A General Introduction to PsychoanalysisFreud, Sigmund
Science
A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis
Freud, Sigmund
Psychoanalysis
These little characteristics of errors are not exactly illuminated by
the theory of diverted attention. But that does not necessarily prove
the whole theory wrong. There is perhaps something missing, a complement
by the addition of which the theory would be made completely
satisfactory. But many of the errors themselves can be regarded from
another aspect.
Let us select slips of the tongue, as best suited to our purposes. We
might equally well choose slips of the pen or of reading. But at this
point, we must make clear to ourselves the fact that so far we have
inquired only as to when and under what conditions one's tongue slips,
and have received an answer on this point only. One can, however, direct
one's interest elsewhere and ask why one makes just this particular slip
and no other; one can consider what the slip results in. You must
realize that as long as one does not answer this question--does not
explain the effect produced by the slip--the phenomenon in its
psychological aspect remains an accident, even if its physiological
explanation has been found. When it happens that I commit a slip of the
tongue, I could obviously make any one of an infinite number of slips,
and in place of the one right word say any one of a thousand others,
make innumerable distortions of the right word. Now, is there anything
which forces upon me in a specific instance just this one special slip
out of all those which are possible, or does that remain accidental and
arbitrary, and can nothing rational be found in answer to this question?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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