A. A. Brill. In a letter to Dr. Brill a patient tried to attribute
his nervousness to business worries and excitement during the cotton
crisis. He went on to say: “My trouble is all due to that d---- frigid
wave; there isn’t even any seed to be obtained for new crops.” He
referred to a cold wave which had destroyed the cotton crops, but
instead of writing “wave” he wrote “wife.” In the bottom of his heart
he entertained reproaches against his wife on account of her marital
frigidity and childlessness, and he was not far from the cognition that
the enforced abstinence played no little part in the causation of his
malady.
Omissions in writing are naturally explained in the same manner as
mistakes in writing. A remarkable example of omission which is of
historic importance was reported by Dr. B. Dattner.[29] In one of
the legal articles dealing with the financial obligations of both
countries, which was drawn up in the year 1867 during the readjustment
between Austria and Hungary, the word “effective” was accidentally
omitted in the Hungarian translation. Dattner thinks it probable that
the unconscious desire of the Hungarian law-makers to grant Austria the
least possible advantages had something to do with this omission.
Another example of omission is the following related by Brill:
“A prospective patient, who had corresponded with me relative to
treatment, finally wrote for an appointment for a certain day. Instead
of keeping his appointment he sent regrets which began as follows:
‘Owing to _foreseen_ circumstances I am unable to keep my appointment.’
He naturally meant to write _unforeseen_. He finally came to me
months later, and in the course of the analysis I discovered that
my suspicions at the time were justified; there were no unforeseen
circumstances to prevent his coming at that time; he was advised not to
come to me. The unconscious does not lie.”
Wundt gives a most noteworthy proof for the easily ascertained fact
that we more easily make mistakes in writing than in speaking (_loc.
cit._, p. 374). He states: “In the course of normal conversation the
inhibiting function of the will is constantly directed toward bringing
into harmony the course of ideation with the movement of articulation.
If the articulation following the ideas becomes retarded through
mechanical causes, as in writing, such anticipations then readily make
their appearance.”
Observation of the determinants which favour lapses in reading gives
rise to doubt, which I do not like to leave unmentioned, because I am
of the opinion that it may become the starting-point of a fruitful
investigation. It is a familiar fact that in reading aloud the
attention of the reader often wanders from the text and is directed
toward his own thoughts. The results of this deviation of attention
are often such that when interrupted and questioned he cannot even
state what he has read. In other words, he has read automatically,
although the reading was nearly always correct. I do not think that
such conditions favour any noticeable increase in the mistakes. We are
accustomed to assume concerning a whole series of functions that they
are most precisely performed when done automatically, with scarcely
any conscious attention. This argues that the conditions governing
attention in mistakes in speaking, writing, and reading must be
differently determined than assumed by Wundt (cessation or diminution
of attention). The examples which we have subjected to analysis have
really not given us the right to take for granted a quantitative
diminution of attention. We found what is probably not exactly the
same thing, a disturbance of the attention through a strange obtruding
thought.
VII
FORGETTING OF IMPRESSIONS AND RESOLUTIONS
If any one should be inclined to overrate the state of our present
knowledge of mental life, all that would be needed to force him to
assume a modest attitude would be to remind him of the function of
memory. No psychologic theory has yet been able to account for the
connection between the fundamental phenomena of remembering and
forgetting; indeed, even the complete analysis of that which one can
actually observe has as yet scarcely been grasped. To-day forgetting
has perhaps grown more puzzling than remembering, especially since
we have learned from the study of dreams and pathologic states that
even what for a long time we believed forgotten may suddenly return to
consciousness.
To be sure, we are in possession of some view-points which we hope
will receive general recognition. Thus we assume that forgetting is
a spontaneous process to which we may ascribe a certain temporal
discharge. We emphasize the fact that, just as among the units of
every impression or experience, in forgetting, too, a certain selection
takes place among the existing impressions. We are acquainted with some
of the conditions that underlie the tenaciousness of memory and the
awakening of that which would otherwise remain forgotten. Nevertheless,
we can observe in innumerable cases of daily life how unreliable and
unsatisfactory our knowledge of the mechanism is. Thus we may listen
to two persons exchanging reminiscences concerning the same outward
impressions, say of a journey that they have taken together some time
before. What remains most firmly in the memory of the one is often
forgotten by the other, as if it had never occurred, even when there
is not the slightest reason to assume that this impression is of
greater psychic importance for the one than for the other. A great many
of those factors which determine the selective power of memory are
obviously still beyond our ken.
