INTRODUCTORY LECTURES
ON PSYCHO-ANALYSIS
[Illustration:
_SCHWIND_, “THE PRISONER’S DREAM.”
See p. 113 for analysis.
]
INTRODUCTORY LECTURES ON PSYCHO-ANALYSIS
A COURSE OF TWENTY-EIGHT LECTURES DELIVERED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA
BY
PROF. SIGM. FREUD, M.D., LL.D.
VIENNA
AUTHORIZED ENGLISH TRANSLATION
BY
JOAN RIVIERE
WITH A PREFACE
BY
ERNEST JONES, M.D.
_President of the International Psycho-Analytical Association_
[Illustration: [Logo]]
LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.
RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1
_First Published in Great Britain in 1922_
(_All rights reserved_)
PREFACE
Among the many difficulties confronting those who wish to acquire a
knowledge of psycho-analysis, not the least has been the absence of a
suitable text-book with which they could begin their studies. They have
hitherto had their choice among three classes of book, against each of
which some objection could be urged from the point of view of the
beginner. They could pick their way through the heterogeneous collection
of papers, such as those published by Freud, Brill, Ferenczi, and
myself, which were not arranged on any coherent plan and were also for
the greater part addressed to those already having some knowledge of the
subject. Or they could struggle with more systematic volumes, such as
those by Hitschmann and Barbara Low, which suffer from condensation
because of the difficulty of having to compress so much into a small
space. Or, finally, it might be their fate to come across one of the
numerous books, which need not be mentioned by name, that purport to
give an adequate account of psycho-analysis, but whose authors have
neglected the necessary preliminary of acquiring a proper knowledge of
the subject themselves. The gap in the literature of psycho-analysis has
now been filled by the writer most competent of all to do it—namely,
Professor Freud himself, and the world of clinical psychology must be
grateful to him for the effort it must have cost to write such a book in
the midst of his other multitudinous duties. In the future we can
unhesitatingly deal with the question so often asked, and say: This is
the book with which to begin a study of psycho-analysis.
Even here, however, the reader should be warned that it is necessary to
add a few modifications to the statement that the present volume is a
complete text-book of psycho-analysis. The circumstances of its
inception forbid its being so regarded. The book consists of three
separate courses of lectures delivered at the University of Vienna in
two winter sessions, 1915–1917. The first two of these presuppose
absolutely no knowledge of the subject, and the style in which they were
delivered constitute them an ideal introduction to the subject. But in
the third year Professor Freud, doubtless assuming that those of his
audience who had pursued their studies so far would by then have widened
their reading otherwise, decided to treat them no longer as mere
beginners, and so felt himself free to deal more technically with the
more difficult subject-matter of the third course—the psycho-analysis of
neurotic affections. The result is that the second half of the book is
of a much more advanced nature than the first, a fact which, it is true,
has the advantage that the author was able here and there to communicate
some of his latest conclusions on obscure points. Every student of
psycho-analysis, therefore, however advanced, will be able to learn much
from this volume.
One must also remark that the book does not convey an adequate
impression of the extensive bearing that psycho-analysis has on other
humanistic studies than those here dealt with. Apart from a few hints
scattered here and there, there is little indication of the extent to
which psycho-analysis has already been applied, to sociology, to the
study of racial development, and above all, to the psychology of the
normal man. The book is definitely confined to its three topics of
psychopathology of everyday life, dreams, and neuroses, these having
been chosen as constituting the most suitable subject-matter with which
to effect the author’s purpose—namely, to introduce students to
psycho-analysis.
An American translation of the book has already appeared, but, apart
from its deficiencies of style, it contained so many serious falsities
in translation—a passage, for instance, to the effect that _delusions_
cannot be influenced is translated in such a way as to commit Professor
Freud, of all people, to the statement that _obsessions_ cannot be
cured—that it was decided to issue a fresh translation. This has been
carried out with scrupulous care by Mrs. Riviere, aided by drafts
carried out by Miss Cecil M. Baines of the eleven lectures in Part II. I
have compared the whole book with the original, and have discussed
doubtful and difficult points with Professor Freud and Mrs. Riviere.
Mrs. Riviere’s English translation will be its own recommendation: I can
give the reader the assurance that it is a faithful and exact rendering.
ERNEST JONES.
