonished and said, “Have you forgotten that my mother died of tuberculosis, and that my sister recovered from it only after having been given up by the doctors?”]

[Footnote 33: During the days when I was first writing these pages the following almost incredible case of forgetting happened to me. On the 1st of January I examined my notes so that I could send out my bills. In the month of June I came across the name M----l, and could not recall the person to whom it belonged. My surprise increased when I observed from my books that I treated the case in a sanatorium, and that for weeks I had called on the patient daily. A patient treated under such conditions is rarely forgotten by a physician in six months. I asked myself if it could have been a man--a paretic--a case without interest? Finally, the note about the fee received brought to my memory all the knowledge which strove to elude it. M----l was a fourteen-year-old girl, the most remarkable case of my latter years, a case which taught me a lesson I am not likely ever to forget, a case whose upshot gave me many painful hours. The child became afflicted with an unmistakable hysteria, which quickly and thoroughly improved under my care. After this improvement the child was taken away from me by the parents. She still complained of abdominal pains which had played the part in the hysterical symptoms. Two months later she died of sarcoma of the abdominal glands. The hysteria, to which she was greatly predisposed, took the tumour-formation as a provocative agent, and I, fascinated by the tumultuous but harmless manifestations of hysteria, perhaps overlooked the first sign of the insidious and incurable disease.]

[Footnote 34: A. Pick (“Zur Psychologie des Vergessens bei Geistes- und Nervenkranken,” _Archiv. f. Kriminal-Anthropologie u. Kriminalistik_, von H. Gross) has recently collected a number of authors who realize the value of the influence of the affective factors on memory, and who more or less clearly recognize that a defensive striving against pain can lead to forgetting. But none of us has been able to represent this phenomenon and its psychologic determination as exhaustively, and at the same time as effectively, as Nietzsche in one of his aphorisms (_Jenseits von Gut und Böse_, ii., _Hauptstück_ 68): “‘I have done that,’ says my Memory. ‘I could not have done that,’ says my Pride, and remains inexorable. Finally, my Memory yields.”]

[Footnote 35: Cf. Hans Gross, _Kriminal Psychologie_, 1898.]

[Footnote 36: Darwin on forgetting. In Darwin’s autobiography one finds the following passage that does equal credit to his scientific honesty and his psychologic acumen: “I had during many years followed a golden rule, namely, that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought, came across me which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than favourable ones” (quoted by Jones, _loc. cit._, p. 38).]

[Footnote 37: Cf. Bernheim, _Neue Studien über Hypnotismus, Suggestion und Psychotherapie_, 1892.]

[Footnote 38: Young men of education who can pass the examination and pay for their maintenance serve one instead of two years’ compulsory service.]

[Footnote 39: In Bernard Shaw’s _Cæsar and Cleopatra_, Cæsar’s indifference to Cleopatra is depicted by his being vexed on leaving Egypt at having forgotten to do something. He finally recollected what he had forgotten--to take leave of Cleopatra--this, to be sure, is in full accord with historical truth. How little Cæsar thought of the little Egyptian princess! Cited from Jones, _loc. cit._, p. 50.]

[Footnote 40: Women, with their fine understanding of unconscious mental processes, are, as a rule, more apt to take offence when we do not recognize them in the street, and hence do not greet them, than to accept the most obvious explanation, namely, that the dilatory one is short-sighted or so engrossed in thought that he did not see them. They conclude that they surely would have been noticed if they had been considered of any consequence.]

[Footnote 41: Dr. Ferenczi reports that he was a distracted person himself, and was considered peculiar by his friends on account of the frequency and strangeness of his failing. But the signs of this inattention have almost all disappeared since he began to practise psychoanalysis with patients, and was forced to turn his attention to the analysis of his own ego. He believes that one renounces these failings when one learns to extend by so much one’s own responsibilities. He therefore justly maintains that distractedness is a state which depends on unconscious complexes, and is curable by psychoanalysis. One day he was reproaching himself for having committed a technical error in the psychoanalysis of a patient, and on this day all his former distractions reappeared. He stumbled while walking in the street (a representation of that _faux pas_ in the treatment), he forgot his pocket-book at home, he was a penny short in his car fare, he did not properly button his clothes, etc.]

