Forgetting

In 1914, Freud published an English edition of his The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. In this book he endeavours to show that many 'lapses of memory' and 'slips of the tongue' are not inexplicable accidents but can be readily understood if fitted into the personality picture of the individual. The reader is recommended to look at this well-written book for himself and discover the wealth of intriguing anecdotal evidence with which Freud supports and develops his thesis.

Freud is at his best when discussing those seemingly accidental mistakes of speech and writing where one word is substituted for another and, especially, where the substitute word means the opposite of the word intended. A physician is writing out a prescription for an impecunious patient who asks him not to give her big bills because she cannot swallow them-and then says that, of course, she meant pills. An arrogant lecturer says that he could count the number of real authorities on his subject on one finger - he means the fingers of one hand. A President of the Austrian House of Deputies is opening a session from which he fears little good will come and announces that, since such and such a number of gentlemen are present, he declares the session as closed; amid laughter, he corrects his mistake and declares the session as opened. All of these examples clearly derive from the person saying what he actually thinks without checking himself to make his insincere but diplomatic statement. No doubt we have all encountered similar examples in our everyday life. Certainly writers of fiction have long been aware of this phenomenon, and have exploited it to good dramatic effect by putting such lapsus linguae into the mouths of characters. In Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, for example, Portia has lost her affections to Bassanio but is under a vow not to reveal it. She directs a speech to this welcome suitor in which, throughout, her love for him is thinly disguised and finishes with the words: 'One half of me is yours, the other half yours - Mine own, I would say.' The same expression of our thoughts and wishes is seen in some erroneously carried-out actions. Thus, one physician reports that he is quite often disturbed in the midst of engrossing work at home by having to go to hospital to carry out some routine duty. When this happens he is apt to find himself trying to open the door of his laboratory with the key of his desk at home. The two keys are quite unlike each other and the mistake does not occur under normal circumstances but only under conditions where he would rather be at home. His error seems to express his wish.

When Freud begins to discuss 'lapses of memory' in terms of repression, he seems to move on less firm ground. He does not, of course, claim that all lapses are due to repression. His concern is to show that at least some are and, to this end, he gives examples in which a name or a word is unexpectedly forgotten and proceeds to demonstrate that the forgotten item is associated either directly or indirectly with unpleasant circumstances. Here we may cite two of his most convincing examples. The first concerns a man (X) who repeatedly forgot the name of an old acquaintance and business associate (Y). When he required to correspond with Y, he had to ask other people for his name. It transpired that Y had recently married a young woman X himself had hoped to marry. Thus X had good reason to dislike his happy rival and want to forget all about him. The second example concerns a man who set out to recite a poem, got so far, and then could recall no more although he knew the poem well. The line on which he blocked was descriptive of a pine-tree which is covered 'with the white sheet'. Why should this phrase have been forgotten? Asked to relate what came to his mind when he thought of this phrase, it was found that it immediately reminded him of the white sheet which covers a dead body, and of the recent death of his brother from a heart condition which was common in his family and from which he feared he too might die. The phrase referring to the white sheet appears to have been forgotten because it was associated with circumstances which the man did not wish to recall. In Freud's other examples, the link between the forgotten item and some unpleasant circumstance is not so easily demonstrated.

(From Memory: Facts and Fallacies, by Ian Hunter.)