Essay About Proper Names And Normal State

Psychopathology Of Everyday Life By Freud
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PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE
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Psychopathology of Everyday
Life
By Sigmund Freud (1901)
Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com
PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE
Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com
Psychopathology of Everyday Life
Sigmund Freud (1901)
Translation by A. A. Brill (1914)
Introduction
Chapter 1. Forgetting of Proper Names
Chapter 2. Forgetting of Foreign Words
Chapter 3. Forgetting of Names and Order of Words
Chapter 4. Childhood and Concealing Memories
Chapter 5. Mistakes in Speech
Chapter 6. Mistakes in Reading and Writing
Chapter 7. Forgetting of Impressions and Resolutions
Chapter 8. Erroneously Carried-out Actions
Chapter 9. Symptomatic and Chance Actions
Chapter 10. Errors
Chapter 11. Combined Faulty Acts
Chapter 12. Determinism, Chance, and Superstitious
Beliefs
PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE
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INTRODUCTION
Professor Freud developed his system of psychoanalysis while studying the so-called borderline
cases of mental diseases, such as hysteria and compulsionneurosis. By discarding the old
methods of treatment and strictly applying himself to a study of the patients life he discovered
that the hitherto puzzling symptoms had a definite meaning, and that there was nothing arbitrary
in any morbid manifestation. Psychoanalysis always showed that they referred to some definite
problem or conflict of the person concerned. It was while tracing back the abnormal to the
normal state that Professor Freud found how faint the line of demarcation was between the
normal and neurotic person,and that the psychopathologic mechanisms so glaringly observed in
the psychoneuroses and psychoses could usually be demonstrated in a lesser degree in normal
persons. This led to a study of the faulty actions of everyday life and later to the publication of
the Psychopathology of Everyday Life, a book which passed through four editions in Germany
and is considered the authors most popular work. With great ingenuity and penetration the
author throws much light on the complex problems of human behavior, and clearly demonstrates
that the hitherto considered impassable gap betweennormal and abnormal mental states is more
apparent than real.
This translation is made of the fourth German edition, and while the original text was strictly
followed, linguistic difficulties often madeit necessary to modify or substitute some of the
authors cases by examples comprehensible to the English-speaking reader.
New York.
A. A. Brill.
CHAPTER 1
Forgetting of Proper Names
During the year 1898 I published a short essay On the Psychic Mechanism of Forgetfulness.[1] I
shall now repeat its contents and take it as a starting-point for further discussion. I have there
undertaken a psychologic analysis of a common case of temporary forgetfulness of proper
names, and from a pregnant example of my own observation I have reached the conclusion that
this frequent and practically unimportant occurrence of a failure of a psychic function — of
memory — admits an explanation which goes beyond the customary utilization of this
phenomenon.
If an average psychologist should be asked to explain how it happens that we often fail to recall a
name which we are sure we know, he would probably content himself with the answer that
proper names are more apt to be forgotten than any other content of memory. He might give
plausible reasons for this “forgetting pre- [p. 4] ference” for proper names, but he would not
assume any deep determinant for the process.
I was led to examine exhaustively the phenomenon of temporary forgetfulness through the
observation of certain peculiarities, which, although not general, can, nevertheless, be seen
clearly in some cases. In these there is not only forgetfulness, but also false recollection: he who
strives for the escaped name brings to consciousness others — substitutive names — which,
PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE
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although immediately recognized as false, nevertheless obtrude themselves with great tenacity.
The process which should lead to the reproduction of the lost name is, as it were, displaced, and
thus