_December 1921._
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE 5
_PART I_
LECTURE
1. INTRODUCTION 11
2. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ERRORS 19
3. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ERRORS (_continuation_) 31
4. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ERRORS (_conclusion_) 47
_PART II_
DREAMS
5. DIFFICULTIES AND PRELIMINARY APPROACH TO THE SUBJECT 67
6. PRELIMINARY HYPOTHESES AND TECHNIQUE OF INTERPRETATION 82
7. MANIFEST CONTENT AND LATENT THOUGHTS 94
8. CHILDREN’S DREAMS 105
9. THE DREAM-CENSORSHIP 114
10. SYMBOLISM IN DREAMS 125
11. THE DREAM-WORK 143
12. EXAMPLES OF DREAMS AND ANALYSIS OF THEM 155
13. ARCHAIC AND INFANTILE FEATURES IN DREAMS 168
14. WISH-FULFILMENT 180
15. DOUBTFUL POINTS AND CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS 193
_PART III_
GENERAL THEORY OF THE NEUROSES
16. PSYCHO-ANALYSIS AND PSYCHIATRY 207
17. THE MEANING OF SYMPTOMS 218
18. FIXATION UPON TRAUMATA: THE UNCONSCIOUS 231
19. RESISTANCE AND REPRESSION 242
20. THE SEXUAL LIFE OF MAN 255
21. DEVELOPMENT OF THE LIBIDO AND SEXUAL ORGANIZATIONS 269
22. ASPECTS OF DEVELOPMENT AND REGRESSION. ÆTIOLOGY 285
23. THE PATHS OF SYMPTOM-FORMATION 300
24. ORDINARY NERVOUSNESS 316
25. ANXIETY 328
26. THE THEORY OF THE LIBIDO: NARCISSISM 344
27. TRANSFERENCE 360
28. THE ANALYTIC THERAPY 375
INDEX 389
_PART I_
FIRST LECTURE
INTRODUCTION
I do not know what knowledge any of you may already have of
psycho-analysis, either from reading or from hearsay. But having regard
to the title of my lectures—Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis—I
am bound to proceed as though you knew nothing of the subject and needed
instruction, even in its first elements.
One thing, at least, I may presuppose that you know—namely, that
psycho-analysis is a method of medical treatment for those suffering
from nervous disorders; and I can give you at once an illustration of
the way in which psycho-analytic procedure differs from, and often even
reverses, what is customary in other branches of medicine. Usually, when
we introduce a patient to a new form of treatment we minimize its
difficulties and give him confident assurances of its success. This is,
in my opinion, perfectly justifiable, for we thereby increase the
probability of success. But when we undertake to treat a neurotic
psycho-analytically we proceed otherwise. We explain to him the
difficulties of the method, its long duration, the trials and sacrifices
which will be required of him; and, as to the result, we tell him that
we can make no definite promises, that success depends upon his own
endeavours, upon his understanding, his adaptability and his
perseverance. We have, of course, good reasons, into which you will
perhaps gain some insight later on, for adopting this apparently
perverse attitude.
Now forgive me if I begin by treating you in the same way as I do my
neurotic patients, for I shall positively advise you against coming to
hear me a second time. And with this intention I shall explain to you
how of necessity you can obtain from me only an incomplete knowledge of
psycho-analysis and also what difficulties stand in the way of your
forming an independent judgement on the subject. For I shall show you
how the whole trend of your training and your accustomed modes of
thought must inevitably have made you hostile to psycho-analysis, and
also how much you would have to overcome in your own minds in order to
master this instinctive opposition. I naturally cannot foretell what
degree of understanding of psycho-analysis you may gain from my
lectures, but I can at least assure you that by attending them you will
not have learnt how to conduct a psycho-analytic investigation, nor how
to carry out a psycho-analytic treatment. And further, if anyone of you
should feel dissatisfied with a merely cursory acquaintance with
psycho-analysis and should wish to form a permanent connection with it,
I shall not merely discourage him, but I shall actually warn him against
it. For as things are at the present time, not only would the choice of
such a career put an end to all chances of academic success, but, upon
taking up work as a practitioner, such a man would find himself in a
community which misunderstood his aims and intentions, regarded him with
suspicion and hostility, and let loose upon him all the latent evil
impulses harboured within it. Perhaps you can infer from the
accompaniments of the war now raging in Europe what a countless host
that is to reckon with.
However, there are always some people to whom the possibility of a new
addition to knowledge will prove an attraction strong enough to survive
all such inconveniences. If there are any such among you who will appear
at my second lecture in spite of my words of warning, they will be
welcome. But all of you have a right to know what these inherent
difficulties of psycho-analysis are to which I have alluded.
First of all, there is the problem of the teaching and exposition of the
subject. In your medical studies you have been accustomed to use your
eyes. You see the anatomical specimen, the precipitate of the chemical
reaction, the contraction of the muscle as the result of the stimulation
of its nerves. Later you come into contact with the patients; you learn
the symptoms of disease by the evidence of your senses; the results of
pathological processes can be demonstrated to you, and in many cases
even the exciting cause of them in an isolated form. On the surgical
side you are witnesses of the measures by which the patient is helped,
and are permitted to attempt them yourselves. Even in psychiatry,
demonstration of patients, of their altered expression, speech and
behaviour, yields a series of observations which leave a deep impression
on your minds. Thus a teacher of medicine acts for the most part as an
exponent and guide, leading you as it were through a museum, while you
gain in this way a direct relationship to what is displayed to you and
believe yourselves to have been convinced by your own experience of the
existence of the new facts.
