Part 6

Perhaps the idea has also come to you that in these examples mistakes seem to have replaced the omens or portents of the ancients. And indeed, certain kinds of portents were nothing but errors, for instance, when anyone stumbled or fell down. It is true that another group of omens bore the character of objective events rather than of subjective acts. But you would not believe how difficult it is sometimes to decide whether a specific instance belongs to the first category or to the second. The act knows so often how to disguise itself as a passive experience.

Everyone of us who can look back over a fairly long experience of life would probably say that he might have spared himself many disappointments and painful surprises, if he had had the courage and resolution to interpret as omens the little mistakes which he noticed in his intercourse with others, and to regard them as signs of tendencies still in the background. For the most part one does not dare to do this; one has an impression that one would become superstitious again by a circuitous scientific path. And then, not all omens come true, and our theories will show you how it is that they need not all come true.

FOURTH LECTURE THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ERRORS (conclusion)

That errors have a meaning we may certainly set down as established by our efforts up to this point, and may take this conclusion as a basis for our further investigations. Let me once more emphasize the fact that we do not maintain—and for our purposes do not need to maintain—that every single mistake which occurs has a meaning, although I think that probable. It is enough for us to prove that such a meaning is relatively frequent in the various forms of errors. In this respect, by the way, the various forms show certain differences. Some cases of slips of the tongue, slips of the pen, and so on, may be the effect of a purely physiological cause, though I cannot believe this possible of those errors which depend upon forgetfulness (forgetting of names or intentions, mislaying, and so on); losing possessions is in all probability to be recognized as unintentional in some cases; altogether our conceptions are only to a certain extent applicable to the mistakes which occur in daily life. These limitations should be borne in mind by you when we proceed on the assumption that errors are mental acts arising from the mutual interference of two intentions.

This is the first result of our psycho-analysis. Hitherto psychology has known nothing of such interferences or of the possibility that they could occasion manifestations of this kind. We have widened the domain of mental phenomena to a very considerable extent and have won for psychology phenomena which were never before accredited to it.

Let us dwell for a moment on the proposition that errors are “mental acts.” Does this mean any more than our former statement, that they have a meaning? I do not think so; on the contrary, it is a more indefinite statement and one more open to misunderstanding. Everything that can be observed in mental life will be designated at one time or another as a mental phenomenon. It depends, however, whether the particular mental phenomenon is directly due to bodily, organic or material agencies, in which case it does not fall to psychology for investigation; or whether it arose directly from other mental processes, behind which at some point the succession of organic agencies then begins. We have in mind the latter state of things when we describe a phenomenon as a mental process, and it is therefore more expedient to put our statement in this form: The phenomenon has meaning; and by meaning we understand significance, intention, tendency and a position in a sequence of mental concatenations.

There is another group of occurrences which is very closely related to errors but for which this name is not suitable. We call them ‘accidental’ and symptomatic acts. They also appear to be unmotivated, insignificant and unimportant but, in addition to this, they have very clearly the feature of superfluity. They are, on the one hand, distinguishable from errors by the absence of any second intention to which they are opposed and which they disturb; on the other hand, they merge without any definite line of demarcation into the gestures and movements which we regard as expressions of the emotions. To this class of accidental performances belong all those apparently purposeless acts which we carry out, as though in play, with clothing, parts of the body, objects within reach; also the omission of such acts; and again the tunes which we hum to ourselves. I maintain that all such performances have meaning and are explicable in the same way as are errors, that they are slight indications of other more important mental processes, and are genuine mental acts. I propose, however, not to linger over this further extension of the field of mental phenomena, but to return to the errors; for by a consideration of them problems of importance in the enquiry into psycho-analysis can be worked out much more clearly.

Undoubtedly, the most interesting questions which we formulated while considering errors, and have not yet answered, are the following: We said that errors result from the mutual interference of two different intentions, of which one may be called the intention interfered with, and the other the interfering tendency. The intentions interfered with give rise to no further questions, but concerning the others we wish to know, first, what kind of intentions these are that arise as disturbers of others, and secondly, what are the relations between the interfering tendencies and those which suffer the interference?

