not neurotic, persons resistances are found against the memory of
disagreeable impressions and the idea of painful thoughts.[34] But the
full significance of this fact can be estimated only when we enter
into the psychology of neurotic persons. One is forced to make such
elementary defensive striving against ideas which can awaken painful
feelings, a striving which can be put side by side only with the
flight-reflex in painful stimuli, as the main pillar of the mechanism
which carries the hysterical symptoms. One need not offer any objection
to the acceptance of such defensive tendency on the ground that we
frequently find it impossible to rid ourselves of painful memories
which cling to us, or to banish such painful emotions as remorse and
reproaches of conscience. No one maintains that this defensive tendency
invariably gains the upper hand, that in the play of psychic forces it
may not strike against factors which stir up the contrary feeling for
other purposes and bring it about in spite of it.
_As the architectural principle of the psychic apparatus we may
conjecture a certain stratification or structure of instances deposited
in strata._ And it is quite possible that this defensive tendency
belongs to a lower psychic instance, and is inhibited by higher
instances. At all events, it speaks for the existence and force of
this defensive tendency, when we can trace it to processes such as
those found in our examples of forgetting. We see then that something
is forgotten for its own sake, and where this is not possible the
defensive tendency misses the target and causes something else to
be forgotten--something less significant, but which has fallen into
associative connection with the disagreeable material.
The views here developed, namely, that painful memories merge into
motivated forgetting with special ease, merits application in many
spheres where as yet it has found no, or scarcely any, recognition.
Thus it seems to me that it has not yet been strongly enough emphasized
in the estimation of testimony taken in court,[35] where the putting
of a witness under oath obviously leads us to place too great a
trust on the purifying influence of his psychic play of forces. It
is universally admitted that in the origin of the traditions and
folklore of a people care must be taken to eliminate from memory
such a motive as would be painful to the national feeling. Perhaps
on closer investigation it may be possible to form a perfect analogy
between the manner of development of national traditions and infantile
reminiscences of the individual. The great Darwin has formulated a
“golden rule” for the scientific worker from his insight into this
pain-motive of forgetting.[36]
Almost exactly as in the forgetting of names, faulty recollections can
also appear in the forgetting of impressions, and when finding credence
they may be designated as delusions of memory. The memory disturbance
in pathologic cases (in paranoia it actually plays the rôle of a
constituting factor in the formation of delusions) has brought to light
an extensive literature in which there is no reference whatever to its
being motivated. As this theme also belongs to the psychology of the
neuroses it goes beyond our present treatment. Instead, I will give
from my own experience a curious example of memory disturbance showing
clearly enough its determination through unconscious repressed material
and its connection with this material.
While writing the latter chapters of my volume on the interpretation
of dreams, I happened to be in a summer resort without access to
libraries and reference books, so that I was compelled to introduce
into the manuscript all kinds of references and citations from memory.
These I naturally reserved for future correction. In the chapter
on day-dreams I thought of the distinguished figure of the poor
book-keeper in Alphonse Daudet’s _Nabab_, through whom the author
probably described his own day-dreams. I imagined that I distinctly
remembered one fantasy of this man, whom I called Mr. Jocelyn, which he
hatched while walking the streets of Paris, and I began to reproduce
it from memory. This fantasy described how Mr. Jocelyn boldly hurled
himself at a runaway horse and brought it to a standstill; how the
carriage door opened and a great personage stepped from the coupé,
pressed Mr. Jocelyn’s hand and said: “You are my saviour--I owe my life
to you! What can I do for you?”
I assured myself that casual inaccuracies in the rendition of this
fantasy could readily be corrected at home on consulting the book. But
when I perused _Nabab_ in order to compare it with my manuscript, I
found to my very great shame and consternation that there was nothing
to suggest such a dream by Mr. Jocelyn; indeed, the poor book-keeper
did not even bear this name--he was called Mr. Joyeuse.
This second error then furnished the key for the solution of the first
mistake, the faulty reminiscence. Joyeux, of which Joyeuse is the
feminine form, was the only possible word which would translate my
own name _Freud_ into French. Whence, therefore, came this falsely
remembered fantasy which I had attributed to Daudet? It could only be
a product of my own, a day-dream which I myself had spun, and which
did not become conscious, or which was once conscious and had since
been absolutely forgotten. Perhaps I invented it myself in Paris, where
frequently enough I walked the streets alone, and full of longing for
a helper and protector, until Charcot took me into his circle. I had
often met the author of _Nabab_ in Charcot’s house. But the provoking
part of it all is the fact that there is scarcely anything to which I
am so hostile as the thought of being some one’s protégé. What we see
of this sort of thing in our country spoils all desire for it, and my
character is little suited to the rôle of a protected child. I have
always entertained an immense desire to “be the strong man myself.” And
it had to happen that I should be reminded of such a, to be sure, never
fulfilled, day-dream! Besides, this incident is a good example of how
the restraint relation to one’s ego, which breaks forth triumphantly in
paranoia, disturbs and entangles us in the objective grasp of things.
