Control of, 137
Disturbance, examples of, 155, 157
Psychologic theory of, 135
Reproduction, 10
Tenaciousness of, 136
Meyer, 278
Military service, 161
Mishandling, 192
As a sacrifice, 192
Mislaying--
Analysis of, 145, 146
Examples of, 146, 147
Significance of, 143
Misstep, 191
Mistakes in reading, 71, 117
Examples of, 117, 118
In speech, 71
In writing, 117
Of importance, 195, 197
Of normal persons, 194
Moteurs, 63
Motives, unknown, 277
Motor insufficiency, 209
Name--
Incorrect substitutive, 12
Reproduction of lost, 4
Names--
Causes of forgetting of, 52
Distortion of, 97
Escaped, 4
Falsification of, 99
Forgetting of, 4
Substitutive, 4, 13, 98
Negative hallucination, 316
Neologism, analysis of, 293
Nietzsche, 153
Œdipus Complex, 198
Legend, 196
Omissions in writing, 129
Paranoiac interpretation, 306
Personality, over-estimation of, 30
Peterson, 32, 240, 298
Phonetic laws, 95
Phonetics, psychic value of, 72
Pick, A., 152
Playful actions, 227
Occupations, 220
Post-hypnotic suggestion, 161
Potwin, 61
Printers’ errors, 124, 125
Prophetic dream, analysis of, 313
Psychic--
Action, faulty, 277
Apparatus, 153
Determinism, 302
Function, failure of, 3
Psycho-analysis, 65
Psychology of the unconscious, 309
Rank, O., 105, 108, 242, 269, 272, 318
Recollection--
Faulty, 12, 155
Substitutive, 23
Remember, inability to, 8
Reminiscences, childhood, 61
Repressed material, character of, 334
Repression, motivated by, 12, 13
Reproduction--
Disturbance of, 25
Faulty, 29
Resistances, 152
Riklin, 38
Robitsek, Alf., 93
Sachs, 180, 231, 234
Self-betrayal, 101
Examples of, 102
Self-criticism, 184
Self-mutilations, 198
Self-reference, 41
Shakespeare, quoted from, 109, 122
Speech blunders, 74
Psychology of, 329
Disturbance, 75
Lapses in, 177, 256
Mistakes in, 71
Examples of, 81, 82
Showing identification, 94
Substitutions in, 77
Stekel, W., 88, 126, 194
Substitutive formation, 60
Suicide, unconscious, 202
Supernatural forces, 312
Superstition, 306
Motivation of, 309
Origin of, 311
Unconscious motives of, 311
Superstitious beliefs, 277
Person, 308
Suppression, process of, 11
Symptomatic actions, 215, 326
Telepathic experiences, 312
Telepathy, nature of, 316
Traditions, 154
Traumatic hysteria, 192
Unconscious activity, 188
Material, 76
Skill, 147
Van Emden, 206
Visuels, 63
Weiss, 267
Wertheimer and Klein, 304
Wisdom, 169
Word-forgetting without substitutive recollection, 23
Words, disfigurement of, 96
Wundt, 79, 130
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: _Monatsschrift f. Psychiatrie._]
[Footnote 2: This is the usual way of bringing to consciousness hidden
ideas. Cf. _The Interpretation of Dreams_, pp. 83-4, translated by A.
A. Brill, The Macmillan Company, New York, and Allen, London.]
[Footnote 3: Finer observation reduces somewhat the contrast between
the analyses of _Signorelli_ and _aliquis_ as far as the substitutive
recollections are concerned. Here, too, the forgetting seems to be
accompanied by substitutive formations. When I later asked my companion
whether in his effort to recall the forgotten word he did not think of
some substitution, he informed me that he was at first tempted to put
an ab into the verse: _nostris ab ossibus_ (perhaps the disjointed part
of _a-liquis_) and that later the word _exoriare_ obtruded itself with
particular distinctness and persistency. Being sceptical, he added that
it was apparently due to the fact that it was the first word of the
verse. But when I asked him to focus his attention on the associations
to _exoriare_ he gave me the word _exorcism_. This makes me think that
the reinforcement of _exoriare_ in the reproduction has really the
value of such substitution. It probably came through the association
_exorcism_ from the names of the saints. However, those are refinements
upon which no value need be laid. It seems now quite possible that
the appearance of any kind of substitutive recollection is a constant
sign--perhaps only characteristic and misleading--of the purposive
forgetting motivated by repression. This substitution might also exist
in the reinforcement of an element akin to the thing forgotten, even
where incorrect substitutive names fail to appear. Thus, in the example
Signorelli, as long as the name of the painter remained inaccessible
to me, I had more than a clear visual memory of the cycle of his
frescoes, and of the picture of himself in the corner; at least it was
more intensive than any of my other visual memory traces. In another
case, also reported in my essay of 1898, I had hopelessly forgotten
the street name and address connected with a disagreeable visit in
a strange city, but--as if to mock me--the house number appeared
especially vivid, whereas the memory of numbers usually causes me the
greatest difficulty.]