[Footnote 42: E. Jones remarks regarding this: “Often the resistance is of a general order. Thus a busy man forgets to mail a letter entrusted to him--to his slight annoyance--by his wife, just as he may ‘forget’ to carry out her shopping orders.”]

[Footnote 43: For the sake of the unity of the theme I may here digress from the accepted classification, and add that the human memory evinces a particular partiality in regard to money matters. False reminiscences of having already paid something are often very obstinate, as I know from personal experience. When free sway is given to avaricious intent outside of the serious interests of life, when it is indulged in in the spirit of fun, as in card playing, we then find that the most honourable men show an inclination to errors, mistakes in memory and accounts, and without realizing how, they even find themselves involved in small frauds. Such liberties depend in no small part also on the psychically refreshing character of the play. The saying that in play we can learn a person’s character may be admitted if we can add “the repressed character.” If waiters ever make unintentional mistakes they are apparently due to the same mechanism. Among merchants we can frequently observe a certain delay in the paying out of sums of money, in payments of bills and the like, which brings the owner no profit and can be only understood psychologically as the expression of a counter-will against giving out money. Brill sums it up with epigrammatic keenness: “We are more apt to mislay letters containing bills than cheques” (Brill, _Psychanalysis, its Theories and Practical Application_, p. 197).]

[Footnote 44: Translated by A. A. Brill.]

[Footnote 45: A second publication of Meringer has later shown me how very unjust I was to this author when I attributed to him so much understanding.]

[Footnote 46: Jones, _loc. cit._, p. 79.]

[Footnote 47: Alas! the Venus of Medici is lost!]

[Footnote 48: The Œdipus dream as I was wont to call it, because it contains the key to the understanding of the legend of King Œdipus. In the text of Sophocles the relation of such a dream is put in the mouth of Jocasta (cf. _The Interpretation of Dreams_, pp. 222-4, etc.).]

[Footnote 49: _New York Medical Journal_, September, 1912. Reprinted in large form as Chapter X of _Psychanalysis_, etc., Saunders, Philadelphia.]

[Footnote 50: The self-inflicted injury which does not entirely tend toward self-annihilation has, moreover, no other choice in our present state of civilization than to hide itself behind the accidental, or to break through in a simulation of spontaneous illness. Formerly, it was a customary sign of mourning, at other times it expressed itself in ideas of piety and renunciation of the world.]

[Footnote 51: The case is then identical with a sexual attack on a woman, in whom the attack of the man cannot be warded off through the full muscular strength of the woman because a portion of the unconscious feelings of the one attacked meets it with ready acceptance. To be sure, it is said that such a situation paralyses the strength of a woman; we need only add the reasons for this paralysis. Insofar the clever sentence of Sancho Panza, which he pronounced as governor of his island, is psychologically unjust (_Don Quixote_, vol. ii. chap. xlv). A woman hauled before the judge a man who was supposed to have robbed her of her honour by force of violence. Sancho indemnified her with a full purse which he took from the accused, but after the departure of the woman he gave the accused permission to follow her and snatch the purse from her. Both returned wrestling, the woman priding herself that the villain was unable to possess himself of the purse. Thereupon Sancho spoke: “Had you shown yourself so stout and valiant to defend your body (nay, but half so much) as you have done to defend your purse, the strength of Hercules could not have forced you.”]

[Footnote 52: It is evident that the situation of a battlefield is such as to meet the requirement of conscious suicidal intent which, nevertheless, shuns the direct way. Cf. in _Wallenstein_ the words of the Swedish captain concerning the death of Max Piccolomini: “They say he wished to die.”]

