24

III

FORGETTING OF NAMES AND ORDER OF
WORDS

EXPERIENCES like those mentioned concerning the process
of forgetting a part of the order of words from a foreign
language may cause one to wonder whether the forgetting
of the order of words in one’s own language requires an
essentially different explanation. To be sure, one is not wont
to be surprised if after awhile a formula or poem learned
by heart can only be reproduced imperfectly, with variations
and gaps. Still, as this forgetting does not affect equally
all things learned together, but seems to pick out there-
from definite parts, it may be worth our effort to investigate
analytically some examples of such faulty reproductions.

Brill reports the following example:—
“While conversing one day with a very brilliant young
woman she had occasion to quote from Keats. The poem
was entitled ‘Ode to Apollo,’ and she recited the following
lines:—

“‘In thy western house of gold
Where thou livest in thy state,
Bards, that once sublimely told
Prosaic truths that came too late.’

She hesitated many times during the recitation, being sure
that there was something wrong with the last line. To
her great surprise, on referring to the book she found that
not only was the last line misquoted but that there were
many other mistakes. The correct lines read as follows:—

ODE TO APOLLO

“‘In thy western halls of gold
When thou sittest in thy state,
Bards, that erst sublimely told
Heroic deeds and sang of fate.’

25

FORGETTING NAMES AND ORDER OF WORDS

The words italicized are those that have been forgotten
and replaced by others during the recitation.

“She was astonished at her many mistakes, and attributed
them to a failure of memory. I could readily convince her,
however, that there was no qualitative or quantitative dis-
turbance of memory in her case, and recalled to her our
conversation immediately before quoting these lines.
“We were discussing the over-estimation of personality
among lovers, and she thought it was Victor Hugo who said
that love is the greatest thing in the world because it makes
an angel or a god out of a grocery clerk. She continued:
‘Only when we are in love have we blind faith in humanity;
everything is perfect, everything is beautiful, and . . .
everything is so poetically unreal. Still, it is a wonderful
experience; worth going through, notwithstanding the
terrible disappointments that usually follow. It puts us on
a level with the gods and incites us to all sorts of artistic
activities. We become real poets; we not only memorize
and quote poetry, but we often become Apollos ourselves.’
She then quoted the lines given above.
“When I asked on what occasion she memorized the
lines she could not recall. As a teacher of elocution she was
wont to memorize so much and so often that it was difficult
to tell just when she had memorized these lines. ‘Judging
by the conversation,’ I suggested, ‘it would seem that this
poem is intimately associated with the idea of over-estimation
of personality of one in love. Have you perhaps memorized
this poem when you were in such a state?’ She became
thoughtful for a while and soon recalled the following
facts: Twelve years before, when she was eighteen years
old, she fell in love. She met the young man while partici-
pating in an amateur theatrical performance. He was at
the time studying for the stage, and it was predicted that
some day he would be a matinée idol. He was endowed
with all the attributes needed for such a calling. He was
well built, fascinating, impulsive, very clever, and . . .

26

very fickle-
minded. She was warned against him, but she
paid no heed, attributing it all to the envy of her counsellors.
Everything went well for a few months, when she suddenly
received word that her Apollo, for whom she had memorized
these lines, had eloped with and married a very wealthy
young woman. A few years later she heard that he was
living in a Western city, where he was taking care of his
father-
in-
law’s interests.

“The misquoted lines are now quite plain. The discussion
about the over-
estimation of personality among lovers
unconsciously recalled to her a disagreeable experience,
when she herself over-
estimated the personality of the man
she loved. She thought he was a god, but he turned out
to be even worse than the average mortal. The episode
could not come to the surface because it was determined
by very disagreeable and painful thoughts, but the uncon-
scious variations in the poem plainly showed her present
mental state. The poetic expressions were not only changed
to prosaic ones, but they clearly alluded to the whole
episode.”