But in psycho-analysis, unfortunately, all this is different. In
psycho-analytic treatment nothing happens but an exchange of words
between the patient and the physician. The patient talks, tells of his
past experiences and present impressions, complains, and expresses his
wishes and his emotions. The physician listens, attempts to direct the
patient’s thought-processes, reminds him, forces his attention in
certain directions, gives him explanations and observes the reactions of
understanding or denial thus evoked. The patient’s unenlightened
relatives—people of a kind to be impressed only by something visible and
tangible, preferably by the sort of ‘action’ that may be seen at a
cinema—never omit to express their doubts of how “mere talk can possibly
cure anybody.” Their reasoning is of course as illogical as it is
inconsistent. For they are the same people who are always convinced that
the sufferings of neurotics are purely “in their own imagination.” Words
and magic were in the beginning one and the same thing, and even to-day
words retain much of their magical power. By words one of us can give to
another the greatest happiness or bring about utter despair; by words
the teacher imparts his knowledge to the student; by words the orator
sweeps his audience with him and determines its judgements and
decisions. Words call forth emotions and are universally the means by
which we influence our fellow-creatures. Therefore let us not despise
the use of words in psycho-therapy and let us be content if we may
overhear the words which pass between the analyst and the patient.
But even that is impossible. The dialogue which constitutes the analysis
will admit of no audience; the process cannot be demonstrated. One
could, of course, exhibit a neurasthenic or hysterical patient to
students at a psychiatric lecture. He would relate his case and his
symptoms, but nothing more. He will make the communications necessary to
the analysis only under the conditions of a special affective
relationship to the physician; in the presence of a single person to
whom he was indifferent he would become mute. For these communications
relate to all his most private thoughts and feelings, all that which as
a socially independent person he must hide from others, all that which,
being foreign to his own conception of himself, he tries to conceal even
from himself.
It is impossible, therefore, for you to be actually present during a
psycho-analytic treatment; you can only be told about it, and can learn
psycho-analysis, in the strictest sense of the word, only by hearsay.
This tuition at second hand, so to say, puts you in a very unusual and
difficult position as regards forming your own judgement on the subject,
which will therefore largely depend on the reliance you can place on
your informant.
Now imagine for a moment that you were present at a lecture in history
instead of in psychiatry, and that the lecturer was dealing with the
life and conquests of Alexander the Great. What reason would you have to
believe what he told you? The situation would appear at first sight even
more unsatisfactory than in the case of psycho-analysis, for the
professor of history had no more part in Alexander’s campaigns than you
yourselves; the psycho-analyst at least informs you of matters in which
he himself has played a part. But then we come to the question of what
evidence there is to support the historian. He can refer you to the
accounts of early writers who were either contemporaries or who lived
not long after the events in question, such as Diodorus, Plutarch,
Arrian, and others; he can lay before you reproductions of the preserved
coins and statues of the king, and pass round a photograph of the mosaic
at Pompeii representing the battle at Issus. Yet, strictly speaking, all
these documents only prove that the existence of Alexander and the
reality of his deeds were already believed in by former generations of
men, and your criticism might begin anew at this point. And then you
would find that not everything reported of Alexander is worthy of belief
or sufficiently authenticated in detail, but I can hardly suppose that
you would leave the lecture-room in doubt altogether as to the reality
of Alexander the Great. Your conclusions would be principally determined
by two considerations: first, that the lecturer could have no
conceivable motive for attempting to persuade you of something which he
did not himself believe to be true, and secondly, that all the available
authorities agree more or less in their accounts of the facts. In
questioning the accuracy of the early writers you would apply these
tests again, the possible motives of the authors and the agreement to be
found between them. The result of such tests would certainly be
convincing in the case of Alexander, probably less so in regard to
figures like Moses and Nimrod. Later on you will perceive clearly enough
what doubts can be raised against the credibility of an exponent of
psycho-analysis.
Now you will have a right to ask the question: If no objective evidence
for psycho-analysis exists, and no possibility of demonstrating the
process, how is it possible to study it at all or to convince oneself of
its truth? The study of it is indeed not an easy matter, nor are there
many people who have thoroughly learned it; still, there is, of course,
some way of learning it. Psycho-Analysis is learnt first of all on
oneself, through the study of one’s own personality. This is not exactly
what is meant by introspection, but it may be so described for want of a
better word. There is a whole series of very common and well-known
mental phenomena which can be taken as material for self-analysis when
one has acquired some knowledge of the method. In this way one may
obtain the required conviction of the reality of the processes which
psycho-analysis describes, and of the truth of its conceptions, although
progress on these lines is not without its limitations. One gets much
further by submitting oneself to analysis by a skilled analyst,
undergoing the working of the analysis in one’s own person and using the
opportunity to observe the finer details of the technique which the
analyst employs. This, eminently the best way, is of course only
practicable for individuals and cannot be used in a class of students.