Allow me to take slips of the tongue again as representative of the whole series, and to answer the second question before the first.

The interfering tendency in the slip of the tongue may be connected in meaning with the intention interfered with, in which case the former contains a contradiction of the latter, or corrects, or supplements it. Or, in other more obscure and more interesting cases, the interfering tendency may have no connection whatever in meaning with the intention interfered with.

Evidence for the first of these two relationships can be found without difficulty in the examples already studied and in others similar to them. In almost all cases of slips of the tongue where the opposite of what is meant is said the interfering tendency expresses the opposite meaning to that of the intention interfered with, and the slip is the expression of the conflict between two incompatible impulses. “I declare the meeting open, but would prefer to have closed it” is the meaning of the President’s slip. A political paper which had been accused of corruption defends itself in an article meant to culminate with the words: “Our readers will testify that we have always laboured for the public benefit in the most disinterested manner.” But the editor entrusted with the composition of the defence wrote “in the most interested manner.” That is to say, he thinks, “I have to write this stuff, but I know better.” A representative of the people, urging that the Kaiser should be told the truth “rückhaltslos” (unreservedly), hears an inner voice terrified at his boldness, and by a slip of the tongue transforms rückhaltslos into “rückgratslos” (without backbone, ineffectually).

In the examples already given, which produce an impression of contraction and abbreviation, the process represents a correction, addition, or continuation, in which a second tendency manifests itself alongside the first. “Things were then revealed, but better say it straight out, they were filthy, therefore,—things were then refilled.” “The people who understand this subject may be counted on the fingers of one hand, but no, there is really only one person who understands it, very well then,—can be counted on one finger.” Or, “my husband can eat and drink what he likes, but, you know, I don’t permit him to like this and that; so then,—he may eat and drink what I like.” In all these cases the slip arises from the content of the intention interfered with, or is directly connected with it.

The other kind of relationship between the two interfering tendencies seems strange. If the interfering tendency has nothing to do with the content of the one interfered with, whence comes it then, and how does it happen to make itself manifest just at that point? Observation, which alone can supply the answer to this, shows that the interfering tendency proceeds from a train of thought which has occupied the person shortly before and then reveals itself in this way as an after-effect, irrespective of whether or not it has already been expressed in speech. It is really therefore to be described as a perseveration, though not necessarily a perseveration of spoken words. An associative connection between the interfering tendency and that interfered with is not lacking here either, though it is not found in the content but is artificially established, sometimes with considerable “forcing” of the connections.

Here is a simple example of this which I observed myself. Once in the beautiful Dolomites I met two Viennese ladies who were starting for a walking-tour. I accompanied them part of the way and we discussed the pleasures, but also the trials, of this way of life. One of the ladies admitted that spending the day like this entailed much discomfort. “It certainly is very unpleasant to tramp all day in the sun till one’s blouse ... and things are soaked through.” In this sentence she had to overcome a slight hesitation at one point. Then she continued: “But then, when one gets nach Hose and can change....” (Hose means drawers: the lady meant to say nach Hause which means home). We did not analyse this slip, but I am sure you will easily understand it. The lady’s intention had been to enumerate a more complete list of her clothes, “blouse, chemise and drawers.” From motives of propriety, mention of the drawers (Hose) was omitted; but in the next sentence, the content of which is quite independent, the unuttered word came to light as a distortion of the word it resembled in sound, home (Hause).

