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
Forgetting proper names, and foreign names and words, can be traced in
the same way to a counter-tendency aiming either directly or indirectly
against the name in question. I have already given you several examples
of such direct antipathy. Indirect causation is particularly frequent
here and careful analysis is generally required to elucidate it. Thus,
for instance, in the present time of war which forces us to forego so
many of our former pleasures, our ability to recall proper names suffers
severely by connections of the most far-fetched kind. It happened to me
lately to be unable to remember the name of the harmless Moravian town
of Bisenz; and analysis showed that I was guilty of no direct antagonism
in the matter, but that the resemblance to the name of the Palazzo
Bisenzi in Orvieto, where I had spent many happy times in the past, was
responsible. As a motive of the tendency opposing the recollection of
this name, we here for the first time encounter a principle which will
later on reveal itself to be of quite prodigious importance in the
causation of neurotic symptoms: namely, the aversion on the part of
memory against recalling anything connected with painful feelings that
would revive the pain if it were recalled. In this tendency towards
_avoidance of pain_ from recollection or other mental processes, this
flight of the mind from that which is unpleasant, we may perceive the
ultimate purpose at work behind not merely the forgetting of names, but
also many other errors, omissions, and mistakes.
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