The second difficulty you will find in connection with psycho-analysis
is not, on the other hand, inherent in it, but is one for which I must
hold you yourselves responsible, at least in so far as your medical
studies have influenced you. Your training will have induced in you an
attitude of mind very far removed from the psycho-analytical one. You
have been trained to establish the functions and disturbances of the
organism on an anatomical basis, to explain them in terms of chemistry
and physics, and to regard them from a biological point of view; but no
part of your interest has ever been directed to the mental aspects of
life, in which, after all, the development of the marvellously
complicated organism culminates. For this reason a psychological
attitude of mind is still foreign to you, and you are accustomed to
regard it with suspicion, to deny it a scientific status, and to leave
it to the general public, poets, mystics, and philosophers. Now this
limitation in you is undoubtedly detrimental to your medical efficiency;
for on meeting a patient it is the mental aspects with which one first
comes into contact, as in most human relationships, and I am afraid you
will pay the penalty of having to yield a part of the curative influence
at which you aim to the quacks, mystics, and faith-healers whom you
despise.
I quite acknowledge that there is an excuse for this defect in your
previous training. There is no auxiliary philosophical science that
might be of service to you in your profession. Neither speculative
philosophy nor descriptive psychology, nor even the so-called
experimental psychology which is studied in connection with the
physiology of the sense-organs, as they are taught in the schools, can
tell you anything useful of the relations existing between mind and
body, or can give you a key to comprehension of a possible disorder of
the mental functions. It is true that the psychiatric branch of medicine
occupies itself with describing the different forms of recognizable
mental disturbances and grouping them in clinical pictures, but in their
best moments psychiatrists themselves are doubtful whether their purely
descriptive formulations deserve to be called science. The origin,
mechanism, and interrelation of the symptoms which make up these
clinical pictures are undiscovered: either they cannot be correlated
with any demonstrable changes in the brain, or only with such changes as
in no way explain them. These mental disturbances are open to
therapeutic influence only when they can be identified as secondary
effects of some organic disease.
This is the lacuna which psycho-analysis is striving to fill. It hopes
to provide psychiatry with the missing psychological foundation, to
discover the common ground on which a correlation of bodily and mental
disorder becomes comprehensible. To this end it must dissociate itself
from every foreign preconception, whether anatomical, chemical, or
physiological, and must work throughout with conceptions of a purely
psychological order, and for this very reason I fear that it will appear
strange to you at first.
For the next difficulty I shall not hold you, your training or your
mental attitude, responsible. There are two tenets of psycho-analysis
which offend the whole world and excite its resentment; the one
conflicts with intellectual, the other with moral and æsthetic,
prejudices. Let us not underestimate these prejudices; they are powerful
things, residues of valuable, even necessary, stages in human evolution.
They are maintained by emotional forces, and the fight against them is a
hard one.
The first of these displeasing propositions of psycho-analysis is this:
that mental processes are essentially unconscious, and that those which
are conscious are merely isolated acts and parts of the whole psychic
entity. Now I must ask you to remember that, on the contrary, we are
accustomed to identify the mental with the conscious. Consciousness
appears to us as positively the characteristic that defines mental life,
and we regard psychology as the study of the content of consciousness.
This even appears so evident that any contradiction of it seems obvious
nonsense to us, and yet it is impossible for psycho-analysis to avoid
this contradiction, or to accept the identity between the conscious and
the psychic. The psycho-analytical definition of the mind is that it
comprises processes of the nature of feeling, thinking, and wishing, and
it maintains that there are such things as unconscious thinking and
unconscious wishing. But in doing so psycho-analysis has forfeited at
the outset the sympathy of the sober and scientifically-minded, and
incurred the suspicion of being a fantastic cult occupied with dark and
unfathomable mysteries.[1] You yourselves must find it difficult to
understand why I should stigmatize an abstract proposition, such as “The
psychic is the conscious,” as a prejudice; nor can you guess yet what
evolutionary process could have led to the denial of the unconscious, if
it does indeed exist, nor what advantage could have been achieved by
this denial. It seems like an empty wrangle over words to argue whether
mental life is to be regarded as co-extensive with consciousness or
whether it may be said to stretch beyond this limit, and yet I can
assure you that the acceptance of unconscious mental processes
represents a decisive step towards a new orientation in the world and in
science.
As little can you suspect how close is the connection between this first
bold step on the part of psycho-analysis and the second to which I am
now coming. For this next proposition, which we put forward as one of
the discoveries of psycho-analysis, consists in the assertion that
impulses, which can only be described as sexual in both the narrower and
the wider sense, play a peculiarly large part, never before sufficiently
appreciated, in the causation of nervous and mental disorders. Nay,
more, that these sexual impulses have contributed invaluably to the
highest cultural, artistic, and social achievements of the human mind.