[Footnote 4: I am not fully convinced of the lack of an inner
connection between the two streams of thought in the case of
_Signorelli_. In carefully following the repressed thought concerning
the theme of death and sexual life, one does strike an idea which shows
a near relation to the theme of the frescoes of _Orvieto_.]
[Footnote 5: _The Psychology of Dementia Præcox_, translated by F.
Peterson and A. A. Brill.]
[Footnote 6: _The Psychology of Dementia Præcox_, p. 45.]
[Footnote 7: _Zentralb. f. Psychoanalyse_, I. 9, 1911.]
[Footnote 8: “Analyse eines Falles von Namenvergessen,” _Zentralb. f.
Psychoanalyse_, Jahrg. 11, Heft 2, 1911.]
[Footnote 9: Published in the _Monatsschrift f. Psychiatrie u.
Neurologie_, 1899.]
[Footnote 10: “Enquête sur les premiers souvenirs de l’enfance,”
_L’Année psychologique_, iii., 1897.]
[Footnote 11: “Study of Early Memories,” _Psychological Review_, 1901.]
[Footnote 12: I assert this as a result of certain investigations made
by myself.]
[Footnote 13: The examples are given by the editor.]
[Footnote 14: Those who are interested are referred to pp. 62, 73, and
97 of the author’s work.]
[Footnote 15: _Neue Freie Presse_, August 23, 1900: “Wie man sich
versprechen kann.”]
[Footnote 16: _Völker psychologie_, vol. i., pt. i., p. 371, etc.,
1900.]
[Footnote 17: Italics are mine.]
[Footnote 18: It turned out that she was under the influence of
unconscious thoughts concerning pregnancy and prevention of conception.
With the words “shut up like a pocket knife,” which she uttered
consciously as a complaint, she meant to describe the position of
the child in the womb. The word “earnest” in my remark recalled to
her the name (S. Ernst) of the well-known Vienna business firm in
Kärthner Strasse, which used to advertise the sale of articles for the
prevention of conception.]
[Footnote 19: Similar mistakes dealing with _Officer 666_ were recently
reported to me by other psycho-analysts.]
[Footnote 20: It may be observed that aristocrats in particular very
frequently distort the names of the physicians they consult, from
which we may conclude that inwardly they slight them, in spite of the
politeness with which they are wont to greet them. I shall cite here
some excellent observations concerning the forgetting of names from the
works of Professor E. Jones, of Toronto: _Papers on Psycho-analysis_,
chap. iii. p. 49:--
“Few people can avoid feeling a twinge of resentment when they find
that their name has been forgotten, particularly if it is by some one
with whom they had hoped or expected it would be remembered. They
instinctively realize that if they had made a greater impression on the
person’s mind he would certainly have remembered them again, for the
name is an integral part of the personality. Similarly, few things are
more flattering to most people than to find themselves addressed by
name by a great personage where they could hardly have anticipated it.
Napoleon, like most leaders of men, was a master of this art. In the
midst of the disastrous campaign of France in 1814, he gave an amazing
proof of his memory in this direction. When in a town near Craonne, he
recollected that he had met the mayor, De Bussy, over twenty years ago
in the La Fère Regiment. The delighted De Bussy at once threw himself
into his service with extraordinary zeal. Conversely, there is no surer
way of affronting some one than by pretending to forget his name; the
insinuation is thus conveyed that the person is so unimportant in our
eyes that we cannot be bothered to remember his name. This device is
often exploited in literature. In Turgentev’s _Smoke_ (p. 255) the
following passage occurs: “‘So you still find Baden entertaining,
M’sieur--Litvinov.’ Ratmirov always uttered Litvinov’s surname with
hesitation, every time, as though he had forgotten it, and could not at
once recall it. In this way, as well as by the lofty flourish of his
hat in saluting him, he meant to insult his pride.” The same author,
in his _Fathers and Children_ (p. 107), writes: “The Governor invited
Kirsanov and Bazarov to his ball, and within a few minutes invited them
a second time, regarding them as brothers, and calling them Kisarov.”