With the purpose of adding some small contribution to the knowledge of
the conditions of forgetting, I was wont to subject to a psychologic
analysis those cases in which forgetting concerned me personally. As
a rule I took up only a certain group of those cases, namely, those
in which the forgetting astonished me, because, in my opinion, I
should have remembered the experience in question. I wish further to
remark that I am generally not inclined to forgetfulness (of things
experienced, not of things learned), and that for a short period of my
youth I was able to perform extraordinary feats of memory. When I was a
schoolboy it was quite natural for me to be able to repeat from memory
the page of a book which I had read; and shortly before I entered the
University I could write down practically verbatim the popular lectures
on scientific subjects directly after hearing them. In the tension
before the final medical examination I must have made use of the
remnant of this ability, for in certain subjects I gave the examiners
apparently automatic answers, which proved to be exact reproductions
of the text-book, which I had skimmed through but once and then in
greatest haste.
Since those days I have steadily lost control over my memory; of
late, however, I became convinced that with the aid of a certain
artifice I can recall far more than I would otherwise credit myself
with remembering. For example, when, during my office hours, a patient
states that I have seen him before and I cannot recall either the fact
or the time, then I help myself by guessing--that is, I allow a number
of years, beginning from the present time, to come to my mind quickly.
Whenever this could be controlled by records of definite information
from the patient, it was always shown that in over ten years[30] I
have seldom missed it by more than six months. The same thing happens
when I meet a casual acquaintance and, from politeness, inquire about
his small child. When he tells of its progress I try to fancy how
old the child now is. I control my estimate by the information given
by the father, and at most I make a mistake of a month, and in older
children of three months. I cannot state, however, what basis I have
for this estimate. Of late I have grown so bold that I always offer my
estimate spontaneously, and still run no risk of grieving the father by
displaying my ignorance in regard to his offspring. Thus I extend my
conscious memory by invoking my larger unconscious memory.
I shall report some _striking_ examples of forgetting which for the
most part I have observed in myself. I distinguish forgetting of
impressions and experiences, that is, the forgetting of knowledge, from
forgetting of resolutions, that is, the forgetting of omissions. The
uniform result of the entire series of observations I can formulate
as follows: _The forgetting in all cases is proved to be founded on a
motive of displeasure._
A. FORGETTING OF IMPRESSIONS AND KNOWLEDGE.
(_a_) During the summer my wife once made me very angry, although
the cause in itself was trifling. We sat in a restaurant opposite a
gentleman from Vienna whom I knew, and who had cause to know me, and
whose acquaintance I had reasons for not wishing to renew. My wife,
who had heard nothing to the disrepute of the man opposite her, showed
by her actions that she was listening to his conversation with his
neighbours, for from time to time she asked me questions which took
up the thread of their discussion. I became impatient and finally
irritated. A few weeks later I complained to a relative about this
behaviour on the part of my wife, but I was not able to recall even
a single word of the conversation of the gentleman in the case. As I
am usually rather resentful and cannot forget a single incident of an
episode that has annoyed me, my amnesia in this case was undoubtedly
determined by respect for my wife.
A short time ago I had a similar experience. I wished to make merry
with an intimate friend over a statement made by my wife only a few
hours earlier, but I found myself hindered by the noteworthy fact that
I had entirely forgotten the statement. I had first to beg my wife to
recall it to me. It is easy to understand that my forgetting in this
case may be analogous to the typical disturbance of judgment which
dominates us when it concerns those nearest to us.
(_b_) To oblige a woman who was a stranger in Vienna I had undertaken
to procure a small iron safe for the preservation of documents and
money. When I offered my services, the image of an establishment in
the heart of the city where I was sure I had seen such safes floated
before me with extraordinary visual vividness. To be sure, I could
not recall the name of the street, but I felt certain that I would
discover the store in a walk through the city, for my memory told me
that I had passed it countless times. To my chagrin I could not find
this establishment with the safes, though I walked through the inner
part of the city in every direction. I concluded that the only thing
left to do was to search through a business directory, and if that
failed, to try to identify the establishment in a second round of the
city. It did not, however, require so much effort; among the addresses
in the directory I found one which immediately presented itself as
that which had been forgotten. It was true that I had passed the show
window countless times, each time, however, when I had gone to visit
the M. family, who have lived a great many years in this identical
building. After this intimate friendship had turned to an absolute
estrangement, I had taken care to avoid the neighbourhood as well as
the house, though without ever thinking of the reason for my action. In
my walk through the city searching for the safe in the show window I
had traversed every street in the neighbourhood but the right one, and
I had avoided this as if it were forbidden ground.
The motive of displeasure which was at the bottom of my disorientation
is thus comprehensible. But the mechanism of forgetting is no longer so
simple as in the former example. Here my aversion naturally does not
extend to the vendor of safes, but to another person, concerning whom
I wish to know nothing, and later transfers itself from the latter to
this incident where it brings about the forgetting. Similarly, in the
case of _Burckhard_ mentioned above, the grudge against the one brought
about the error in writing the name of the other. The similarity of
names which here established a connection between two essentially
different streams of thought was accomplished in the showcase window
instance by the contiguity of space and the inseparable environment.