Another case of faulty recollection which can be satisfactorily
explained resembles the _fausse reconnaissance_ to be discussed later.
I related to one of my patients, an ambitious and very capable man,
that a young student had recently gained admittance into the circle
of my pupils by means of an interesting work, _Der Künstler, Versuch
einer Sexualpsychologie_. When, a year and a quarter later, this work
lay before me in print, my patient maintained that he remembered
with certainty having read somewhere, perhaps in a bookseller’s
advertisement, the announcement of the same book even before I first
mentioned it to him. He remembered that this announcement came to his
mind at that time, and he ascertained besides that the author had
changed the title, that it no longer read “_Versuch_” but “_Ansätze zu
einer Sexualpsychologie_.”
Careful inquiry of the author and comparison of all dates showed
conclusively that my patient was trying to recall the impossible. No
notice of this work had appeared anywhere before its publication,
certainly not a year and a quarter before it went to print. However, I
neglected to seek a solution for this false recollection until the same
man brought about an equally valuable renewal of it. He thought that he
had recently noticed a work on “agoraphobia” in the show window of a
bookshop, and as he was now looking for it in all available catalogues
I was able to explain to him why his effort must remain fruitless.
The work on agoraphobia existed only in his fantasy as an unconscious
resolution to write such a book himself. His ambition to emulate
that young man, and through such a scientific work to become one of
my pupils, had led him to the first as well as to the second false
recollection. He also recalled later that the bookseller’s announcement
which had occasioned his false reminiscence dealt with a work entitled
_Genesis, Das Gesetz der Zeugung_ (“Genesis, The Law of Generation”).
But the change in the title as mentioned by him was really instigated
by me; I recalled that I myself have perpetrated the same inaccuracy
in the repetition of the title by saying “_Ansätze_” in place of
“_Versuch_.”
B. FORGETTING OF INTENTIONS.
No other group of phenomena is better qualified to demonstrate the
thesis that lack of attention does not in itself suffice to explain
faulty acts as the forgetting of intentions. An intention is an impulse
for an action which has already found approbation, but whose execution
is postponed for a suitable occasion. Now, in the interval thus created
sufficient change may take place in the motive to prevent the intention
from coming to execution. It is not, however, forgotten, it is simply
revised and omitted.
We are naturally not in the habit of explaining the forgetting of
intentions which we daily experience in every possible situation as
being due to a recent change in the adjustment of motives. We generally
leave it unexplained, or we seek a psychologic explanation in the
assumption that at the time of execution the required attention for the
action, which was an indispensable condition for the occurrence of the
intention, and was then at the disposal of the same action, no longer
exists. Observation of our normal behaviour towards intentions urges
us to reject this tentative explanation as arbitrary. If I resolve in
the morning to carry out a certain intention in the evening, I may be
reminded of it several times in the course of the day, but it is not
at all necessary that it should become conscious throughout the day.
As the time for its execution approaches it suddenly occurs to me and
induces me to make the necessary preparation for the intended action.
If I go walking and take a letter with me to be posted, it is not
at all necessary that I, as a normal not nervous individual, should
carry it in my hand and continually look for a letter-box. As a matter
of fact I am accustomed to put it in my pocket and give my thoughts
free rein on my way, feeling confident that the first letter-box will
attract my attention and cause me to put my hand in my pocket and draw
out the letter.
This normal behaviour in a formed intention corresponds perfectly
with the experimentally produced conduct of persons who are under a
so-called “post-hypnotic suggestion” to perform something after a
certain time.[37] We are accustomed to describe the phenomenon in
the following manner: the suggested intention slumbers in the person
concerned until the time for its execution approaches. Then it awakes
and excites the action.
In two positions of life even the layman is cognizant of the fact
that forgetting referring to intended purposes can in no wise claim
consideration as an elementary phenomenon no further reducible, but
realizes that it ultimately depends on unadmitted motives. I refer
to affairs of love and military service. A lover who is late at the
appointed place will vainly tell his sweetheart that unfortunately
he has entirely forgotten their rendezvous. She will not hesitate
to answer him: “A year ago you would not have forgotten. Evidently
you no longer care for me.” Even if he should grasp the above cited
psychologic explanation, and should wish to excuse his forgetting
on the plea of important business, he would only elicit the answer
from the woman, who has become as keen-sighted as the physician in
the psychoanalytic treatment, “How remarkable that such business
disturbances did not occur before!” Of course the woman does not
wish to deny the possibility of forgetting; but she believes, and
not without reason, that practically the same inference of a certain
unwillingness may be drawn from the unintentional forgetting as from a
conscious subterfuge.