In my opinion, it is the aversion from this conclusion of
psycho-analytic investigation that is the most significant source of the
opposition it has encountered. Are you curious to know how we ourselves
account for this? We believe that civilization has been built up, under
the pressure of the struggle for existence, by sacrifices in
gratification of the primitive impulses, and that it is to a great
extent for ever being re-created, as each individual, successively
joining the community, repeats the sacrifice of his instinctive
pleasures for the common good. The sexual are amongst the most important
of the instinctive forces thus utilized: they are in this way
sublimated, that is to say, their energy is turned aside from its sexual
goal and diverted towards other ends, no longer sexual and socially more
valuable. But the structure thus built up is insecure, for the sexual
impulses are with difficulty controlled; in each individual who takes up
his part in the work of civilization there is a danger that a rebellion
of the sexual impulses may occur, against this diversion of their
energy. Society can conceive of no more powerful menace to its culture
than would arise from the liberation of the sexual impulses and a return
of them to their original goal. Therefore society dislikes this
sensitive place in its development being touched upon; that the power of
the sexual instinct should be recognized, and the significance of the
individual’s sexual life revealed, is very far from its interests; with
a view to discipline it has rather taken the course of diverting
attention away from this whole field. For this reason, the revelations
of psycho-analysis are not tolerated by it, and it would greatly prefer
to brand them as æsthetically offensive, morally reprehensible, or
dangerous. But since such objections are not valid arguments against
conclusions which claim to represent the objective results of scientific
investigation, the opposition must be translated into intellectual terms
before it can be expressed. It is a characteristic of human nature to be
inclined to regard anything which is disagreeable as untrue, and then
without much difficulty to find arguments against it. So society
pronounces the unacceptable to be untrue, disputes the results of
psycho-analysis with logical and concrete arguments, arising, however,
in affective sources, and clings to them with all the strength of
prejudice against every attempt at refutation.
But we, on the other hand, claim to have yielded to no tendency in
propounding this objectionable theory. Our intention has been solely to
give recognition to the facts as we found them in the course of
painstaking researches. And we now claim the right to reject
unconditionally any such introduction of practical considerations into
the field of scientific investigation, even before we have determined
whether the apprehension which attempts to force these considerations
upon us is justified or not.
These, now, are some of the difficulties which confront you at the
outset when you begin to take an interest in psycho-analysis. It is
probably more than enough for a beginning. If you can overcome their
discouraging effect, we will proceed further.
SECOND LECTURE
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ERRORS
We shall now begin, not with postulates, but with an investigation. For
this purpose we shall select certain phenomena which are very frequent,
very familiar and much overlooked, and which have nothing to do with
illness, since they may be observed in every healthy person. I refer to
the errors that everyone commits: as when anyone wishes to say a certain
thing but uses the wrong word (‘slip of the tongue’);[2] or when the
same sort of mistake is made in writing (‘slip of the pen’),[3] in which
case one may or may not notice it; or when anyone reads in print or
writing something other than what is actually before him
(‘misreading’);[4] or when anyone mis-hears[5] what is said to him,
naturally when there is no question of any disease of the auditory
sense-organ. Another series of such phenomena are those based on
forgetting[6] something temporarily, though not permanently; as, for
instance, when anyone cannot think of a name which he knows quite well
and is always able to recognize whenever he sees it; or when anyone
forgets to carry out some intention, which he afterwards remembers, and
has therefore forgotten only for a certain time. This element of
transitoriness is lacking in a third class, of which mislaying[7] things
so that they cannot be found is an example. This is a kind of
forgetfulness which we regard differently from the usual kind; one is
amazed or annoyed at it, instead of finding it comprehensible. Allied to
this are certain _mistakes_, in which the temporary element is again
noticeable, as when one believes something for a time which both before
and afterwards one knows to be untrue, and a number of similar
manifestations which we know under various names.
Some inner relation between all these kinds of occurrences is indicated
in German, by the use of the prefix “_ver_” which is common to all the
words designating them.[8] These words almost all refer to acts of an
unimportant kind, generally temporary and without much significance in
life. It is only rarely that anything of the kind, such as the loss of
some object, attains any practical importance. For this reason little
attention is paid to such happenings and they arouse little feeling.
I am now going to ask you to consider these phenomena. But you will
object, with annoyance: “There are so many tremendous puzzles both in
the wide world and in the narrower life of the soul, so many mysteries
in the field of mental disorder which demand and deserve explanation,
that it really seems frivolous to waste labour and interest on these
trifles. If you could explain to us how it is possible for anyone with
sound sight and hearing, in broad daylight, to see and hear things which
do not exist, or how anyone can suddenly believe that his nearest and
dearest are persecuting him, or can justify with the most ingenious
arguments a delusion which would seem nonsensical to any child, then we
might be willing to take psycho-analysis seriously. But if
psycho-analysis cannot occupy us with anything more interesting than the
question why a speaker uses a wrong word or why a _Hausfrau_ mislays her
keys and similar trivialities, then we shall find something better to do
with our time and our interest.”