Now we can turn at last to the main question which has been so long postponed, namely, what kind of tendencies these are which bring themselves to expression in this unusual way by interfering with other intentions. They are evidently very various, yet our aim is to find some element common to them all. If we examine a series of examples for this purpose we shall soon find that they fall into three groups. To the first group belong the cases in which the interfering tendency is known to the speaker and, moreover, was felt by him before the slip. Thus, in the case of the slip “refilled,” the speaker not only admitted that he had criticized the events in question as “filthy,” but further, that he had had the intention, which he subsequently reversed, of expressing this opinion in words. A second group is formed by other cases in which the interfering tendency is likewise recognized by the speaker as his own, but he is not aware that it was active in him before the slip. He therefore accepts our interpretation, but remains to some extent surprised by it. Examples of this attitude are probably more easily found in other errors than in slips of the tongue. In the third group the interpretation of the interfering tendency is energetically repudiated by the speaker; not only does he dispute that it was active in him before the slip, but he will maintain that it is altogether entirely alien to him. Recall the case about hiccoughing and the positively discourteous rebuff which I brought upon myself by detecting the interfering tendency. You know that in our attitude towards these cases you and I are still far from an agreement. I should make nothing of the after-dinner speaker’s denial and hold fast to my interpretation unwaveringly, while you, I imagine, are still impressed by his vehemence and are wondering whether one should not forego the interpretation of such errors and let them pass for purely physiological acts, as in the days before analysis. I can imagine what it is that alarms you. My interpretation includes the assumption that tendencies of which a speaker knows nothing can express themselves through him and that I can deduce them from various indications. You hesitate before a conclusion so novel and so pregnant with consequences. I understand that, and admit that up to a point you are justified. But let one thing be clear: if you intend to carry to its logical conclusion the conception of errors which has been confirmed by so many examples, you must decide to make this startling assumption. If you cannot do this, you will have to abandon again the understanding of errors which you had only just begun to obtain.

Let us pause a moment on that which unites the three groups and is common to the three mechanisms of a slip of the tongue. Fortunately this common element is unmistakable. In the first two groups the interfering tendency is admitted by the speaker; in the first, there is the additional fact that it showed itself immediately before the slip. But in both cases it has been forced back. The speaker had determined not to convert the idea into speech and then it happens that he makes a slip of the tongue; that is to say, the tendency which is debarred from expression asserts itself against his will and gains utterance, either by altering the expression of the intention permitted by him, or by mingling with it, or actually by setting itself in place of it. This then is the mechanism of a slip of the tongue.

For my own part I can bring the process in the third group also into perfect harmony with the mechanism here described. I need only assume that these three groups are differentiated by the varying degrees to which the forcing back of an intention is effective. In the first group, the intention is present and makes itself perceptible before the words are spoken; not until then does it suffer the rejection for which it indemnifies itself in the slip. In the second group the rejection reaches further back; the intention is no longer perceptible even before the speech. It is remarkable that this does not hinder it in the least from being the active cause of the slip! But this state of things simplifies the explanation of the process in the third group. I shall be bold enough to assume that a tendency can still express itself by an error though it has been debarred from expression for a long time, perhaps for a very long time, has not made itself perceptible at all, and can therefore be directly repudiated by the speaker. But leaving aside the problem of the third group, you must conclude from the other cases that a suppression (Unterdrückung) of a previous intention to say something is the indispensable condition for the occurrence of a slip of the tongue.

