Association of ideas; Memory; Paragrammatism; Psychoanalysis; Psychology, Pathological; Repression (Psychology)
For a moment the elder still lacked the feeling of recognition, but
after he accepted the name he was able to state why it had escaped him.
He thought: “Obviously because the second half, _vetrano_, suggests
_veteran_. I am aware that I am not quite anxious to think of ageing,
and react peculiarly when I am reminded of it. Thus, _e.g._, I had
recently reminded a very esteemed friend in most unmistakable terms
that he had ‘long ago passed the years of youth,’ because before this
he once remarked in the most flattering manner, ‘I am no longer a
young man.’ That my resistance was directed against the second half of
the name _Castelvetrano_ is shown by the fact that the initial sound of
the same returned in the substitutive name Caltanisetta.”
“What about the name Caltanisetta itself?” asked the younger.
“That always seemed to me like a pet name of a young woman,” admitted
the elder.
Somewhat later he added: “The name for _Enna_ was also only
a substitutive name. And now it occurs to me that the name
_Castrogiovanni_, which obtruded itself with the aid of a
rationalization, alludes as expressly to _giovane_, young, as the last
name, _Castelvetrano_, to _veteran_.”
The older man believed that he had thus accounted for his forgetting
the name. What the motive was that led the young man to this memory
failure was not investigated.
In some cases one must have recourse to all the fineness of
psychoanalytic technique in order to explain the forgetting of a
name. Those who wish to read an example of such work I refer to a
communication by Professor E. Jones.[8]
I could multiply the examples of name-forgetting and prolong the
discussion very much further if I did not wish to avoid elucidating
here almost all the view-points which will be considered in later
themes. I shall, however, take the liberty of comprehending in a few
sentences the results of the analyses reported here.
The mechanism of forgetting, or rather of losing or temporary
forgetting of a name, consists in the disturbance of the intended
reproduction of the name through a strange stream of thought
unconscious at the time. Between the disturbed name and the disturbing
complex there exists a connection either from the beginning or such
a connection has been formed--perhaps by artificial means--through
superficial (outer) associations.
The self-reference complex (personal, family or professional) proves to
be the most effective of the disturbing complexes.
A name which by virtue of its many meanings belongs to a number of
thought associations (complexes) is frequently disturbed in its
connection to one series of thoughts through a stronger complex
belonging to the other associations.
To avoid the awakening of pain through memory is one of the objects
among the motives of these disturbances.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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