My reply is: Patience! Your criticism is not on the right track. It is
true that psycho-analysis cannot boast that it has never occupied itself
with trifles. On the contrary, the material of its observations is
usually those commonplace occurrences which have been cast aside as all
too insignificant by other sciences, the refuse, so to speak, of the
phenomenal world. But in your criticism are you not confounding the
magnitude of a problem with the conspicuous nature of its
manifestations? Is it not possible, under certain conditions and at
certain times, for very important things to betray themselves in very
slight indications? I could easily cite many instances of this. What
slight signs, for instance, convey to the young men in my audience that
they have gained a lady’s favour? Do they expect an explicit
declaration, a passionate embrace, or are they not content with a glance
which is almost imperceptible to others, a fleeting gesture, a handshake
prolonged by a second? Or suppose you are a detective engaged in the
investigation of a murder, do you actually expect to find that the
murderer will leave his photograph with name and address on the scene of
the crime? Are you not perforce content with slighter and less certain
traces of the person you seek? So let us not undervalue small signs:
perhaps from them it may be possible to come upon the tracks of greater
things. Besides, I think as you do that the larger problems of the world
and of science have the first claim on our interest. But on the whole it
avails little to form a definite resolution to devote oneself to the
investigation of this or that great problem. One is then often at a loss
how to set about the next step. In scientific work it is more profitable
to take up whatever lies before one whenever a path towards its
exploration presents itself. And then, if one carries it through
thoroughly, without prejudice or pre-conceptions, one may, with good
fortune and by virtue of the interrelationship linking each thing to
every other (hence, also, the small to the great), find, even in the
course of such humble labour, a road to the study of the great problems.
It is from this point of view that I hope to enlist your interest in
considering the apparently trivial errors made by normal people. I
propose now that we question someone who has no knowledge of
psycho-analysis as to how he explains these occurrences.
His first answer is sure to be: “Oh, they are not worth any explanation;
they are little accidents.” What does the man mean by this? Does he mean
to maintain that there are any occurrences so small that they fail to
come within the causal sequence of things, that they might as well be
other than they are? Anyone thus breaking away from the determination of
natural phenomena, at any single point, has thrown over the whole
scientific outlook on the world (_Weltanschauung_). One may point out to
him how much more consistent is the religious outlook on the world,
which emphatically assures us that “not one sparrow shall fall to the
ground” except God wills it. I think our friend would not be willing to
follow his first answer to its logical conclusion; he would give way and
say that if he were to study these things he would soon find some
explanation of them. It must be a matter of slight functional
disturbances, of inaccuracies of mental performance, the conditions of
which could be discovered. A man who otherwise speaks correctly may make
a slip of the tongue, (1) when he is tired or unwell, (2) when he is
excited, or (3) when his attention is concentrated on something else. It
is easy to confirm this. Slips of the tongue do indeed occur most
frequently when one is tired, or has a headache, or feels an attack of
migraine coming on. Forgetting proper names very often occurs in these
circumstances; many people are habitually warned of the onset of an
attack of migraine by the inability to recall proper names. In
excitement, too, one mixes up words or even things, one performs actions
erroneously[9]; and the forgetting of intentions, as well as a number of
other undesigned acts, comes to the fore when one is distracted, in
other words, when the attention is concentrated on other things. A
familiar instance of such distraction is the professor in _Fliegende
Blätter_ who forgets his umbrella and takes the wrong hat, because he is
thinking of the problems which are to be the subject of his next book.
We all know from our own experience how one can forget to carry out
intentions or promises when something has happened in the interval that
absorbs one very deeply.
This seems so entirely comprehensible and also irrefutable. It is
perhaps not very interesting or not so much so as we expected. Let us
look at this explanation of errors more closely. The various conditions
which have been cited as necessary for the occurrence of these phenomena
are not all similar in kind. Illness and disorders of the circulation
afford a physiological basis for an affection of the normal functions;
excitement, tiredness, and distraction are conditions of a different
kind which could be described as psycho-physiological. These last could
easily be converted into a theory. Fatigue, as well as distraction, and
perhaps also general excitement, cause a dissipation of the attention
from which it may follow that the act in question has insufficient
attention devoted to it. It can then very easily be disturbed and
inexactly performed. Slight illness or a change in the distribution of
blood in the central organ of the nervous system can have the same
effect, by these conditions affecting the determining factor, the
distribution of attention, in a similar way. In all cases it would be a
question of the effects of a disturbance of the attention from organic
or psychical causes.
