By Professor Dr. SIGMUND FREUD, LL.D. AUTHORIZED ENGLISH EDITION, WITH INTRODUCTION BY A. A. BRILL, Ph.B., M.D. Chief of Clinic of Psychiatry Columbia University; Chief of the Neurological Department, Bronx Hospital and Dispensary; former Assistant Physician in the Central Islip State Hospital, and in the Clinic of Psychiatry, Zurich NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1914 ( All rights reserved )...

Professor Freud developed his system of psychoanalysis while studying the so-called border-line cases of mental diseases, such as hysteria and compulsion neurosis. By discarding the old methods of treatment and strictly applying himself to a study of the patient’s life he discovered that the hitherto puzzling symptoms had a definite meaning, and that there was nothing arbitrary in any morbid manifestation. Psychoanalysis always showed that they referred to some definite problem or conflict of th

During the year 1898 I published a short essay On the Psychic Mechanism of Forgetfulness . [1] I shall now repeat its contents and take it as a starting-point for further discussion. I have there undertaken a psychologic analysis of a common case of temporary forgetfulness of proper names, and from a pregnant example of my own observation I have reached the conclusion that this frequent and practically unimportant occurrence of a failure of a psychic function—of memory—admits an explanation whic

The ordinary vocabulary of our own language seems to be protected against forgetting within the limits of normal function, but it is quite different with words from a foreign language. The tendency to forget such words extends to all parts of speech. In fact, depending on our own general state and the degree of fatigue, the first manifestation of functional disturbance evinces itself in the irregularity of our control over foreign vocabulary. In a series of cases this forgetting follows the same

Experiences like those mentioned concerning the process of forgetting a part of the order of words from a foreign language may cause one to wonder whether the forgetting of the order of words in one’s own language requires an essentially different explanation. To be sure, one is not wont to be surprised if after awhile a formula or poem learned by heart can only be reproduced imperfectly, with variations and gaps. Still, as this forgetting does not affect equally all the things learned together,

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 see

Although the ordinary material of speech of our mother-tongue seems to be guarded against forgetting, its application, however, more often succumbs to another disturbance which is familiar to us as “slips of the tongue.” What we observe in normal persons as slips of the tongue gives the same impression as the first step of the so-called “paraphasias” which manifest themselves under pathologic conditions. I am in the exceptional position of being about to refer to a previous work on the subject.

That the same view-points and observation should hold true for mistakes in reading and writing as for lapses in speech is not at all surprising when one remembers the inner relation of these functions. I shall here confine myself to the reports of several carefully analysed examples and shall make no attempt to include all of the phenomena. ( a ) While looking over a number of the Leipziger Illustrierten , which I was holding obliquely, I read as the title of the front-page picture, “A Wedding C

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 puzzlin

I shall give another passage from the above-mentioned work of Meringer and Mayer (p. 98): “Lapses in speech do not stand entirely alone. They resemble the errors which often occur in our other activities and are quite foolishly termed ‘forgetfulness.’” I am therefore in no way the first to presume that there is a sense and purpose behind the slight functional disturbances of the daily life of healthy people. [45] If the lapse in speech, which is without doubt a motor function, admits of such a c

The actions described so far, in which we recognize the execution of an unconscious intention, appeared as disturbances of other unintended actions, and hid themselves under the pretext of awkwardness. Chance actions, which we shall now discuss, differ from erroneously carried out actions only in that they disdain the support of a conscious intention and really need no pretext. They appear independently and are accepted because one does not credit them with any aim or purpose. We execute them “w

Errors of memory are distinguished from forgetting and false recollections through one feature only, namely, that the error (false recollection) is not recognized as such but finds credence. However, the use of the expression “error” seems to depend on still another condition. We speak of “erring” instead of “falsely recollecting” where the character of the objective reality is emphasized in the psychic material to be reproduced—that is, where something other than a fact of my own psychic life i

Two of the last-mentioned examples, my error which transfers the Medici to Venice and that of the young man who knew how to circumvent a command against a conversation on the telephone with his lady love, have really not been fully discussed, as after careful consideration they may be shown to represent a union of forgetting with an error. I can show the same union still more clearly in certain other examples. ( a ) A friend related to me the following experience: “Some years ago I consented to

As the general result of the preceding separate discussions we must put down the following principle: Certain inadequacies of our psychic capacities—whose common character will soon be more definitely determined—and certain performances which are apparently unintentional prove to be well motivated when subjected to the psychoanalytic investigation, and are determined through the consciousness of unknown motives. In order to belong to this class of phenomena thus explained a faulty psychic action