Freud - Complete Works (520 page)

   Many people, as we know, derive
some pleasure from a habit like this of deliberately distorting
innocent words into obscene ones; such distortions are regarded as
funny, and when we hear one we must in fact first enquire from the
speaker whether he muttered it intentionally as a joke or whether
it happened as a slip of the tongue.

  
¹
[The Viennese term for a pork
chop.]

  
²
Both from Meringer and Mayer. [In the first
of these untranslatable examples ‘
Apopos
’ is a
non-existent word; but ‘
Popo
’ is a nursery word
for ‘bottom’. In the second example the nonsense word
means literally ‘egg-shit-female’, while the intended
word means ‘small slices of white of egg.’]

Introductory Lectures On Psycho-Analysis

3154

   Well, it looks now as though we
have solved the problem of parapraxes, and with very little
trouble! They are not chance events but serious mental acts; they
have a sense; they arise from the concurrent action - or perhaps
rather, the mutually opposing action - of two different intentions.
But now I see too that you are preparing to overwhelm me with a
mass of questions and doubts which will have to be answered and
dealt with before we can enjoy this first outcome of our work. I
certainly have no desire to force hasty decisions upon you. Let us
take them all in due order, one after the other, and give them cool
consideration.

   What is it you want to ask me? Do
I think that this explanation applies to
all
parapraxes or
only to a certain number? Can this same point of view be extended
to the many other kinds of parapraxis, to misreading, slips of the
pen, forgetting, bungled actions, mislaying, and so on? In view of
the psychical nature of parapraxes, what significance remains for
the factors of fatigue, excitement, absent-mindedness and
interference with the attention? Further, it is clear that of the
two competing purposes in a parapraxis one is always manifest, but
the other not always. What do we do, then, in order to discover the
latter? And, if we think we have discovered it, how do we prove
that it is not merely a probable one but the only correct one? Is
there anything else you want to ask? If not, I will go on myself.
You will recall that we do not set much store by parapraxes
themselves, and that all we want is to learn from studying them
something that may be turned to account for psycho-analysis. I
therefore put this question to you. What are these intentions or
purposes which are able to disturb others in this way? And what are
the relations between the disturbing purposes and the disturbed
ones? Thus, no sooner is the problem solved than our work begins
afresh.

   First, then, is this the
explanation of
all
cases of slips of the tongue? I am very
much inclined to think so, and my reason is that every time one
investigates an instance of a slip of the tongue an explanation of
this kind is forthcoming. But it is also true that there is no way
of proving that a slip of the tongue cannot occur without this
mechanism. It may be so; but theoretically it is a matter of
indifference to us, since the conclusions we want to draw for our
introduction to psycho-analysis remain, even though - which is
certainly not the case - our view holds good of only a minority of
cases of slips of the tongue. The next question - whether we may
extend our view to other sorts of parapraxis - I will answer in
advance with a ‘yes’. You will be able to convince
yourselves of this when we come to examining instances of slips of
the pen, bungled actions, and so on. But for technical reasons I
suggest that we should postpone this task till we have treated
slips of the tongue themselves still more thoroughly.