But all this doesn’t seem to promise much of interest for a
psycho-analytic investigation. We might feel tempted to give up the
topic. To be sure, a closer inspection of the facts shows that they are
not all in accord with the ‘attention’ theory of errors of this sort, or
at least that not everything can be directly deduced from it. We find
that such errors and such forgetfulness also take place when people are
not fatigued or excited, but are in every way in their normal condition;
unless, just because of the errors, we were subsequently to attribute to
them a condition of excitement which they themselves did not
acknowledge. Nor can the matter be quite so simple as that the
successful performance of an act will be ensured by an intensification
of attention, or endangered by a diminution of it. For a great number of
actions may be carried out in a purely automatic way with very little
attention and yet quite successfully. In walking, a man may perhaps
scarcely know where he is going but keep to the right road and stop at
his destination without having gone astray. At least, this is what
usually happens. A practised pianist strikes the right notes without
thinking of them. He may of course also make an occasional mistake, but
if automatic playing increased the danger of errors the virtuoso, whose
constant practice has made his playing entirely automatic, would be the
most exposed to this danger. Yet we see, on the contrary, that many acts
are most successfully carried out when they are not the objects of
particularly concentrated attention, and that mistakes may occur just on
occasions when one is most eager to be accurate, that is, when a
distraction of the necessary attention is most certainly not present.
One could then say that this is the effect of the ‘excitement,’ but we
do not understand why the excitement does not rather intensify the
concentration on the end so much desired. So that if in an important
speech anyone says the opposite of what he intends, it can hardly be
explained according to the psycho-physiological or the attention theory.
There are also many other minor features in connection with these errors
which we do not understand and which are not rendered more
comprehensible by these explanations. For instance, when one has
temporarily forgotten a name one is annoyed, one is determined to recall
it and cannot desist from the attempt. Why is it that despite this
annoyance the person so often cannot succeed, as he wishes, in directing
his attention to the word which, as he says, is “on the tip of his
tongue,” and which he instantly recognizes when it is supplied to him?
Or, to take another example, there are cases in which the errors
multiply, link themselves together or act as substitutes for one
another. The first time, one forgets an appointment; the next time,
after having made a special resolution not to forget it, one discovers
that one has made a mistake in the day or hour. Or one tries by devious
ways to remember a forgotten word, and in the course of so doing loses
track of a second name which would have been of use in finding the
first. If one then pursues the second name, a third gets lost, and so
on. It is notorious that the same thing happens with misprints, which
are of course errors on the part of the compositor. A stubborn error of
this sort is said once to have crept into a Social-Democratic newspaper,
where, in the account of a festivity, the following words were printed:
“Amongst those present was His Highness, the Clown Prince.” The next day
a correction was attempted. The paper apologized and said: “The sentence
should of course have read, ‘the Crow-Prince.’” Again, in a
war-correspondent’s account of meeting a famous general whose
infirmities were pretty well known, a reference to the general was
printed as “this battle-scared veteran.” Next day an apology appeared
which read “the words of course should have been ‘the bottle-scarred
veteran!’”[10] We like to attribute these occurrences to a devil in the
type-setting machine or to some malevolent goblin—figurative expressions
which at least imply something more than a psycho-physiological theory
of the misprint.
I do not know if you are aware of the fact that slips of the tongue can
be provoked, called forth by suggestion, as it were. An anecdote will
serve to illustrate this. Once when a novice on the stage was entrusted
with the important part in _The Maid of Orleans_ of announcing to the
King: “The Constable sends back his sword,” the principal player, during
the rehearsal, played the joke of several times repeating to the timid
beginner, instead of the text, the following: “The _Komfortabel_ sends
back his steed.”[11] At the performance the unfortunate actor actually
made his début with this perverse announcement, though he had been amply
warned against so doing, or perhaps just because he had been.
All these little characteristics of errors are not much illuminated by
the theory of diverted attention. But that does not necessarily prove
the theory wrong. There may be something missing, a link, by the
addition of which the theory might be made completely satisfactory. But
many of the errors themselves can be considered from another aspect.
Let us select slips of the tongue, as the type of error best suited to
our purpose. We might equally well choose slips of the pen or of
reading. Now we must first remind ourselves that, so far, we have only
enquired when and under what conditions the wrong word is said, and have
received an answer on that point only. Interest may be directed
elsewhere, though, and the question raised why just this particular slip
is made and no other: one can consider the nature of the mistake. You
will see that so long as this question remains unanswered, and the
_effect_ of the mistake is not explained, the phenomenon remains a pure
accident on the psychological side, even if a physiological explanation
has been found for it. When it happens that I make a mistake in a word I
could obviously do this in an infinite number of ways, in place of the
right word substitute any one of a thousand others, or make innumerable
distortions of the right word. Now, is there anything which forces upon
me in a specific instance just this one special slip, out of all those
which are possible, or does that remain accidental and arbitrary, and
can nothing rational be found in answer to this question?