Moreover, this latter case was more closely knit together, for money
played a great part in the causation of the estrangement from the
family living in this house.
(_c_) The B. and R. Company requested me to pay a professional call
on one of their officers. On my way to him I was engrossed in the
thought that I must already have been in the building occupied by the
firm. It seemed as if I used to see their signboard in a lower story
while my professional visit was taking me to a higher story. I could
not recall, however, which house it was nor when I had called there.
Although the entire matter was indifferent and of no consequence, I
nevertheless occupied myself with it, and at last learned in the usual
roundabout way, by collecting the thoughts that occurred to me in this
connection, that one story above the floor occupied by the firm B. and
R. was the _Pension Fischer_, where I had frequently visited patients.
Then I remembered the building which sheltered both the company and the
_pension_.
I was still puzzled, however, as to the motive that entered into
play in this forgetting. I found nothing disagreeable in my memory
concerning the firm itself or the _Pension Fischer_, or the patients
living there. I was also aware that it could not deal with anything
very painful, otherwise I hardly would have been successful in tracing
the thing forgotten in a roundabout way without resorting to external
aid, as happened in the preceding example. Finally it occurred to me
that a little before, while starting on my way to a new patient, a
gentleman whom I had difficulty in recalling greeted me in the street.
Some months previously I had seen this man in an apparently serious
condition and had made the diagnosis of general paresis, but later
I had learned of his recovery, consequently my judgment had been
incorrect. Was it not possible that we had in this case a remission,
which one usually finds in _dementia paralytica_? In that contingency
my diagnosis would still be justified. The influence emanating from
this meeting caused me to forget the neighbourhood of the B. and
R. Company, and my interest to discover the thing forgotten was
transferred from this case of disputed diagnosis. But the associative
connection in this loose inner relation was effected by means of a
similarity of names: the man who recovered, contrary to expectation,
was also an officer of a large company that recommends patients to me.
And the physician with whom I had seen the supposed paretic bore the
name of Fischer, the name of the _pension_ in the house which I had
forgotten.
(_d_) Mislaying a thing really has the same significance as forgetting
where we have placed it. Like most people delving in pamphlets and
books, I am well oriented about my desk, and can produce what I want
with one lunge. What appears to others as disorder has become for
me perfect order. Why, then, did I mislay a catalogue which was
sent to me not long ago so that it could not be found? What is more,
it had been my intention to order a book which I found announced
therein, entitled _Ueber die Sprache_, because it was written by an
author whose spirited, vivacious style I like, whose insight into
psychology and whose knowledge of the cultural world I have learned
to appreciate. I believe that was just why I mislaid the catalogue.
It was my habit to lend the books of this author among my friends for
their enlightenment, and a few days before, on returning one, somebody
had said: “His style reminds me altogether of yours, and his way of
thinking is identical.” The speaker did not know what he was stirring
up with this remark. Years ago, when I was younger and in greater need
of forming alliances, I was told practically the same thing by an
older colleague, to whom I had recommended the writings of a familiar
medical author. To put it in his words, “It is absolutely your style
and manner.” I was so influenced by these remarks that I wrote a letter
to this author with the object of bringing about a closer relation, but
a rather cool answer put me back “in my place.” Perhaps still earlier
discouraging experiences conceal themselves behind this last one,
for I did not find the mislaid catalogue. Through this premonition I
was actually prevented from ordering the advertised book, although
the disappearance of the catalogue formed no real hindrance, as I
remembered well both the name of the book and the author.
(_e_) Another case of mislaying merits our interest on account of
the conditions under which the mislaid object was rediscovered. A
younger man narrates as follows: “Several years ago there were some
misunderstandings between me and my wife. I found her too cold, and
though I fully appreciated her excellent qualities, we lived together
without evincing any tenderness for each other. One day on her return
from a walk she gave me a book which she had bought because she thought
it would interest me. I thanked her for this mark of ‘attention,’
promised to read the book, put it away, and did not find it again. So
months passed, during which I occasionally remembered the lost book,
and also tried in vain to find it.
“About six months later my beloved mother, who was not living with
us, became ill. My wife left home to nurse her mother-in-law. The
patient’s condition became serious and gave my wife the opportunity
to show the best side of herself. One evening I returned home full of
enthusiasm over what my wife had accomplished, and felt very grateful
to her. I stepped to my desk and, without definite intention but with
the certainty of a somnambulist, I opened a certain drawer, and in the
very top of it I found the long-missing, mislaid book.”
The following example of “misplacing” belongs to a type well known to
every psychoanalyst. I must add that the patient who experienced this
misplacing has himself found the solution of it.