Here the forgetting that he had spoken to them, the mistake in the
names, and the inability to distinguish between the two young men,
constitute a culmination of disparagement. Falsification of a name has
the same signification as forgetting it; it is only a step towards
complete amnesia.”]
[Footnote 21: _Zentralb. f. Psychoanalyse_, ii., Jahrg. I. Cf. also
Brill’s _Psychanalysis: Its Theories and Practical Application_, p.
202. Saunders, Philadelphia and London.]
[Footnote 22: Jones, _Papers on Psycho-analysis_, p. 60.]
[Footnote 23:
“Ce qu’on conçoit bien
S’énonce clairement,
Et les mots pour le dire
Arrivent aisément.”
Boileau, _Art Poétique_.
]
[Footnote 24: _The Interpretation of Dreams_, p. 208.]
[Footnote 25: Bleuler, _Affektivität Suggestibilität, Paranoia_, p.
121, Halle. Marhold, 1906.]
[Footnote 26: A similar situation occurs in _Julius Cæsar_, iii. 3:
“CINNA. Truly, my name is Cinna.
“BURGHER. Tear him to pieces! he is a conspirator.
“CINNA. I am Cinna the poet! not Cinna the conspirator.
“BURGHER. No matter; his name is Cinna; tear the name out of his heart
and let him go.”]
[Footnote 27: Ethyl alcohol is, of course, the chemical name for
ordinary alcohol.]
[Footnote 28: Jones, _Psycho-analysis_, p. 66.]
[Footnote 29: _Zentralbl. f. Psychoanalyse_, i. 12.]
[Footnote 30: In the course of the conference the details of the
previous first visit return to consciousness.]
[Footnote 31: Brill, _loc. cit._, p. 197.]
[Footnote 32: If we inquire of a person whether he suffered from luetic
infection ten or fifteen years ago, we are only too apt to forget that
psychically the patient has looked upon this disease in an entirely
different manner than on, let us say, an acute attack of rheumatism. In
the anamneses which parents give about their neurotic daughters, it is
hardly possible to distinguish with any degree of certainty the portion
forgotten from that hidden, for anything that stands in the way of the
girl’s future marriage is systematically set aside by the parents,
that is, it becomes repressed. A man who had recently lost his beloved
wife from an affection of the lungs reported to me the following case
of misleading the doctor, which can only be explained by the theory
of such forgetting. “As my poor wife’s pleuritis had not disappeared
after many weeks, Dr. P. was called in consultation. While taking the
history he asked among others the customary questions whether there
were any cases of lung trouble in my wife’s family. My wife denied any
such cases, and even I myself could not remember any. While Dr. P.
was taking leave the conversation accidentally turned to excursions,
and my wife said: ‘Yes, even to Landgersdorf, where my poor brother
lies buried, is a long journey.’ This brother died about fifteen years
ago, after having suffered for years from tuberculosis. My wife was
very fond of him, and often spoke about him. Indeed, I recall that
when her malady was diagnosed as pleurisy she was very worried and
sadly remarked: ‘My brother also died of lung trouble.’ But the memory
was so very repressed that even after the above-cited conversation
about the trip to L. she found no occasion to correct her information
concerning the diseases in her family. I myself was struck by this
forgetting at the very moment she began to talk about Landgersdorf.” A
perfectly analogous experience is related by Ernest Jones in his work.
A physician whose wife suffered from some obscure abdominal malady
remarked to her: “It is comforting to think that there has been no
tuberculosis in your family.” She turned to him very astonished and
said, “Have you forgotten that my mother died of tuberculosis, and that
my sister recovered from it only after having been given up by the
doctors?”]