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3155

   A more detailed reply is called
for by the question of what significance remains for the factors
put forward by the authorities - disturbances of the circulation,
fatigue, excitement, absent-mindedness and the theory of disturbed
attention - if we accept the psychical mechanism of slips of the
tongue which we have described. Observe that we are not denying
these factors. It is in general not such a common thing for
psycho-analysis to
deny
something asserted by other people;
as a rule it merely adds something new - though no doubt it
occasionally happens that this thing that has hitherto been
overlooked and is now brought up as a fresh addition is in fact the
essence of the matter. The influence on the production of slips of
the tongue by physiological dispositions brought about by slight
illness, disturbances of the circulation or states of exhaustion,
must be recognized at once; daily and personal experience will
convince you of it. But how little they explain! Above all, they
are not necessary preconditions of parapraxes. Slips of the tongue
are just as possible in perfect health and in a normal state. These
somatic factors only serve therefore, to facilitate and favour the
peculiar mental mechanism of slips of the tongue. I once used an
analogy to describe this relation, and I will repeat it here since
I can think of none better to take its place. Suppose that one dark
night I went to a lonely spot and was there attacked by a rough who
took away my watch and purse. Since I did not see the
robber’s face clearly, I laid my complaint at the nearest
police station with the words: ‘Loneliness and darkness have
just robbed me of my valuables.’ The police officer might
then say to me: ‘In what you say you seem to be unjustifiably
adopting an extreme mechanistic view. It would be better to
represent the facts in this way: "Under the shield of darkness
and favoured by loneliness, an unknown thief robbed you of your
valuables." In your case the essential task seems to me to be
that we should find the thief. Perhaps we shall then be able to
recover the booty.’

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   Such psycho-physiological factors
as excitement, absent-mindedness and disturbances of attention will
clearly help us very little towards an explanation. They are only
empty phrases, screens behind which we must not let ourselves be
prevented from having a look. The question is rather what it is
that has been brought about here by the excitement, the particular
distracting of attention. And again, we must recognize the
importance of the influence of sounds, the similarity of words and
the familiar associations aroused by words. These facilitate slips
of the tongue by pointing to the paths they can take. But if I have
a path open to me, does that fact automatically decide that I shall
take it? I need a motive in addition before I resolve in favour of
it and furthermore a force to propel me along the path. So these
relations of sounds and words are also, like the somatic
dispositions, only things that
favour
slips of the tongue
and cannot provide the true explanation of them. Only consider: in
an immense majority of cases my speech is not disturbed by the
circumstance that the words I am using recall others with a similar
sound, that they are intimately linked with their contraries or
that familiar associations branch off from them. Perhaps we might
still find a way out by following the philosopher Wundt, when he
says that slips of the tongue arise if, as a result of physical
exhaustion, the inclination to associate gains the upper hand over
what the speaker otherwise intends to say. That would be most
convincing if it were not contradicted by experience, which shows
that in one set of cases the
somatic
factors favouring slips
of the tongue are absent and in another set of cases the
associative
factors favouring them are equally absent.

   I am particularly interested,
however, in your next question: how does one discover the two
mutually interfering purposes? You do not realize, probably, what a
momentous question this is. One of the two, the purpose that is
disturbed, is of course unmistakable: the person who makes the slip
of the tongue knows it and admits to it. It is only the other, the
disturbing purpose, that can give rise to doubt and hesitation.
Now, we have already seen, and no doubt you have not forgotten,
that in a number of cases this other purpose is equally evident. It
is indicated by the
outcome
of the slip, if only we have the
courage to grant that outcome a validity of its own. Take the
President of the Lower House, whose slip of the tongue said the
contrary of what he intended. It is clear that he wanted to open
the sitting, but it is equally clear that he also wanted to close
it. That is so obvious that it leaves us nothing to interpret. But
in the other cases, in which the disturbing purpose only
distorts
the original one without itself achieving complete
expression, how do we arrive at the disturbing purpose from the
distortion?

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   In a first group of cases this is
done quite simply and securely - in the same way, in fact, as with
the
disturbed
purpose. We get the speaker to give us the
information directly. After his slip of the tongue he at once
produces the wording which he originally intended: ‘It
draut
 . . . no, it
dauert
[will last]
another month perhaps.’ Well, in just the same way we get him
to tell us the
disturbing
purpose. ‘Why’, we ask
him, ‘did you say "
draut
?’ He replies:
‘I wanted to say "It’s a
traurige
[sad]
story".’ Similarly, in the other case, where the slip of
the tongue was ‘
Vorschwein
’, the speaker
confirms the fact that he had wanted at first to say
‘It’s a
Schweinerei
[disgusting]’, but had
controlled himself and gone off into another remark. Here then the
distorting purpose is as securely established as the distorted one.
My choice of these examples has not been unintentional, for their
origin and solution come neither from me nor from any of my
followers. And yet in both these cases active measures of a kind
were necessary in order to bring about the solution. The speaker
had to be asked why he had made the slip and what he could say
about it. Otherwise he might perhaps have passed over his slip
without wanting to explain it. But when he was asked he gave the
explanation with the first thing that occurred to him. And now
please observe that this small active step and its successful
outcome are already a psycho-analysis and are a model for every
psycho-analytic investigation which we shall embark upon later.