This patient, whose psychoanalytic treatment had to be interrupted
through the summer vacation when he was in a state of resistance and
ill-health, put away his keys in the evening in their usual place, or
so he thought. He then remembered that he wished to take some things
from his desk, where he also had put the money which he needed on the
journey. He was to depart the next day, which was the last day of
treatment and the date when the doctor’s fee was due. But the keys had
disappeared.
He began a thorough and systematic search through his small apartment.
He became more and more excited over it, but his search was
unsuccessful. As he recognized this “misplacement” as a symptomatic
act--that is, as being intentional--he aroused his servant in order
to continue his search with the help of an “unprejudiced” person.
After another hour he gave up the search and feared that he had lost
the keys. The next morning he ordered new keys from the desk factory,
which were hurriedly made for him. Two acquaintances who had been with
him in a cab even recalled hearing something fall to the ground as he
stepped out of the cab, and he was therefore convinced that the keys
had slipped from his pocket. They were found lying between a thick book
and a thin pamphlet, the latter a work of one of my pupils, which he
wished to take along as reading matter for his vacation; and they were
so skilfully placed that no one would have supposed that they were
there. He himself was unable to replace the keys in such a position as
to render them invisible. The unconscious skill with which an object
is misplaced on account of secret but strong motives reminds one of
“somnambulistic sureness.” The motive was naturally ill-humour over the
interruption of the treatment and the secret rage over the fact that he
had to pay such a high fee when he felt so ill.
(_f_) Brill relates:[31] “A man was urged by his wife to attend a
social function in which he really took no interest. Yielding to his
wife’s entreaties, he began to take his dress-suit from the trunk when
he suddenly thought of shaving. After accomplishing this he returned to
the trunk and found it locked. Despite a long, earnest search the key
could not be found. A locksmith could not be found on Sunday evening,
so that the couple had to send their regrets. On having the trunk
opened the next morning the lost key was found within. The husband had
absent-mindedly dropped the key into the trunk and sprung the lock. He
assured me that this was wholly unintentional and unconscious, but we
know that he did not wish to go to this social affair. The mislaying of
the key therefore lacked no motive.”
Ernest Jones noticed in himself that he was in the habit of mislaying
his pipe whenever he suffered from the effects of over-smoking. The
pipe was then found in some unusual place where it did not belong and
which it normally did not occupy.
If one looks over the cases of mislaying it will be difficult to assume
that mislaying is anything other than the result of an unconscious
intention.
(_g_) In the summer of 1901 I once remarked to a friend with whom I
was then actively engaged in exchanging ideas on scientific questions:
“These neurotic problems can be solved only if we take the position of
absolutely accepting an original bi-sexuality in every individual.” To
which he replied: “I told you that two and a half years ago while we
were taking an evening walk in Br. At that time you wouldn’t listen to
it.”
It is truly painful to be thus requested to renounce one’s originality.
I could neither recall such a conversation nor my friend’s revelation.
One of us must be mistaken; and according to the principle of the
question _cui prodest_? I must be the one. Indeed, in the course of
the following weeks everything came back to me just as my friend had
recalled it. I myself remembered that at that time I gave the answer:
“I have not yet got so far, and I do not care to discuss it.” But since
this incident I have grown more tolerant when I miss any mention of my
name in medical literature in connection with ideas for which I deserve
credit.
It is scarcely accidental that the numerous examples of forgetting
which have been collected without any selection should require for
their solution the introduction of such painful themes as exposing of
one’s wife; a friendship that has turned into the opposite; a mistake
in medical diagnosis; enmity on account of similar pursuits, or the
borrowing of somebody’s ideas. I am rather inclined to believe that
every person who will undertake an inquiry into the motives underlying
his forgetting will be able to fill up a similar sample card of
vexatious circumstances. The tendency to forget the disagreeable seems
to me to be quite general; the capacity for it is naturally differently
developed in different persons. Certain _denials_ which we encounter
in medical practice can probably be ascribed to _forgetting_.[32] Our
conception of such forgetting confines the distinction between this and
that behaviour to purely psychologic relations, and permits us to see
in both forms of reaction the expression of the same motive. Of the
numerous examples of denials of unpleasant recollection which I have
observed in kinsmen of patients, one remains in my memory as especially
singular.
A mother telling me of the childhood of her nervous son, now in his
puberty, made the statement that, like his brothers and sisters, he
was subject to bed-wetting throughout his childhood, a symptom which
certainly has some significance in a history of a neurotic patient.
Some weeks later, while seeking information regarding the treatment, I
had occasion to call her attention to signs of a constitutional morbid
predisposition in the young man, and at the same time referred to the
bed-wetting recounted in the anamnesis. To my surprise she contested
this fact concerning him, denying it as well for the other children,
and asked me how I could possibly know this. Finally I let her know
that she herself had told me a short time before what she had thus
forgotten.[33]