[Footnote 53: “Selbstbestrafung wegen Abortus von Dr. J. E. G. van Emden,” Haag (Holland), _Zentralb. f. Psychoanalyse_, ii. 12.]

[Footnote 54: “Beitrag zur Symbolik im Alltag von Ernest Jones,” _Zentralb. f. Psychoanalyse_, i. 3, 1911.]

[Footnote 55: Psychoanalytic research, with the penetration of infantile amnesia, has shown that this apparent precocity is a less abnormal occurrence than was previously supposed.]

[Footnote 56: The term “medical questions” is a common periphrasis for “sexual questions.”]

[Footnote 57: Cf. Oldham’s “I wear my pen as others do their sword.”]

[Footnote 58: Maeder, “Contribution à la psychologie de la vie quotidienne,” _Arch. des psychologie_, T. vi. 1906.]

[Footnote 59: Here is another small collection of various symptomatic actions in normal and neurotic persons. An elderly colleague who does not like to lose at cards had to pay one evening a large sum of money in consequence of his losses; he did this without complaint, but with a peculiar constrained temper. After his departure it was discovered that he had left at this place practically everything he had with him, spectacles, cigar-case, and handkerchief. That would be readily translated into the words: “You robbers, you have nicely plundered me.” A man who suffers from occasional sexual impotence, which has its origin in the intimacy of his infantile relations to his mother, relates that he is in the habit of embellishing pamphlets and notes with an S, the initial of his mother’s name. He cannot bear the idea of having letters from home come in contact with other unsanctified correspondence, and therefore finds it necessary to keep the former separate. A young woman suddenly flings open the door of the consulting-room while her predecessor is still present. She excused herself on the ground of “thoughtlessness”; it soon came to light that she demonstrated her curiosity which caused her at an earlier time to intrude into the bedroom of her parents. Girls who are proud of their beautiful hair know so well how to manipulate combs and hairpins, that in the midst of conversation their hair becomes loosened. During the treatment (in a reclining position) some men scatter change from their pockets and thus pay for the hour of treatment; the amount scattered is in proportion to their estimation of the work. Whoever forgets articles in the doctor’s office, such as eyeglasses, gloves, handbags, generally indicates that he cannot tear himself away and is anxious to return soon. Ernest Jones says: “One can almost measure the success with which a physician is practising psychotherapy, for instance, by the size of the collection of umbrellas, handkerchiefs, purses, and so on, that he could make in a month. The slightest habits and acts performed with a minimum of attention, such as the winding of a clock before retiring to sleep, the putting out of lights before leaving the room, and similar actions, are occasionally subject to disturbances which clearly demonstrate the influence of the unconscious complex, and what is thought to be the strongest ‘habits.’”

In the journal _Cœnobium_, Maeder relates about a hospital physician who, on account of an important matter, desired to get to the city that evening, although he was on duty and had no right to leave the hospital. On his return he noticed to his surprise that there was a light in his room. On leaving the room he had forgotten to put it out, something that had never happened before. But he soon grasped the motive of this forgetting. The hospital superintendent who lived in the same house must have concluded from the light in the room that he was at home. A man overburdened with worries and subject to occasional depressions assured me that he regularly forgot to wind his watch on those evenings when life seemed too hard and unfriendly. In this omission to wind his watch he symbolically expressed that it was a matter of indifference to him whether he lived to see the next day. Another man who was personally unknown to me wrote: “Having been struck by a terrible misfortune, life appeared so harsh and unsympathetic, that I imagined that I had not sufficient strength to live to see the next day. I then noticed that almost every day I forgot to wind my watch, something that I never omitted before. I had been in the habit of doing it regularly before retiring in an almost mechanical and unconscious manner. It was only very seldom that I thought of it, and that happened when I had something important for the next day which held my interest. ‘Should this be considered a symptomatic action? I really cannot explain it.’” Whoever will take the trouble, like Jung (_The Psychology of Dementia Præcox_, translated by Peterson and Brill), or Maeder (“Une voie nouvelle en Psychologie--Freud et son ecole,” _Cœnobium_, Lugano, 1906), to pay attention to melodies which one hums to himself aimlessly and unconsciously, will regularly discover the relation of the melody’s text to a theme which occupies the person at that time.]

