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THE PENGUIN FREUD LIBRARY

VOLUME $

THE PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
OF EVERYDAY LIFE
Sigmund Freud

Translated from the German by Alan Tyson


Edited by Jams Strachey
assisted by Angela Richards and Alan Tyson
The present volume
edited by Angela Richards

PENGUIN BOOBS
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
36
though these phenomena were simple and easily explained, it
was possible for Freud to demonstrate on them what was, after CHAPTER I
all, the fundamental thesis established in The Interpretation of
Dreams -
the existence of two distinct modes of mental THE FORGETTING OF
functioning, what he described as the primary and secondary PROPER NAMES'
processes. Moreover, there was another fundamental belief
of Freud's which could be convincingly supported by the IN the 1898 volume of the Monatsschrifi fur Psychiatric and
examination of parapraxes - his belief in the universal applica- Neurologie I published under the title of 'The Psychical
tion of determinism to mental events. This is the truth which Mechanism of Forgetfulness' [Freud, 189814 a short paper the
he insists upon in the final chapter of the book: it should be substance of which I shall recapitulate here and take as the
possible in theory to discover the psychical determinants of starting-point for more extensive discussions. In it I applied
every smallest detail of the processes of the mind. And perhaps psychological analysis to the frequent circumstance of proper
the fact that this aim seemed more nearly attainable in the case names being temporarily forgotten, by exploring a highly
of parapraxcs was another reason why they had a peculiar suggestive example drawn from my self-observation; and I
reached the condusion that this particular instance (admittedly
attraction for Freud.
commonplace and without much practical significance), in
which a psychical function - the memory - refuses to operate,
admits of an explanation much more far-reaching than that
which the phenomenon is ordinarily made to yield.
If a psychologist were asked to explain why it is that on so
many occasions a proper name which we think we know per-
fectly well fails to enter our heads, he would, unless I am much
mistaken, be satisfied with answering that proper names suc-
cumb more easily to the process of being forgotten than other
kinds of memory-content. He would bring forward the plaus-
ible reasons why proper names should thus be singled out for
special treatment, but would not suspect that any other
conditions played their part in such occurrences.
My close preoccupation with the phenomenon of names
being temporarily forgotten arose out of my observation of
certain characteristics which could be recognized sufficiently
dearly in individual cases, though not, it is true, in all of them.
These are cases in which a name is in fact not only forgotten,
but wrongly remembered. In the course of our efforts to recover
z. [Apart from the very few alterations recorded below, the whole of
this chapter dates back to 19oz.]
38 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE I. FORGETTING OF PROPER NAMES 39

