instance which is perhaps not as simple as those given before, but
which will appear credible and valuable to those more familiar with
such investigations. The name of an Italian city withdrew itself
from memory on account of its far-reaching sound-similarity to a
woman’s first name, which was in turn connected with various emotional
reminiscences which were surely not exhaustively treated in this
report. Dr. S. Ferenczi, who observed this case of forgetting in
himself, treated it--quite justly--as an analysis of a dream or an
erotic idea.
“To-day I visited some old friends, and the conversation turned to
cities of Northern Italy. Some one remarked that they still showed the
Austrian influence. A few of these cities were cited. I, too, wished
to mention one, but the name did not come to me, although I knew that
I had spent two very pleasant days there; this, of course, does not
quite concur with Freud’s theory of forgetting. Instead of the desired
name of the city there obtruded themselves the following thoughts:
‘Capua--Brescia--the lion of Brescia.’ This lion I saw objectively
before me in the form of a marble statue, but I soon noticed that he
resembled less the lion of the statue of liberty in Brescia (which
I saw only in a picture) than the other marble lion which I saw in
Lucerne on the monument in honour of the Swiss Guard fallen in the
Tuileries. I finally thought of the desired name: it was Verona.
“I knew at once the cause of this amnesia. No other than a former
servant of the family whom I visited at the time. Her name was
Veronica; in Hungarian Verona. I felt a great antipathy for her on
account of her repulsive physiognomy, as well as her hoarse, shrill
voice and her unbearable self-assertion (to which she thought herself
entitled on account of her long service). Also the tyrannical way in
which she treated the children of the family was insufferable to me.
Now I knew the significance of the substitutive thoughts.
“To Capua I immediately associated _caput mortuum_. I had often
compared Veronica’s head to a skull. The Hungarian word _kapzoi_ (greed
after money) surely furnished a determinant for the displacement.
Naturally I also found those more direct associations which connected
Capua and Verona as geographical ideas and as Italian words of the same
rhythm.
“The same held true for Brescia; here, too, I found concealed
side-tracks of associations of ideas.
“My antipathy at that time was so violent that I thought Veronica very
ugly, and have often expressed my astonishment at the fact that any one
should love her: ‘Why, to kiss her,’ I said, ‘must provoke nausea.’
“Brescia, at least in Hungary, is very often mentioned not in
connection with the lion but with another wild beast. The most hated
name in this country, as well as in North Italy, is that of General
Haynau, who is briefly referred to as the hyena of Brescia. From the
hated tyrant Haynau one stream of thought leads over Brescia to the
city of Verona, and the other over the idea of the _grave-digging
animal with the hoarse voice_ (which corresponds to the thought of a
monument to the dead), to the skull, and to the disagreeable organ
of Veronica, which was so cruelly insulted in my unconscious mind.
Veronica in her time ruled as tyrannically as did the Austrian General
after the Hungarian and Italian struggles for liberty.
“Lucerne is associated with the idea of the summer which Veronica spent
with her employers in a place near Lucerne. The Swiss Guard again
recalls that she tyrannized not only the children but also the adult
members of the family, and thus played the part of the ‘Garde-Dame.’
“I expressly observe that this antipathy of mine against V. consciously
belongs to things long overcome. Since that time she has changed in her
appearance and manner, very much to her advantage, so that I am able to
meet her with sincere regard (to be sure I hardly find such occasion).
As usual, however, my unconscious sticks more tenaciously to those
impressions; it is old in its resentment.
“The Tuileries represent an allusion to a second personality, an old
French lady who actually ‘guarded’ the women of the house, and who was
in high regard and somewhat feared by everybody. For a long time I was
her _élève_ in French conversation. The word _élève_ recalls that when
I visited the brother-in-law of my present host in northern Bohemia I
had to laugh a great deal because the rural population referred to the
_élèves_ (pupils) of the school of forestry as _löwen_ (lions). Also
this jocose recollection might have taken part in the displacement of
the hyena by the lion.”
(_i_) The following example can also show how a personal complex
swaying the person at the time being may by devious ways bring about
the forgetting of a name.[7]
Two men, an elder and a younger, who had travelled together in Sicily
six months before, exchanged reminiscences of those pleasant and
interesting days.
“Let’s see, what was the name of that place,” asked the younger, “where
we passed the night before taking the trip to Selinunt? _Calatafini_,
was it not?”
The elder rejected this by saying: “Certainly not; but I have forgotten
the name, too, although I can recall perfectly all the details of the
place. Whenever I hear some one forget a name it immediately produces
forgetfulness in me. Let us look for the name. I cannot think of any
other name except _Caltanisetta_, which is surely not correct.”