We may now claim to have made further progress in the understanding of errors. We not only know them to be mental phenomena in which meaning and purpose are recognizable, not only know that they arise from the mutual interference of two different intentions, but in addition we know that, for one of these intentions to be able to express itself by interfering with another, it must itself have been subject to some hindrance against its operation. It must first be itself interfered with, before it can interfere with others. Naturally this does not give us a complete explanation of the phenomena which we call errors. We see at once further questions arising, and in general we suspect that as we progress towards comprehension the more numerous will be the occasions for new questions. We might ask, for instance, why the matter does not proceed much more simply. If the intention to restrain a certain tendency instead of carrying it into effect is present in the mind, then this restraint ought to succeed, so that nothing whatever of the tendency gains expression, or else it might fail so that the restrained tendency achieves full expression. But errors are compromise-formations; they express part-success and part-failure for each of the two intentions; the threatened intention is neither entirely suppressed nor, apart from some instances, does it force itself through intact. We can imagine that special conditions must be present for the occurrence of such interference (or compromise)-formations, but we cannot even conjecture of what kind they may be. Nor do I think that we could discover these unknown circumstances by penetrating further into the study of errors. It will be necessary first to examine thoroughly yet other obscure fields of mental life: only the analogies to be met with there can give us courage to form those assumptions which are requisite for a more searching elucidation of errors. And one other point! To work from slight indications, as we constantly do in this field, is not without its dangers. There is a mental disorder called combinatory paranoia in which the practice of utilizing such small indications is carried beyond all limits, and I naturally do not contend that the conclusions which are built up on such a basis are throughout correct. Only by the breadth of our observations, by the accumulation of similar impressions from the most varied forms of mental life, can we guard against this danger.

So now we will leave the analysis of errors. But there is one thing more which I might impress upon you: to keep in mind, as a model, the method by which we have studied these phenomena. You can perceive from these examples what the aim of our psychology is. Our purpose is not merely to describe and classify the phenomena, but to conceive them as brought about by the play of forces in the mind, as expressions of tendencies striving towards a goal, which work together or against one another. We are endeavouring to attain a dynamic conception of mental phenomena. In this conception, the trends we merely infer are more prominent than the phenomena we perceive.

So we will probe no further into errors; but we may still take a fleeting glimpse over the breadth of this whole field, in the course of which we shall both meet with things already known and come upon the tracks of others that are new. In so doing, we will keep to the division into three groups of slips of the tongue, made at the beginning of our study, together with the co-ordinate forms of slips of the pen, misreading, mis-hearing; of forgetting with its subdivisions according to the object forgotten (proper names, foreign words, resolutions, impressions); and of mislaying, mistaking, and losing, objects. Mistakes, in so far as they concern us, are to be grouped partly under the head of forgetting, partly under acts erroneously performed (picking up the wrong objects, etc.).

We have already treated slips of the tongue in great detail, yet there is still something to add. There are certain small affective manifestations related to slips of the tongue which are not entirely without interest. No one likes to think he has made a slip of the tongue; one often fails to hear it when made by oneself, but never when made by someone else. Slips of the tongue are in a certain sense infectious; it is not at all easy to speak of them without making them oneself. It is not hard to detect the motivation of even the most trifling forms of them, although these do not throw any particular light on hidden mental processes. If, for instance, anyone pronounces a long vowel as a short one, in consequence of a disturbance over the word, no matter how motivated, he will as a result soon after lengthen a short vowel and commit a new slip in compensation for the first. The same thing occurs if anyone pronounces a diphthong indistinctly and carelessly, for instance, “ew” or “oy” as “i”; he tries to correct it by changing a subsequent “i” into “ew” or “oy.” Some consideration relating to the hearer seems to be behind this behaviour, as though he were not to be allowed to think that the speaker is indifferent how he treats his mother-tongue. The second, compensating distortion actually has the purpose of drawing the hearer’s attention to the first and assuring him that it has not escaped the speaker either. The most frequent, insignificant, and simple forms of slips consist in contractions and anticipations in inconspicuous parts of the speech. In a long sentence, for instance, slips of the tongue would be of the kind in which the last word intended influences the sound of an earlier word. This gives an impression of a certain impatience to be done with the sentence, and in general it points to a certain resistance against the communication of this sentence, or the speech altogether. From this we come to border-line cases, in which the differences between the psycho-analytical and the ordinary physiological conception of slips of the tongue become merged. We assume that in these cases a disturbing tendency is opposing the intended speech; but it can only betray its presence and not what its own purpose is. The interference which it causes follows some sound-influence or associative connection and may be regarded as a distraction of attention away from the intended speech. But neither in this distraction of attention, nor in the associative tendency which has been activated, lies the essence of the occurrence; the essence lies rather in the hint the occurrence gives of the presence of some other intention interfering with the intended speech, the nature of which cannot in this case be discovered from its effects, as is possible in all the more pronounced cases of slips of the tongue.