Two authors, Meringer and Mayer (a philologist and a psychiatrist) did
indeed in 1895 make an attempt to approach the problem of slips of the
tongue from this side. They collected examples and first treated them
from a purely descriptive standpoint. This of course does not yet
furnish any explanation, but it may lead the way to one. They
differentiated the distortions which the intended phrase suffered
through the slip into: interchanges (in the positions of words,
syllables or letters), anticipations, perseverations, compoundings
(contaminations), and substitutions. I will give you examples of these
authors’ main categories. As an instance of an interchange (in the
position of words) someone might say “The Milo of Venus” instead of “The
Venus of Milo.” The well-known slip of the hotel-boy who, knocking at
the bishop’s door, nervously replied to the question “Who is it?” “The
Lord, my boy!” is another example of such an interchange in the position
of words.[12] In the typical Spoonerism the position of certain letters
is interchanged, as when the preacher said: “How often do we feel a
half-warmed fish within us!”[12] It is a case of anticipation if anyone
says: “The thought lies heartily...” instead of: “The thought lies
heavily on my heart.” A perseveration is illustrated by the well-known
ill-fated toast, “Gentlemen, I call upon (_auf_) you
_hiccough_ (= _auf_zustossen)
to (_auf_) to the health of our Chief.”
(drink) (= _anz_ustossen)
And when a member of the House of Commons referred to another as the
“honourable member for Central _Hell_,” instead of “Hull,” it was a case
of perseveration; as also when a soldier said to a friend “I wish there
were a thousand of our men _mortified_ on that hill, Bill,” instead of
“fortified.” In one case the _ell_ sound has perseverated from the
previous words “m_e_mber for C_e_ntra_l_,” and in the other the _m_
sound in “_m_en” has perseverated to form “mortified.”[12] These three
types of slip are not very common. You will find those cases much more
frequent in which the slip happens by a compounding or contraction, as
for example when a gentleman asks a lady if he may _insort_ her on her
way (_begleit-digen_); this contraction is made up of _begleiten_ = to
escort, and _beleidigen_ = to insult. (And by the way, a young man
addressing a lady in this way will not have much success with her.) A
substitution takes place when a poor woman says she has an “incurable
_infernal_ disease,”[13] or in Mrs. Malaprop’s mind when she says, for
instance, “few gentlemen know how to value the _ineffectual_ qualities
in a woman.”[13]
The explanation which the two authors attempt to formulate as the basis
of their collection of examples is peculiarly inadequate. They hold that
the sounds and syllables of a word have different values and that the
innervation of the sounds of higher value can interfere with those of
lower value. They obviously base this conclusion on the cases of
anticipation and perseveration which are not at all frequent; in other
forms of slips of the tongue the question of such sound priorities, even
if they exist, does not enter at all; for the most frequent type of slip
is that in which instead of a certain word one says another which
resembles it, and this resemblance is considered by many people
sufficient explanation of it. For instance, a professor may say in his
opening lecture, “I am not inclined (_geneigt_ instead of _geeignet_ =
fitted) to estimate the merits of my predecessor.” Or another professor
says, “In the case of the female genital, in spite of the _tempting_ ...
I mean, the _attempted_ ...” (_Versuchungen_ instead of _Versuche_).
The commonest and also the most noticeable form of slip of the tongue,
however, is that of saying the exact opposite of what one meant to say.
These cases are quite outside the effect of any relations between sounds
or confusion due to similarity, and in default one may therefore turn to
the fact that opposites have a strong conceptual connection with one
another and are psychologically very closely associated. There are
well-known examples of this sort. For instance, the President of our
Parliament once opened the session with the words “Gentlemen, I declare
a quorum present and herewith declare the session _closed_.”
Any other common association may work in a way as insidious as the
association of opposites and may on occasion lead to results as
inopportune. So there is a story to the effect that, at a festivity in
honour of the marriage of a child of H. Helmholtz with a child of the
well-known inventor and captain of industry, W. Siemens, the famous
physiologist Dubois-Reymond was asked to speak. He concluded his
doubtless brilliant speech with the toast “Success to the new
partnership, Siemens and _Halske_!” which was of course the name of the
old firm. The association of the two names must have been as familiar to
a resident in Berlin as “Crosse & Blackwell” to a Londoner.
So the effect of word associations must be taken into account, as well
as that of sound-values and similarities between words. But even that is
not enough. In one type of case, before we can arrive at an adequate
explanation of the slip we must consider some phrase which had been
said, or perhaps only thought, previously. Again, that is, a case of
perseveration, as Meringer insists, but arising in a more distant
source.—I must confess that altogether I have the impression that we are
further than ever from comprehension of slips of the tongue.