“No,” said the younger, “the name begins with, or contains, a _w_.”
“But the Italian language contains no _w_,” retorted the elder.
“I really meant a _v_, and I said _w_ because I am accustomed to
interchange them in my mother tongue.”
The elder, however, objected to the _v_. He added: “I believe that I
have already forgotten many of the Sicilian names. Suppose we try to
find out. For example, what is the name of the place situated on a
height which was called _Enna_ in antiquity?”
“Oh, I know that: _Castrogiovanni_.” In the next moment the younger
man discovered the lost name. He cried out ‘_Castelvetrano_,’ and was
pleased to be able to demonstrate the supposed _v_.
For a moment the elder still lacked the feeling of recognition, but
after he accepted the name he was able to state why it had escaped him.
He thought: “Obviously because the second half, _vetrano_, suggests
_veteran_. I am aware that I am not quite anxious to think of ageing,
and react peculiarly when I am reminded of it. Thus, _e.g._, I had
recently reminded a very esteemed friend in most unmistakable terms
that he had ‘long ago passed the years of youth,’ because before this
he once remarked in the most flattering manner, ‘I am no longer a
young man.’ That my resistance was directed against the second half of
the name _Castelvetrano_ is shown by the fact that the initial sound of
the same returned in the substitutive name Caltanisetta.”
“What about the name Caltanisetta itself?” asked the younger.
“That always seemed to me like a pet name of a young woman,” admitted
the elder.
Somewhat later he added: “The name for _Enna_ was also only
a substitutive name. And now it occurs to me that the name
_Castrogiovanni_, which obtruded itself with the aid of a
rationalization, alludes as expressly to _giovane_, young, as the last
name, _Castelvetrano_, to _veteran_.”
The older man believed that he had thus accounted for his forgetting
the name. What the motive was that led the young man to this memory
failure was not investigated.
In some cases one must have recourse to all the fineness of
psychoanalytic technique in order to explain the forgetting of a
name. Those who wish to read an example of such work I refer to a
communication by Professor E. Jones.[8]
I could multiply the examples of name-forgetting and prolong the
discussion very much further if I did not wish to avoid elucidating
here almost all the view-points which will be considered in later
themes. I shall, however, take the liberty of comprehending in a few
sentences the results of the analyses reported here.
The mechanism of forgetting, or rather of losing or temporary
forgetting of a name, consists in the disturbance of the intended
reproduction of the name through a strange stream of thought
unconscious at the time. Between the disturbed name and the disturbing
complex there exists a connection either from the beginning or such
a connection has been formed--perhaps by artificial means--through
superficial (outer) associations.
The self-reference complex (personal, family or professional) proves to
be the most effective of the disturbing complexes.
A name which by virtue of its many meanings belongs to a number of
thought associations (complexes) is frequently disturbed in its
connection to one series of thoughts through a stronger complex
belonging to the other associations.
To avoid the awakening of pain through memory is one of the objects
among the motives of these disturbances.
In general one may distinguish two principal cases of name-forgetting;
when the name itself touches something unpleasant, or when it is
brought into connection with other associations which are influenced by
such effects. So that names can be disturbed on their own account or
on account of their nearer or more remote associative relations in the
reproduction.
A review of these general principles readily convinces us that the
temporary forgetting of a name is observed as the most frequent faulty
action of our mental functions.
However, we are far from having described all the peculiarities of
this phenomenon. I also wish to call attention to the fact that
name-forgetting is extremely contagious. In a conversation between
two persons the mere mention of having forgotten this or that name by
one often suffices to induce the same memory slip in the other. But
wherever the forgetting is induced, the sought for name easily comes to
the surface.
There is also a continuous forgetting of names in which whole chains
of names are withdrawn from memory. If in the course of endeavouring
to discover an escaped name one finds others with which the latter
is intimately connected, it often happens that these new names also
escape. The forgetting thus jumps from one name to another, as if to
demonstrate the existence of a hindrance not to be easily removed.
IV
CHILDHOOD AND CONCEALING MEMORIES
In a second essay[9] I was able to demonstrate the purposive nature
of our memories in an unexpected field. I started with the remarkable
fact that the earliest recollections of a person often seemed to
preserve the unimportant and accidental, whereas (frequently though
not universally!) not a trace is found in the adult memory of the
weighty and affective impressions of this period. As it is known that
the memory exercises a certain selection among the impressions at
its disposal, it would seem logical to suppose that this selection
follows entirely different principles in childhood than at the time
of intellectual maturity. However, close investigation points to the
fact that such an assumption is superfluous. The indifferent childhood
memories owe their existence to a process of displacement. It may be
shown by psychoanalysis that in the reproduction they represent the
substitute for other really significant impressions, whose direct
reproduction is hindered by some resistance. As they do not owe their
existence to their own contents, but to an associative relation of
their contents to another repressed thought, they deserve the title of
“concealing memories,” by which I have designated them.