Slips of the pen, to which I now turn, are so like slips of the tongue in their mechanism that no new points of view are to be expected from them. Perhaps a small addition to our knowledge from this group will content us. Those very common little slips of the pen, contractions, anticipations of later words, particularly of the last words, point to a general distaste for writing and to an impatience to be done; more pronounced effects in slips of the pen allow the nature and intention of the interference to be recognized. In general, if one finds a slip of the pen in a letter one knows that the writer’s mind was not working smoothly at the moment; what was the matter one cannot always establish. Slips of the pen are frequently as little noticed by those who make them as slips of the tongue. The following observation is striking in this connection. There are, of course, some persons who have the habit of always re-reading every letter they write before sending it. Others do not do this; but if the latter make an exception and re-read a letter they then always have an opportunity of finding and correcting a striking slip of the pen. How is this to be explained? It almost looks as if such people knew that they had made a slip in writing the letter. Are we really to believe that this is so?

There is an interesting problem connected with the practical significance of slips of the pen. You may recall the case of the murderer H. who managed, by asserting himself to be a bacteriologist, to obtain cultures of highly dangerous disease-germs from scientific institutions, but used them for the purpose of doing away in this most modern fashion with people connected with him. This man once complained to the authorities of one of these institutions about the ineffectiveness of the cultures sent him, but committed a slip of the pen and, instead of the words “in my experiments on mice and guinea-pigs (Mäusen und Meerschweinchen)”, the words “in my experiments on people (Menschen)” were plainly legible. This slip even attracted the attention of the doctors at the institute but, so far as I know, they drew no conclusion from it. Now, what do you think? Would it not have been better if the doctors had taken the slip of the pen as a confession and started an investigation so that the murderer’s proceedings might have been arrested in time? In this case, does not ignorance of our conception of errors result in neglect which, in actuality, may be very important? Well, I know that such a slip of the pen would certainly rouse great suspicion in me; but there is an important objection against regarding it as a confession. The matter is not so simple. The slip of the pen is certainly an indication but, alone, it would not have justified an enquiry. It does indeed betray that the man is occupied with the thought of infecting human beings; but it does not show with certainty whether this thought is a definite plan to do harm or a mere phantasy of no practical importance. It is even possible that a person making such a slip will deny, with the soundest subjective justification, the existence of such a phantasy in himself, and will reject the idea as a thing utterly alien to him. Later, when we come to consider the difference between psychical reality and material reality you will be better able to appreciate these possibilities. But this again is a case in which an error was found subsequently to have unsuspected significance.

Misreading brings us to a mental situation which is clearly different from that of slips of the tongue or the pen. One of the two conflicting tendencies is here replaced by a sensory excitation and is perhaps therefore less tenacious. What one is reading is not a product of one’s own mind, as is that which one is going to write. In the large majority of cases, therefore, misreading consists in complete substitution. A different word is substituted for the word to be read, without there necessarily being any connection in the content between the text and the effect of the mistake, and usually by means of a resemblance between the words. Lichtenberg’s example of this, “Agamemnon” instead of “angenommen,” is the best of this group. To discover the interfering tendency which causes the mistake one may put aside the original text altogether; the analytic investigation may begin with two questions: What is the first idea occurring in free association to the effect of the misreading (the substitute), and in what circumstances did the misreading occur? Occasionally a knowledge of the latter is sufficient in itself to explain the misreading, as, for instance, when someone wandering about a strange town, driven by urgent needs, reads the word “Closethaus” on a large sign on the first storey. He has just time to wonder that the board has been fixed at that height when he discovers that the word on it is actually “Corsethaus.” In other cases where there is a lack of connection in content between the text and the slip a thorough analysis is necessary, which cannot be accomplished without practice in psycho-analytic technique and confidence in it. But it is not usually so difficult to come by the explanation of a case of misreading. In the example “Agamemnon,” the substituted word betrays without further difficulty the line of thought from which the disturbance arose. In this time of war, for instance, it is very common for one to read everywhere names of towns, generals, and military expressions, which are continually in one’s ears, wherever one sees a word at all resembling them. Whatever interests and occupies the mind takes the place of what is alien and as yet uninteresting. The shadows of thoughts in the mind dim the new perceptions.

