Introductory lectures on psycho-analysis : $b a course of twenty-eight lectures delivered at the University of ViennaFreud, Sigmund
Science
Introductory lectures on psycho-analysis : $b a course of twenty-eight lectures delivered at the University of Vienna
Freud, Sigmund
Psychoanalysis
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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