the name that has dropped out, other ones - substitute names - less and did not enlighten me further. I was driving in the
enter our consciousness; we recognize them at once, indeed, as company of a stranger from Ragusa in Dalmatia to a place in
incorrect, but they keep on returning and force themselves on Herzegovina: our conversation turned to the subject of travel
us with great persistence. The process that should lead to the in Italy, and I asked my companion whether he had ever been
reproduction of the missing name has been so to speak dis- to Orvieto and looked at the famous frescoes there, painted
placed and has therefore led to an incorrect substitute. My by . . .
hypothesis is that this displacement is not left to arbitrary (b)Light was only thrown on the forgetting of the name
psychical choice but follows paths which can be predicted and when I recalled the topic we had been discussing directly before,
which conform to laws. In other words, I suspect that the and it was revealed as a case in which a topic that has just been
name or names which are substituted are connected in a dis- raised is disturbed by the preceding topic. Shortly before I put the
coverable way with the missing name: and I hope, if I am question to my travelling companion whether he had ever been
successful in demonstrating this connection, to proceed to to Orvieto, we had been talking about the customs of the Turks
throw light on the circumstances in which names are living in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I had told him what I had
forgotten. heard from a colleague practising among those people - that
The name that I tried without success to recall in the ex- they are accustomed to show great confidence in their doctor
ample I chose for analysis in 1898 was that of the artist who and great resignation to fate. If one has to inform them that
painted the magnificent frescoes of the ' Four Last Things' in nothing can be done for a sick person, their reply is: 'Herr [Sir],
Orvieto cathedral.' Instead of the name I was looking for - what is there to be said? If he could be saved, I know you would
Signorelli - the names of two other painters - Bouicelli and have saved him.' In these sentences we for the first time meet
Boltraffio- thrust themselves on me, though theywere immedi- with the words and names Bosnia, Herzegovina and Herr, which
ately and decisively rejected by my judgement as incorrect. can be inserted into an associative series between Signorelli and
When I learnt the correct name from someone else, I recognized Botticelli - Bohroffio.
it at once and without hesitation. The investigation into the (c) I assume that the series of thoughts about the customs of
influences and the associative paths by which the reproducing the Turks in Bosnia, etc., acquired the capacity to disturb the
of the name had been displaced in this way from Signorelli to next succeeding thought from the fact that I had withdrawn
Bouicelli and Boltraffio led to the following results: my attention from that series before it was brought to an end.
(a) The reason why the name Signorelli was lost is not to be I recall in fact wanting to tell a second anecdote which lay
found in anything special about the name itself or in any close to the first in my memory. These Turks place a higher
psychological characteristic of the context into which it was value on sexual enjoyment than on anything else, and in the
introduced. The name I had forgotten was just as familiar to event of sexual disorders they are plunged in a despair which
me as one of the substitute names - Botticelli - and much more contrasts strangely with their resignation towards the threat of
familiar than the other substitute name - Boltraffio - about death. One of my colleague's patients once said to him: 'Herr,
whose owner I could scarcely produce any information other you must know that if that comes to an end then life is of no
than that he belonged to the Milanese school. Moreover the value.' I suppressed my account of this characteristic trait,
context in which the name was forgotten seemed to me harm- since I did not want to allude to the topic in a conversation
s. 'Four Last Things' are Death, Judgement, Hell and Heaven.) with a stranger. But I did more: I also diverted my attention
40 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OP EVERYDAY LIFE I. FORGETTING OP PROPER NAMES 41
from pursuing thoughts which might have arisen in my mind show me that my intention to forget something was neither a
from the topic of 'death and sexuality'. On this occasion complete success nor a complete failure.
I was still under the influence of a piece of news which had (e) The way in which the missing name and the repressed
reached me a few weeks before while I was making a brief stay topic (the topic of death and sexuality, etc., in which the
at Trafoi.1 A patient over whom I had taken a great deal of names of Bosnia, Herzegovina and Trafoi appeared) became
trouble had put an end to his life on account of an incurable linked is very striking. The schematic diagram which I have
sexual disorder. I know for certain that this melancholy event inserted at this point, and which is repeated from the 1898
and everything related to it was not recalled to my conscious paper [Fig. x], aims at giving a dear picture of this.
memory during my journey to Herzegovina. But the similarity
between 'Trafoi' and 'Boltraffio ' forces me to assume that this Signor lelli tticelli
reminiscence, in spite of my attention being deliberately
diverted from it, was brought into operation in me at the
time [of the conversation]. Her zegovina and
(d) It is no longer possible for me to take the forgetting of t
the name Signorelli as a chance event. I am forced to recognize
the influence of a motive in the process. It was a motive which Herr,1 what is there to be said? etc.
caused me to interrupt myself while recounting what was in TrafOl
my mind (concerning the customs of the Turks, etc.), and it 1-0- Death and sexuality
was a motive which further influenced me so that I debarred
the thoughts connected with them, the thoughts which had led
to the news at Trafoi, from becoming conscious in my mind. I
wanted, therefore, to forget something; I had repressed some-
(Repressed thoughts)
thing. What I wanted to forget was not, it is true, the name of
the artist at Orvieto but something else - something, however, Fig. a.
which contrived to place itself in an associative connection
The name Signorelli has undergone a division into two pieces.
with his name, so that my act of will missed its target and
One of the pairs of syllables (elli) recurs without alteration
I forgot the one thing against my will, while I wanted to forget the
other thing intentionally. The disinclination to remember was in one of the substitute names: while the other, by means of
the translation of Signor into Herr, has acquired a numerous and
aimed against one content; the inability to remember emerged
in another. It would obviously be a simpler case if disinclina- miscellaneous set of relations to the names contained in the
tion and inability to remember related to the same content. repressed topic, but for this reason it is not available for [con-
Moreover the substitute names no longer strike me as so entirely scious] reproduction. The substitute for it [for Signor] has been
unjustified as they did before the matter was elucidated: by a arrived at in a way that suggests that a displacement along the
sort of compromise they remind me just as much of what I connected names of Herzegovina and Bosnia's had taken place,
wanted to forget as of what I wanted to remember; and they r. [These two portions of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy used to be
I. [A hamlet in the Tyrol.) habitually spoken of together, almost as though they formed a single
word.]
42 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE I. FORGETTING OP PROPER NAMES 43