Another kind of misreading is possible, in which the text itself arouses the disturbing tendency, whereupon it is usually changed into its opposite. Someone is required to read something which he dislikes, and analysis convinces him that a strong wish to reject what is read is responsible for the alteration.

In the first-mentioned, more frequent cases of misreading two factors to which we ascribed great importance in the mechanism of errors are inconspicuous; these are, the conflict between two tendencies and the forcing back of one of them which compensates itself by producing the error. Not that anything contradictory of this occurs in misreading, but nevertheless the importunity of the train of thought tending to the mistake is far more conspicuous than the restraint which it may have previously undergone. Just these two factors are most clearly observable in the different situations in which errors occur through forgetfulness.

The forgetting of resolutions has positively but one meaning; the interpretation of it, as we have heard, is not denied even by the layman. The tendency interfering with the resolution is always an opposing one, an unwillingness, concerning which it only remains to enquire why it does not come to expression in a different and less disguised form; for the existence of this opposing tendency is beyond doubt. Sometimes it is possible, too, to infer something of the motives which necessitate the concealment of this antipathy; one sees that it would certainly have been condemned if it declared its opposition openly, whereas by craft, in the error, it always achieves its end. When an important change in the mental situation occurs between the formation of the resolution and its execution, in consequence of which the execution would no longer be required, then if it were forgotten the occurrence could no longer come within the category of errors. There would be nothing to wonder at in the error, for one recognizes that it would have been superfluous to remember the resolution; it had been either permanently or temporarily cancelled. Forgetting to carry out a resolution can only be called an error when there is no reason to believe that any such cancellation has occurred.

Cases of forgetting to carry out resolutions are usually so uniform and transparent, that they are of no interest for our researches. There are two points, nevertheless, at which something new can be learnt by studying this type of error. We have said that forgetting and not executing a resolution indicates an antagonistic tendency in opposition to it. This is certainly true, but our own investigations show that this ‘counter-will’ may be of two kinds, either immediate or mediate. What is meant by the latter is best explained by one or two examples. When the patron forgets to say a good word for his protégé to some third person, it may happen because he is actually not much interested in the protégé and therefore has no great inclination to do it. This, in any case, will be the protégé’s view of the patron’s omission. But the matter may be more complicated. The antipathy against executing the resolution may come from some other source in the patron and be directed to some other point. It need have nothing at all to do with the protégé, but is perhaps directed against the third person to whom the recommendation was to be made. Here again, you see, what objections there are against applying our interpretations practically. In spite of having correctly interpreted the error, the protégé is in danger of becoming too suspicious and of doing his patron a grave injustice. Again, if someone forgets an appointment which he had promised and was resolved to attend, the commonest cause is certainly a direct disinclination to meet the other person. But analysis might produce evidence that the interfering tendency was concerned, not with the person, but with the place of meeting, which was avoided on account of some painful memory associated with it. Or if one forgets to post a letter the opposing tendency may be concerned with the contents of the letter; but this does not exclude the possibility that the letter in itself is harmless and becomes the subject of a counter-tendency only because something in it reminds the writer of another letter, written previously, which did in fact afford a direct basis for antipathy. It may then be said that the antipathy has been transferred from the earlier letter, where it was justified, to the present one where it actually has no object. So you see that restraint and caution must be exercised in applying our quite well-founded interpretations; that which is psychologically equivalent may in actuality have many meanings.