A General Introduction to PsychoanalysisFreud, Sigmund
Science
A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis
Freud, Sigmund
Psychoanalysis
The cases of forgetting plans are in general so uniform and transparent
that they do not interest us in our investigation. There are two points,
however, from which we can learn something new. We have said that
forgetting, that is, the non-execution of a plan, points to an antipathy
toward it. This certainly holds, but, according to the results of our
investigations, the antipathy may be of two sorts, direct and indirect.
What is meant by the latter can best be explained by one or two
examples. If a patron forgets to say a good word for his protegé to a
third person, it may be because the patron is not really very much
interested in the protegé, therefore, has no great inclination to
commend him. It is, at any rate, in this sense that the protegé will
construe his patron's forgetfulness. But the matter may be more
complicated. The patron's antipathy to the execution of the plan may
originate in another quarter and fasten upon quite a different point. It
need not have anything to do with the protegé, but may be directed
toward the third person to whom the good word was to have been said.
Thus, you see what doubts here confront the practical application of our
interpretation. The protegé, despite a correct interpretation of the
forgetfulness, stands in danger of becoming too suspicious, and of doing
his patron a grave injustice. Or, if an individual forgets a rendezvous
which he has made, and which he had resolved to keep, the most frequent
basis will certainly be the direct aversion to encountering this person.
But analysis might here supply the information that the interfering
intention was not directed against that person, but against the place in
which they were to have met, and which was avoided because of a painful
memory associated with it. Or, if one forgets to mail a letter, the
counter-intention may be directed against the content of that letter,
yet this does not in any way exclude the possibility that the letter is
harmless in itself, and only subject to the counter-intention because
something about it reminds the writer of another letter written
previously, which, in fact, did afford a basis for the antipathy. One
can say in such a case that the antipathy has here transferred itself
from that former letter where it was justified to the present one in
which it really has no meaning. Thus you see that one must always
exercise restraint and caution in the application of interpretations,
even though the interpretations are justified. That which is
psychologically equivalent may nevertheless in practice be very
ambiguous.
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