Similarly, in military service no distinction is recognized between
an omission resulting from forgetting and one in consequence of
intentional neglect. And rightly so. The soldier dares forget nothing
that military service demands of him. If he forgets in spite of this,
even when he is acquainted with the demands, then it is due to the fact
that the motives which urge the fulfilment of the military exactions
are opposed by contrary motives. Thus the one year’s volunteer[38] who
at inspection pleads forgetting as an excuse for not having polished
his buttons is sure to be punished. But this punishment is small in
comparison to the one he courts if he admits to his superiors that the
motive for his negligence is because “this miserable menial service is
altogether disgusting to me.” Owing to this saving of punishment for
economic reasons, as it were, he makes use of forgetting as an excuse,
or it comes about as a compromise.
The service of women (as well as the military service of the State)
demands that nothing relating to that service be subject to forgetting.
Thus it but suggests that forgetting is permissible in unimportant
matters, but in weighty matters its occurrence is an indication that
one wishes to treat weighty matters as unimportant: that is, that
their importance is disputed.[39] The view-point of psychic validity
is in fact not to be contested here. No person forgets to carry out
actions that seem important to himself without exposing himself to the
suspicion of being a sufferer from mental weakness. Our investigations
therefore can extend only to the forgetting of more or less secondary
intentions, for no intention do we deem absolutely indifferent,
otherwise it would certainly never have been formed.
As in the preceding functional disturbances, I have collected the cases
of neglect through forgetting which I have observed in myself, and
endeavoured to explain them. I have found that they could invariably
be traced to some interference of unknown and unadmitted motives--or,
as may be said, they were due to a counter-will. In a number of
these cases I found myself in a position similar to that of being in
some distasteful service: I was under a constraint to which I had not
entirely resigned myself, so that I showed my protest in the form of
forgetting. This accounts for the fact that I am particularly prone
to forget to send congratulations on such occasions as birthdays,
jubilees, wedding celebrations, and promotions to higher rank. I
continually make new resolutions, but I am more than ever convinced
that I shall not succeed. I am now on the point of giving it up
altogether, and to admit consciously the striving motives. In a period
of transition, I told a friend who asked me to send a congratulatory
telegram for him, at a certain time when I was to send one myself,
that I would probably forget both. It was not surprising that the
prophecy came true. It is undoubtedly due to painful experiences in
life that I am unable to manifest sympathy where this manifestation
must necessarily appear exaggerated, for the small amount of my feeling
does not admit the corresponding expression. Since I have learned that
I often mistook the pretended sympathy of others for real, I am in
rebellion against the conventions of expressing sympathy, the social
expediency of which I naturally acknowledge. Condolences in cases of
death are excepted from this double treatment; once I determine to
send them I do not neglect them. Where my emotional participation has
nothing more to do with social duty, its expression is never inhibited
by forgetting.
Cases in which we forget to carry out actions which we have promised
to do as a favour for others can similarly be explained as antagonism
to conventional duty and as an unfavourable inward opinion. Here
it regularly proves correct, inasmuch as the only person appealed
to believes in the excusing power of forgetfulness, while the one
requesting the favour has no doubt about the right answer: he has no
interest in this matter, otherwise he would not have forgotten it.
There are some who are noted as generally forgetful, and we
excuse their lapses in the same manner as we excuse those who are
short-sighted when they do not greet us in the street.[40] Such persons
forget all small promises which they have made; they leave unexecuted
all orders which they have received; they prove themselves unreliable
in little things; and at the same time demand that we shall not take
these slight offences amiss--that is, they do not want us to attribute
these failings to personal characteristics but to refer them to an
organic peculiarity.[41] I am not one of these people myself, and have
had no opportunity to analyse the actions of such a person in order to
discover from the selection of forgetting the motive underlying the
same. I cannot forego, however, the conjecture _per analogiam_, that
here the motive is an unusual large amount of unavowed disregard for
others which exploits the constitutional factor for its purpose.[42]
In other cases the motives for forgetting are less easy to discover,
and when found excite greater astonishment. Thus, in former years I
observed that of a great number of professional calls I only forgot
those that I was to make on patients whom I treated gratis or on
colleagues. The mortification caused by this discovery led me to
the habit of noting every morning the calls of the day in a form of
resolution. I do not know if other physicians have come to the same
practice by a similar road. Thus we get an idea of what causes the
so-called neurasthenic to make a memorandum of the communications
he wishes to make to the doctor. He apparently lacks confidence in
the reproductive capacity of his memory. This is true, but the scene
usually proceeds in this manner. The patient has recounted his various
complaints and inquiries at considerable length. After he has finished
he pauses for a moment, then he pulls out the memorandum and says
apologetically, “I have made some notes because I cannot remember
anything.” As a rule he finds nothing new on the memorandum. He repeats
each point and answers it himself: “Yes, I have already asked about
that.” By means of the memorandum he probably only demonstrates one of
his symptoms, the frequency with which his resolutions are disturbed
through the interference of obscure motives.