In the aforementioned essay I only touched upon, but in no way
exhausted, the varieties in the relations and meanings of concealed
memories. In the given example fully analysed I particularly emphasized
a peculiarity in the temporal relation between the concealing memory
and the contents of the memory concealed by it. The content of the
concealing memory in that example belonged to one of the first years
of childhood, while the thoughts represented by it, which remained
practically unconscious, belonged to a later period of the individual
in question. I called this form of displacement a retro-active
or _regressive_ one. Perhaps more often one finds the reversed
relation--that is, an indifferent impression of the most remote period
becomes a concealing memory in consciousness, which simply owes its
existence to an association with an earlier experience, against
whose direct reproduction there are resistances. We would call these
_encroaching_ or _interposing_ concealing memories. What most concerns
the memory lies here chronologically beyond the concealing memory.
Finally, there may be a third possible case, namely, the concealing
memory may be connected with the impression it conceals, not only
through its contents, but also through contiguity of time; this is the
_contemporaneous_ or _contiguous_ concealing memory.
How large a portion of the sum total of our memory belongs to the
category of concealing memories, and what part it plays in various
neurotic hidden processes, these are problems into the value of which I
have neither inquired nor shall I enter here. I am concerned only with
emphasizing the sameness between the forgetting of proper names with
faulty recollection and the formation of concealing memories.
At first sight it would seem that the diversities of both phenomena are
far more striking than their exact analogies. There we deal with proper
names, here with complete impressions experienced either in reality
or in thought; there we deal with a manifest failure of the memory
function, here with a memory act which appears strange to us. Again,
there we are concerned with a momentary disturbance--for the name just
forgotten could have been reproduced correctly a hundred times before,
and will be so again from to-morrow on; here we deal with lasting
possession without a failure, for the indifferent childhood memories
seem to be able to accompany us through a great part of life. In both
these cases the riddle seems to be solved in an entirely different way.
There it is the forgetting, while here it is the remembering which
excites our scientific curiosity.
After deeper reflection one realizes that, although there is a
diversity in the psychic material and in the duration of time of the
two phenomena, yet these are by far outweighed by the conformities
between the two. In both cases we deal with the failure of remembering:
what should be correctly reproduced by the memory fails to appear,
and instead something else comes as a substitute. In the case of
forgetting a name there is no lack of memory function in the form
of name substitution. The formation of a concealing memory depends
on the forgetting of other important impressions. In both cases we
are reminded by an intellectual feeling of the intervention of a
disturbance, which in each case takes a different form. In the case
of forgetting of names we are aware that the substitutive names
are incorrect, while in concealing memories we are surprised that
we have them at all. Hence, if psychologic analysis demonstrates
that the substitutive formation in each case is brought about in
the same manner--that is, through displacement along a superficial
association--we are justified in saying that the diversities in
material, in duration of time, and in the centring of both phenomena
serve to enhance our expectation, that we have discovered something
that is important and of general value. This generality purports that
the stopping and straying of the reproducing function indicates more
often than we suppose that there is an intervention of a prejudicial
factor, a tendency which favours one memory and at the same time works
against another.
The subject of childhood memories appears to me so important and
interesting that I would like to devote to it a few additional remarks
which go beyond the views expressed so far.
How far back into childhood do our memories reach? I am familiar
with some investigations on this question by V. and C. Henri[10] and
Potwin.[11] They assert that such examinations show wide individual
variations, inasmuch as some trace their first reminiscences to
the sixth month of life, while others can recall nothing of their
lives before the end of the sixth or even the eighth year. But what
connection is there between these variations in the behaviour of
childhood reminiscences, and what signification may be ascribed to
them? It seems that it is not enough to procure the material for this
question by simple inquiry, but it must later be subjected to a study
in which the person furnishing the information must participate.