without consideration for the sense or for the acoustic demarca- The difficulty of fulfilling the last condition need probably not
tion of the syllables. Thus the names have been treated in this be rated very high, since, considering the low standards ex-
process like the pictograms in a sentence which has had to be pected of an association of this kind, one could be established
converted into a picture-puzzle (or rebus). Of the whole course in the great majority ofcases There is, however, the profounder
of events that have in ways like these produced the substitute question whether an external association like this can really be
names instead of the name Signorelli no information has been a sufficient condition for the repressed element's disturbing the
given to consciousness. At first sight it seems impossible to reproduction of the lost name - whether some more intimate
discover any relation between the topic in which the name connection between the two topics is not required. On a super-
Signorelli occurred and the repressed topic which preceded it ficial consideration one would be inclined to reject the latter
in time, apart from this recurrence of the same syllables (or demand, and accept as sufficient a temporal contiguity between
rather sequence of letters). the two, even if the contents are completely different. On dose
Perhaps it is not superfluous to remark that the conditions enquiry, however, one finds more and more frequently that
which psychologists assume to be necessary for reproducing and the two elements which are joined by an external association
for forgetting, and which they look for in certain relations and (the repressed element and the new one) possess in addition
dispositions,' are not inconsistent with the above explanation. some connection of content; and such a connection is an fact
All we have done is, in certain cases, to add a motive to the demonstrable in the Signorelli example
factors that have been recognized all along as being able to
bring about the forgetting of a name; and, in addition, we have The value of the insight that we have gained in analysing
elucidated the mechanism of false recollection (paramnesia). the Signorelli example naturally depends on whether we want to
These dispositions are indispensable to our case as well, in pronounce that instance as typical or as an isolated occurrence.
order to make it possible for the repressed element to get hold I must affirm, then, that the forgetting of names, accompanied
of the missing name by association and draw it with itself into by paramnesia, takes place with uncommon frequency in the
repression. In the case of another name with more favourable way in which we have explained it in the Signorelli case. In
conditions for reproduction this perhaps would not happen. It almost every instance in which I could observe this pheno-
is probable indeed that a suppressed element always strives to menon in myself, I have also been able to explain it in the way
assert itself elsewhere, but is successful in this only when suit- described above, i.e. as motivated by repression. I must also
able conditions meet it halfway. At other times the suppression draw attention to another consideration which supports the
succeeds without any functional disturbance, or, as we can typical nature of our analysis. I think there is no justification for
justly say, without any symptom. making a theoretical separation between those cases in which
The conditions necessary for forgetting a name, when for- the forgetting of names is accompanied by paramnesia and the
getting it is accompanied by paramnesia, may then be sum- sort where incorrect substitute names have not presented
marized as follows: (I) a certain disposition for forgetting the themsclves.s These substitute names occur spontaneously in
name, (a) a process of suppression carried out shortly before, a number of cases; in others, where they have not emerged
(3) the possibility of establishing an external association between spontaneously, it is possible to force them to emerge by an effort
the name in question and the element previously suppressed. 1. [See footnote 1 below, p. 51].
1. [i.e. 'mental traces'. Sec Stout, 1938, as.] a. [Freud returns to this question in the next chapter, p. so].
44 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OP EVERYDAY LIIPE
of attention; and they then show the same relation to the
repressed element and to the missing name as they would if CHAPTER II
they had appeared spontaneously. Two factors seem to be
THE FORGETTING OF
decisive in bringing the substitute names to consciousness:
first, the effort of attention, and secondly, an inner condition FOREIGN WORDS'
that attaches to the psychical material. We might look for the
latter in the greater or lesser facility with which the necessary THE current vocabulary of our own language, when it is
external association between the two elements establishes itself. confined to the range of normal usage, seems to be protected
A good portion of the cases of name-forgetting without param- against being forgotten.2 With the vocabulary of a foreign
nesia can thus be added to the cases in which substitute names language it is notoriously otherwise. The disposition to forget
are formed — to which the mechanism of the Signorelli example it extends to all parts of speech, and an early stage in functional
applies. l shall however certainly not venture to affirm that all disturbance is revealed by the fluctuations in the control we
cases of name-forgetting are to be classed in the same group. have over our stock of foreign words — according to the general
There is no question that instances of it exist which are much condition of our health and to the degree of our tiredness. In a
simpler. We shall, I think, have stated the facts of the case number of cases this kind of forgetting exhibits the same
with sufficient caution if we affirm: By the side of simple cases mechanism disclosed to us by the Signorelli example. In proof
where proper names are forgotten there is a type of forgetting which is of this I shall give only a single analysis, one which is distin-
motivated by repression. guished, however, by some useful characteristics: it concerns
the forgetting of a non-substantival word in a Latin quotation.

r. [Apart from the change recorded in the next footnote, a new foot-
note on p. 49, and a short addition to the footnote on pp. so-st, the
whole of this chapter dates back to igoi.]
2. [In isiot and i9o4 there was at this point a long footnote. It began:
'I am doubtful whether frequency of use can by itself account for this
protection. I have at any rate observed that first names, which do not
have the same restricted application that proper names [i.e. surnames]
have, arc just as liable to be forgotten as the latter.' This was followed
by the example now to be found in Chapter III, p. 6a (forgetting the
first name of a woman patient's brother). The footnote continued: 'A
suppressed thought about oneself or one's own family frequently pro-
vides the motive for forgetting a name, as if one were constantly
making comparisions between oneself and other people. [Cf. p. 631
The most curious instance of this sort was reported to me by a Herr
Lederer ...' The example now to be found in Chapter III, p. 63 f., was
then cited. In 1907 a new chapter, on the forgetting of names and sets
of words, was added to the book (the present Chapter III); these two
examples were transferred to it, and the rest of the footnote disappeared.]

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