[Footnote 60: “Das Verlieren als Symptom-handlung,” _Zentralb. f. Psychoanalyse_, i. 10-11.]

[Footnote 61: Translated by A. A. Brill. The Macmillan Company, New York; George Allen Company, London.]

[Footnote 62: This is not a perfect error. According to the orphic version of the myth the emasculation was performed by Zeus on his father Kronos.]

[Footnote 63: _Loc. cit._, p. 191.]

[Footnote 64: Nouvelles contributions, etc., _Arch. de Psych._, vi. 1908.]

[Footnote 65: _Loc. cit._, p. 42.]

[Footnote 66: _Zentralb. f. Psychoanalyse_, ii. 9.]

[Footnote 67: _Zentralb. f. Psychoanalyse_, ii. 5.]

[Footnote 68: This continued action in the unconscious manifested itself once in the form of a dream which followed the faulty action, another time in the repetition of the same or in the omission of a correction.]

[Footnote 69: Alfred Adler, “Drei Psychoanalysen von Zahlen einfällen und obsedierenden Zahlen,” _Psych. Neur. Wochenschr._, No. 28, 1905.]

[Footnote 70: As an explanation of _Macbeth_, No. 17 of the U. L., I was informed by Dr. Adler that in his seventeenth year this man had joined an anarchistic society whose aim was regicide. Probably this is why he forgot the content of the play _Macbeth_. The same person invented at that time a secret code in which numbers substituted letters.]

[Footnote 71: For the sake of simplicity I have omitted some of the not less suitable thoughts of the patients.]

[Footnote 72: _Loc. cit._, p. 36.]

[Footnote 73: “Ein Beitrag zur Kenntnis des Zahlentraumes,” _Zentralb. f. Psychoanalyse_, i. 12.]

[Footnote 74: “Unconscious Manipulation of Numbers” (_ibid._, ii. 5, 1912).]

[Footnote 75: This is another excellent example showing how a conscious intention was powerless to counteract an unconscious resistance.]

[Footnote 76: These conceptions of strict determinism in seemingly arbitrary actions have already borne rich fruit for psychology--perhaps also for the administration of justice. Bleuler and Jung have in this way made intelligible the reaction in the so-called association experiments, wherein the test person answers to a given word with one occurring to him (stimulus-word reaction), while the time elapsing between the stimulus word and answer is measured (reaction-time). Jung has shown in his _Diagnostische Assoziationsstudien_, 1906, what fine reagents for psychic occurrences we possess in this association-experiment. Three students of criminology, H. Gross, of Prague, and Wertheimer and Klein, have developed from these experiments a technique for the diagnosis of facts (_Tatbestands-Diagnostik_) in criminal cases, the examination of which is now tested by psychologists and jurists.]

[Footnote 77: Proceeding from other points of view, this interpretation of the trivial and accidental by the patient has been designated as “delusions of reference.”]

[Footnote 78: For example, the fantasies of the hysterical regarding sexual and cruel abuse which are made conscious by analysis often correspond in every detail with the complaints of persecuted paranoiacs. It is remarkable but not altogether unexpected that we also meet the identical content as reality in the contrivances of perverts for the gratification of their desires.]

[Footnote 79: Which naturally has nothing of the character of perception.]

[Footnote 80: _Zentralb. f. Psychoanalyse_, ii. 5.]