[Footnote 33: During the days when I was first writing these pages
the following almost incredible case of forgetting happened to me. On
the 1st of January I examined my notes so that I could send out my
bills. In the month of June I came across the name M----l, and could
not recall the person to whom it belonged. My surprise increased when
I observed from my books that I treated the case in a sanatorium, and
that for weeks I had called on the patient daily. A patient treated
under such conditions is rarely forgotten by a physician in six
months. I asked myself if it could have been a man--a paretic--a case
without interest? Finally, the note about the fee received brought to
my memory all the knowledge which strove to elude it. M----l was a
fourteen-year-old girl, the most remarkable case of my latter years, a
case which taught me a lesson I am not likely ever to forget, a case
whose upshot gave me many painful hours. The child became afflicted
with an unmistakable hysteria, which quickly and thoroughly improved
under my care. After this improvement the child was taken away from
me by the parents. She still complained of abdominal pains which had
played the part in the hysterical symptoms. Two months later she
died of sarcoma of the abdominal glands. The hysteria, to which she
was greatly predisposed, took the tumour-formation as a provocative
agent, and I, fascinated by the tumultuous but harmless manifestations
of hysteria, perhaps overlooked the first sign of the insidious and
incurable disease.]
[Footnote 34: A. Pick (“Zur Psychologie des Vergessens bei Geistes- und
Nervenkranken,” _Archiv. f. Kriminal-Anthropologie u. Kriminalistik_,
von H. Gross) has recently collected a number of authors who realize
the value of the influence of the affective factors on memory, and who
more or less clearly recognize that a defensive striving against pain
can lead to forgetting. But none of us has been able to represent this
phenomenon and its psychologic determination as exhaustively, and at
the same time as effectively, as Nietzsche in one of his aphorisms
(_Jenseits von Gut und Böse_, ii., _Hauptstück_ 68): “‘I have done
that,’ says my Memory. ‘I could not have done that,’ says my Pride, and
remains inexorable. Finally, my Memory yields.”]
[Footnote 35: Cf. Hans Gross, _Kriminal Psychologie_, 1898.]
[Footnote 36: Darwin on forgetting. In Darwin’s autobiography one finds
the following passage that does equal credit to his scientific honesty
and his psychologic acumen: “I had during many years followed a golden
rule, namely, that whenever a published fact, a new observation or
thought, came across me which was opposed to my general results, to
make a memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had found by
experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape
from the memory than favourable ones” (quoted by Jones, _loc. cit._, p.
38).]
[Footnote 37: Cf. Bernheim, _Neue Studien über Hypnotismus, Suggestion
und Psychotherapie_, 1892.]
[Footnote 38: Young men of education who can pass the examination and
pay for their maintenance serve one instead of two years’ compulsory
service.]
[Footnote 39: In Bernard Shaw’s _Cæsar and Cleopatra_, Cæsar’s
indifference to Cleopatra is depicted by his being vexed on leaving
Egypt at having forgotten to do something. He finally recollected what
he had forgotten--to take leave of Cleopatra--this, to be sure, is in
full accord with historical truth. How little Cæsar thought of the
little Egyptian princess! Cited from Jones, _loc. cit._, p. 50.]
[Footnote 40: Women, with their fine understanding of unconscious
mental processes, are, as a rule, more apt to take offence when we do
not recognize them in the street, and hence do not greet them, than
to accept the most obvious explanation, namely, that the dilatory one
is short-sighted or so engrossed in thought that he did not see them.
They conclude that they surely would have been noticed if they had been
considered of any consequence.]
[Footnote 41: Dr. Ferenczi reports that he was a distracted person
himself, and was considered peculiar by his friends on account of
the frequency and strangeness of his failing. But the signs of this
inattention have almost all disappeared since he began to practise
psychoanalysis with patients, and was forced to turn his attention
to the analysis of his own ego. He believes that one renounces
these failings when one learns to extend by so much one’s own
responsibilities. He therefore justly maintains that distractedness
is a state which depends on unconscious complexes, and is curable by
psychoanalysis. One day he was reproaching himself for having committed
a technical error in the psychoanalysis of a patient, and on this day
all his former distractions reappeared. He stumbled while walking in
the street (a representation of that _faux pas_ in the treatment), he
forgot his pocket-book at home, he was a penny short in his car fare,
he did not properly button his clothes, etc.]
[Footnote 42: E. Jones remarks regarding this: “Often the resistance is
of a general order. Thus a busy man forgets to mail a letter entrusted
to him--to his slight annoyance--by his wife, just as he may ‘forget’
to carry out her shopping orders.”]