I believe we accept too indifferently the fact of infantile
amnesia--that is, the failure of memory for the first years of our
lives--and fail to find in it a strange riddle. We forget of what
great intellectual accomplishments and of what complicated emotions
a child of four years is capable. We really ought to wonder why the
memory of later years has, as a rule, retained so little of these
psychic processes, especially as we have every reason for assuming that
these same forgotten childhood activities have not glided off without
leaving a trace in the development of the person, but that they have
left a definite influence for all future time. Yet in spite of this
unparalleled effectiveness they were forgotten! This would suggest that
there are particularly formed conditions of memory (in the sense of
conscious reproduction) which have thus far eluded our knowledge. It
is quite possible that the forgetting of childhood may give us the key
to the understanding of those amnesias which, according to our newer
studies, lie at the basis of the formation of all neurotic symptoms.
Of these retained childhood reminiscences, some appear to us readily
comprehensible, while others seem strange or unintelligible. It is not
difficult to correct certain errors in regard to both kinds. If the
retained reminiscences of a person are subjected to an analytic test,
it can be readily ascertained that a guarantee for their correctness
does not exist. Some of the memory pictures are surely falsified and
incomplete, or displaced in point of time and place. The assertions of
persons examined that their first memories reach back perhaps to their
second year are evidently unreliable. Motives can soon be discovered
which explain the disfigurement and the displacement of these
experiences, but they also demonstrate that these memory lapses are not
the result of a mere unreliable memory. Powerful forces from a later
period have moulded the memory capacity of our infantile experiences,
and it is probably due to these same forces that the understanding of
our childhood is generally so very strange to us.
The recollection of adults, as is known, proceeds through different
psychic material. Some recall by means of visual pictures--their
memories are of a visual character; other individuals can scarcely
reproduce in memory the most paltry sketch of an experience; we
call such persons “_auditifs_” and “_moteurs_” in contrast to the
“_visuels_,” terms proposed by Charcot. These differences vanish
in dreams; all our dreams are preponderatingly visual. But this
development is also found in the childhood memories; the latter are
plastic and visual, even in those people whose later memory lacks the
visual element. The visual memory, therefore, preserves the type of
the infantile recollections. Only my earliest childhood memories are
of a visual character; they represent plastically depicted scenes,
comparable only to stage settings.
In these scenes of childhood, whether they prove true or false, one
usually sees his own childish person both in contour and dress. This
circumstance must excite our wonder, for adults do not see their
own persons in their recollections of later experiences.[12] It is,
moreover, against our experiences to assume that the child’s attention
during his experiences is centred on himself rather than exclusively
on outside impressions. Various sources force us to assume that the
so-called earliest childhood recollections are not true memory traces
but later elaborations of the same, elaborations which might have been
subjected to the influences of many later psychic forces. Thus the
“childhood reminiscences” of individuals altogether advance to the
signification of “concealing memories,” and thereby form a noteworthy
analogy to the childhood reminiscences as laid down in the legends and
myths of nations.
Whoever has examined mentally a number of persons by the method of
psychoanalysis must have gathered in this work numerous examples
of concealing memories of every description. However, owing to
the previously discussed nature of the relations of the childhood
reminiscences to later life, it becomes extraordinarily difficult
to report such examples. For, in order to attach the value of the
concealing memory to an infantile reminiscence, it would be often
necessary to present the entire life-history of the person concerned.
Only seldom is it possible, as in the following good example, to take
out from its context and report a single childhood memory.
A twenty-four-year-old man preserved the following picture from the
fifth year of his life: In the garden of a summer-house he sat on a
stool next to his aunt, who was engaged in teaching him the alphabet.
He found difficulty in distinguishing the letter _m_ from _n_, and he
begged his aunt to tell him how to tell one from the other. His aunt
called his attention to the fact that the letter _m_ had one whole
portion (a stroke) more than the letter _n_. There was no reason to
dispute the reliability of this childhood recollection; its meaning,
however, was discovered only later, when it showed itself to be the
symbolic representation of another boyish inquisitiveness. For just as
he wanted to know the difference between _m_ and _n_ at that time,
so he concerned himself later about the difference between boy and
girl, and he would have been willing that just this aunt should be his
teacher. He also discovered that the difference was a similar one; that
the boy again had one whole portion more than the girl, and at the time
of this recognition his memory awoke to the corresponding childish
inquisitiveness.
I would like to show by one more example the sense that may be gained
by a childhood reminiscence through analytic work, although it may
seem to contain no sense before. In my forty-third year, when I began
to interest myself in what remained in my memory of my own childhood,
a scene struck me which for a long time, as I afterwards believed,
had repeatedly come to consciousness, and which through reliable
identification could be traced to a period before the completion of my
third year. I saw myself in front of a chest, the door of which was
held open by my half-brother, twenty years my senior. I stood there
demanding something and screaming; my mother, pretty and slender, then
suddenly entered the room, as if returning from the street.