I am touching, moreover, on an affliction to which even most of my
healthy acquaintances are subject, when I admit that especially in
former years I had the habit of easily forgetting for a long time
to return borrowed books, also that it very often happened that I
deferred payments through forgetfulness. One morning not long ago I
left the tobacco-shop where I make my daily purchase of cigars without
paying. It was a most harmless omission, as I am known there and could
therefore expect to be reminded of my debt the next morning. But
this slight neglect, the attempt to contract a debt, was surely not
unconnected with reflections concerning the budget with which I had
occupied myself throughout the preceding day. Even among the so-called
respectable people one can readily demonstrate a double behaviour when
it concerns the theme of money and possession. The primitive greed of
the suckling which wishes to seize every object (in order to put it in
its mouth) has generally been only imperfectly subdued through culture
and training.[43]
I fear that in all the examples thus far given I have grown quite
commonplace. But it can be only a pleasure to me if I happen upon
familiar matters which every one understands, for my main object is
to collect everyday material and utilize it scientifically. I cannot
conceive why wisdom, which is, so to speak, the sediment of everyday
experiences, should be denied admission among the acquisitions of
knowledge. For it is not the diversity of objects but the stricter
method of verification and the striving for far-reaching connections
which make up the essential character of scientific work.
We have invariably found that intentions of some importance are
forgotten when obscure motives arise to disturb them. In still less
important intentions we find a second mechanism of forgetting. Here
a counter-will becomes transferred to the resolution from something
else after an external association has been formed between the latter
and the content of the resolution. The following example reported by
Brill illustrates this: “A patient found that she had suddenly become
very negligent in her correspondence. She was naturally punctual and
took pleasure in letter-writing, but for the last few weeks she simply
could not bring herself to write a letter without exerting the greatest
amount of effort. The explanation was quite simple. Some weeks before
she had received an important letter calling for a categorical answer.
She was undecided what to say, and therefore did not answer it at all.
This indecision in the form of inhibition was unconsciously transferred
to other letters and caused the inhibition against letter-writing in
general.”
Direct counter-will and more remote motivation are found together in
the following example of delaying: I had written a short treatise on
the dream for the series _Grenzfragen des Nerven- und Seelenlebens_,
in which I gave an abstract of my book, _The Interpretation of
Dreams_.[44] Bergmann, the publisher, had sent me the proof sheets
and asked for a speedy return of the same as he wished to issue the
pamphlet before Christmas. I corrected the sheets the same night, and
placed them on my desk in order to take them to the post office the
next morning. In the morning I forgot all about it, and only thought
of it in the afternoon at the sight of the paper cover on my desk.
In the same way I forgot the proofs that evening and the following
morning, and until the afternoon of the second day, when I quickly
took them to a letter-box, wondering what might be the basis of this
procrastination. Obviously I did not want to send them off, although I
could find no explanation for such an attitude.
After posting the letter I entered the shop of my Vienna publisher,
who put out my _Interpretation of Dreams_. I left a few orders; then,
as if impelled by a sudden thought, said, “You undoubtedly know that
I have written the ‘Dream’ book a second time?” “Ah!” he exclaimed,
“then I must ask you to----” “Calm yourself,” I interposed; “it is only
a short treatise for the Löwenfeld-Kurella collection.” But still he
was not satisfied; he feared that the abstract would hurt the sale of
the book. I disagreed with him, and finally asked: “If I had come to
you before, would you have objected to the publication?” “No; under no
circumstances,” he answered.
Personally I believe I acted within my full rights and did nothing
contrary to the general practice; still it seems certain to me that a
thought similar to that entertained by the publisher was the motive for
my procrastination in dispatching the proof sheets.
This reflection leads back to a former occasion when another publisher
raised some difficulties because I was obliged to take out several
pages of the text from an earlier work on cerebral infantile paralysis,
and put them unchanged into a work on the same theme in Nothnagel’s
handbook. There again the reproach received no recognition; that time
also I had loyally informed my first publisher (the same who published
_The Interpretation of Dreams_) of my intention.
However, if this series of recollections is followed back still farther
it brings to light a still earlier occasion relating to a translation
from the French, in which I really violated the property rights that
should be considered in a publication. I had added notes to the text
without asking the author’s permission, and some years later I had
cause to think that the author was dissatisfied with this arbitrary
action.
There is a proverb which indicates the popular knowledge that the
forgetting of intentions is not accidental. It says: “What one forgets
once he will often forget again.”