[Footnote 81: Thus far this explanation of _Déjà vu_ has been appreciated by only one observer. Dr. Ferenczi, to whom the third edition of this book is indebted for so many contributions, writes to me concerning this: “I have been convinced, through myself as well as others, that the inexplicable feeling of familiarity can be referred to unconscious fantasies of which we are unconsciously reminded in an actual situation. With one of my patients the process was apparently different, but in reality it was quite analogous. This feeling returned to him very often, but showed itself regularly as originating in a forgotten (repressed) portion of a dream of the preceding night. Thus it appears that the _Déjà vu_ can originate not only from day dreams but also from night dreams.”]

[Footnote 82: I can perhaps give the following outline concerning the mechanism of actual forgetting. The memory material succumbs in general to two influences, condensation and disfigurement. Disfigurement is the work of the tendencies dominating the psychic life, and directs itself above all against the affective remnants of memory traces which maintain a more resistive attitude towards condensation. The traces which have grown indifferent merge into a process of condensation without opposition; in addition it may be observed that tendencies of disfigurement also feed on the indifferent material, because they have not been gratified where they wished to manifest themselves. As these processes of condensation and disfigurement continue for long periods during which all fresh experiences act upon the transformation of the memory content, it is our belief that it is time that makes memory uncertain and indistinct. It is quite probable that in forgetting there can really be no question of a direct function of time. From the repressed memory traces it can be verified that they suffer no changes even in the longest periods. The unconscious, at all events, knows no time limit. The most important as well as the most peculiar character of psychic fixation consists in the fact that all impressions are on the one hand retained in the same form as they were received, and also in the forms that they have assumed in their further development. This state of affairs cannot be elucidated by any comparison from any other sphere. By virtue of this theory every former state of the memory content may thus be restored, even though all original relations have long been replaced by newer ones.]

[Footnote 83: Cf. here _The Interpretation of Dreams_, p. 483. Macmillan: New York; and Allen: London.]

UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON

Transcriber’s Note

Original copyright information has been retained, but this book is in the public domain in the country of publication.

In the printed version of this text, footnotes were positioned at the bottom of each page.

In the printed version, each chapter began with a page containing only its title, followed by a blank page. The chapter title was then repeated at the start of the chapter text. The first occurrences of the chapter titles have been removed, and the table of contents has been changed to reflect this.

In this text file, _italics_ are indicated by underscores.

The following changes were made by the transcriber:

Title page, “A. A Brill” changed to “A. A. Brill”.

Page 35, “‘Man created God in His own image.” changed to “‘Man created God in His own image.’”

Page 48, “tyranically” changed to “tyrannically”.

Page 93, end-quote added after “adultérer”.

Page 117, ““Music Phantoms,”” changed to ““Music Phantoms”,”.

Page 147, “f” was skipped in the list of case studies in the printed text; this has been corrected.

Page 170, “had suddenly became” changed to “had suddenly become”.

Page 179, “Il est arrivé a” changed to “Il est arrivé à”.

Page 233 appears to introduce a list of examples with the numeral “I.”, but there are no following terms before the chapter ends. This was probably an error, but has been left uncorrected here.

Page 236, “hereuse” changed to “heureuse”.

Page 266, end-quote added after “Saturday!”.

Missing comma inserted after “187” in index entry for “Breaking of objects”.

Missing comma inserted after “3” in index entry for “Forgetfulness, Temporary, of proper names”.

Standardised indentation of “Psychology of” under index entry for “Speech Blunders”.

Footnotes 1 and 9, “Monatschrift” changed to “Monatsschrift”.

Footnote 34, “Geistesund Nervenkranken” changed to “Geistes- und Nervenkranken”; “Jenseits von Gut und Bosen” changed to “Jenseits von Gut und Böse”, and “Haupstuck” changed to “Hauptstück”.

Footnote 42, the concluding end-quote has been added.

Footnote 58, “Contribution a la psychologie” changed to “Contribution à la psychologie”.

Footnote 59, end-quotes added after “habits” and “explain it”.

Footnote 81, “Ferençzi” changed to “Ferenczi”.