   Am I too mistrustful, however, if
I suspect that at the very moment at which psycho-analysis makes
its appearance before you resistance to it simultaneously raises
its head? Do you not feel inclined to object that the information
given by the person of whom the question was asked - the person who
made the slip of the tongue - is not completely conclusive? He was
naturally anxious, you think, to fulfil the request to explain the
slip, so he said the first thing that came into his head which
seemed capable of providing such an explanation. But that is no
proof that the slip did in fact take place in that way. It
may
have been so, but it may just as well have happened
otherwise. And something else might have occurred to him which
would have fitted in as well or perhaps even better.

   It is strange how little respect
you have at bottom for a psychical fact! Imagine that someone had
undertaken the chemical analysis of a certain substance and had
arrived at a particular weight for one component of it - so and so
many milligrams. Certain inferences could be drawn from this
weight. Now do you suppose that it would ever occur to a chemist to
criticize those inferences on the ground that the isolated
substance might equally have had some other weight? Everyone will
bow before the fact that this was the weight and none other and
will confidently draw his further inferences from it. But when you
are faced with the psychical fact that a particular thing occurred
to the mind of the person questioned, you will not allow the
fact’s validity: something else might have occurred to him!
You nourish the illusion of there being such a thing as psychical
freedom, and you will not give it up. I am sorry to say I disagree
with you categorically over this.

Introductory Lectures On Psycho-Analysis

3158

   You will break off at that, but
only to take up your resistance again at another point. You
proceed: ‘It is the special technique of psycho-analysis, as
we understand, to get people under analysis themselves to produce
the solution of their problems. Now let us take another example -
the one in which a speaker proposing the toast of honour on a
ceremonial occasion called on his audience to hiccough
[
aufzustossen
] to the health of the Chief. You say that the
disturbing intention in this case was an insulting one: that was
what was opposing the speaker’s expression of respect. But
this is pure interpretation on your part, based upon observations
apart from the slip of the tongue. If in this instance you were to
question the person responsible for the slip, he would not confirm
your idea that he intended an insult; on the contrary, he would
energetically repudiate it. Why, in view of this clear denial, do
you not abandon your unprovable interpretation?’

   Yes. You have lighted on a
powerful argument this time. I can imagine the unknown proposer of
the toast. He is probably a subordinate to the Chief of the
Department who is being honoured - perhaps he himself is already an
Assistant Lecturer, a young man with excellent prospects in life. I
try to force him to admit that he may nevertheless have had a
feeling that there was something in him opposing his toast in
honour of the Chief. But this lands me in a nice mess. He gets
impatient and suddenly breaks out: ‘Just you stop trying to
cross-question me or I shall turn nasty. You’re going to ruin
my whole career with your suspicions. I simply said
"
aufstossen
[hiccough to]" instead of
"
anstossen
[drink to]" because I’d said
"
auf
" twice before in the same sentence.
That’s what Meringer calls a perseveration and there’s
nothing more to be interpreted about it. D’you understand?
Basta
!’ - H’m! That was a surprising reaction, a
truly energetic denial. I see there’s nothing more to be done
with the young man. But I also reflect that he shows a strong
personal interest in insisting on his parapraxis not having a
sense. You may also feel that there was something wrong in his
being quite so rude about a purely theoretical enquiry. But, you
will think, when all is said and done he must know what he wanted
to say and what he didn’t.