[Footnote 43: For the sake of the unity of the theme I may here digress
from the accepted classification, and add that the human memory evinces
a particular partiality in regard to money matters. False reminiscences
of having already paid something are often very obstinate, as I know
from personal experience. When free sway is given to avaricious intent
outside of the serious interests of life, when it is indulged in in
the spirit of fun, as in card playing, we then find that the most
honourable men show an inclination to errors, mistakes in memory and
accounts, and without realizing how, they even find themselves involved
in small frauds. Such liberties depend in no small part also on the
psychically refreshing character of the play. The saying that in play
we can learn a person’s character may be admitted if we can add “the
repressed character.” If waiters ever make unintentional mistakes
they are apparently due to the same mechanism. Among merchants we
can frequently observe a certain delay in the paying out of sums of
money, in payments of bills and the like, which brings the owner no
profit and can be only understood psychologically as the expression
of a counter-will against giving out money. Brill sums it up with
epigrammatic keenness: “We are more apt to mislay letters containing
bills than cheques” (Brill, _Psychanalysis, its Theories and Practical
Application_, p. 197).]
[Footnote 44: Translated by A. A. Brill.]
[Footnote 45: A second publication of Meringer has later shown me how
very unjust I was to this author when I attributed to him so much
understanding.]
[Footnote 46: Jones, _loc. cit._, p. 79.]
[Footnote 47: Alas! the Venus of Medici is lost!]
[Footnote 48: The Œdipus dream as I was wont to call it, because it
contains the key to the understanding of the legend of King Œdipus. In
the text of Sophocles the relation of such a dream is put in the mouth
of Jocasta (cf. _The Interpretation of Dreams_, pp. 222-4, etc.).]
[Footnote 49: _New York Medical Journal_, September, 1912. Reprinted
in large form as Chapter X of _Psychanalysis_, etc., Saunders,
Philadelphia.]
[Footnote 50: The self-inflicted injury which does not entirely tend
toward self-annihilation has, moreover, no other choice in our present
state of civilization than to hide itself behind the accidental, or to
break through in a simulation of spontaneous illness. Formerly, it was
a customary sign of mourning, at other times it expressed itself in
ideas of piety and renunciation of the world.]
[Footnote 51: The case is then identical with a sexual attack on a
woman, in whom the attack of the man cannot be warded off through
the full muscular strength of the woman because a portion of the
unconscious feelings of the one attacked meets it with ready
acceptance. To be sure, it is said that such a situation paralyses the
strength of a woman; we need only add the reasons for this paralysis.
Insofar the clever sentence of Sancho Panza, which he pronounced as
governor of his island, is psychologically unjust (_Don Quixote_,
vol. ii. chap. xlv). A woman hauled before the judge a man who was
supposed to have robbed her of her honour by force of violence. Sancho
indemnified her with a full purse which he took from the accused, but
after the departure of the woman he gave the accused permission to
follow her and snatch the purse from her. Both returned wrestling, the
woman priding herself that the villain was unable to possess himself of
the purse. Thereupon Sancho spoke: “Had you shown yourself so stout and
valiant to defend your body (nay, but half so much) as you have done to
defend your purse, the strength of Hercules could not have forced you.”]
[Footnote 52: It is evident that the situation of a battlefield is
such as to meet the requirement of conscious suicidal intent which,
nevertheless, shuns the direct way. Cf. in _Wallenstein_ the words of
the Swedish captain concerning the death of Max Piccolomini: “They say
he wished to die.”]
[Footnote 53: “Selbstbestrafung wegen Abortus von Dr. J. E. G. van
Emden,” Haag (Holland), _Zentralb. f. Psychoanalyse_, ii. 12.]
[Footnote 54: “Beitrag zur Symbolik im Alltag von Ernest Jones,”
_Zentralb. f. Psychoanalyse_, i. 3, 1911.]
[Footnote 55: Psychoanalytic research, with the penetration of
infantile amnesia, has shown that this apparent precocity is a less
abnormal occurrence than was previously supposed.]
[Footnote 56: The term “medical questions” is a common periphrasis for
“sexual questions.”]
[Footnote 57: Cf. Oldham’s “I wear my pen as others do their sword.”]
[Footnote 58: Maeder, “Contribution à la psychologie de la vie
quotidienne,” _Arch. des psychologie_, T. vi. 1906.]