Another example of forgetting the order of words of a
poem well known to the person I shall cite from Dr. C.
G. Jung,¹⁾ quoting the words of the author:—

“A man wished to recite the familiar poem, ‘A Pine-
tree
Stands Alone,’ etc. In the line ‘He felt drowsy’ he became
hopelessly stuck at the words ‘with the white sheet.’ This
forgetting of such a well-
known verse seemed to me rather
peculiar, and I therefore asked him to reproduce what
came to his mind when he thought of the words ‘with the
white sheet.’ He gave the following series of associations:
‘The white sheet makes one think of a white sheet on a
corpse—a linen sheet with which one covers a dead body
—[pause]—now I think of a near friend—his brother died
quite recently—he is supposed to have died of heart disease

¹⁾ The Psychology of Dementia Præcox, translated by F. Peterson
and A. A. Brill.

27

—he was also very corpulent—my friend is corpulent, too,
and I thought that he might meet the same fate—probably
he doesn’t exercise enough—when I heard of this death
I suddenly became frightened: the same thing might happen
to me, as my own family is predisposed to obesity—my
grandfather died of heart disease—I, also, am somewhat
too corpulent, and for that reason I began an obesity cure
a few days ago.”

Jung remarks: “The man had unconsciously immediately
identified himself with the pine-tree which was covered with
a white sheet.”

For the following example of forgetting the order of
words I am indebted to my friend Dr. Ferenczi, of Budapest.
Unlike the former examples, it does not refer to a verse
taken from poetry, but to a self-coined saying. It may also
demonstrate to us the rather unusual case where the forgetting
places itself at the disposal of discretion when the latter is
in danger of yielding to a momentary desire. The mistake
thus advances to a useful function. After we have sobered
down we justify that inner striving which at first could
manifest itself only by way of inability, as in forgetting or
psychic impotence.

“At a social gathering some one quoted, Tout comprendre
c’est tout pardonner, to which I remarked that the first part
of the sentence should suffice, as ‘pardoning’ is an exemption
which must be left to God and the priest. One of the guests
thought this observation very good, which in turn em-
boldened me to remark—probably to ensure myself of the
good opinion of the well-disposed critic—that some time
ago I thought of something still better. But when I was
about to repeat this clever idea I was unable to recall it.
Thereupon I immediately withdrew from the company and
wrote my concealing thoughts. I first recalled the name
of the friend who had witnessed the birth of this (desired)
thought, and of the street in Budapest where it took place,
and then the name of another friend, whose name was

28

Max, whom we usually called Maxie. That led me to the
word ‘maxim,’ and to the thought that at that time, as
in the present case, it was a question of varying a well-
known maxim. Strangely enough, I did not recall any
maxim but the following sentence: ‘God created man in
His own image,’ and its changed conception, ‘Man created
God in his own image.’ Immediately I recalled the sought-
for recollection.

“My friend said to me at that time in Andrassy Street,
‘Nothing human is foreign to me.’ To which I remarked,
basing it on psycho-analytic experience, “You should go
further and acknowledge that nothing animal is foreign to
you.”

“But after I had finally found the desired recollection I
was even then prevented from telling it in this social gathering.
The young wife of the friend whom I had reminded of the
animality of the unconscious was also among those present,
and I was perforce reminded that she was not at all prepared
for the reception of such unsympathetic views. The forgetting
spared me a number of unpleasant questions from her and
a hopeless discussion, and just that must have been the
motive of the ‘temporary amnesia.’

“It is interesting to note that as a concealing thought
there emerged a sentence in which the deity is degraded
to a human invention, while in the sought-for sentence there
was an allusion to the animal in the man. The capitis
diminutio is therefore common to both. The whole matter
was apparently only a continuation of the stream of thought
concerning understanding and forgiving which was stimulated
by the discussion.

“That the desired thought so rapidly appeared may be
also due to the fact that I withdrew into a vacant room,
away from the society in which it was censored.”

I have since then analysed a large number of cases of
forgetting or faulty reproduction of the order of words,
and the consistent result of these investigations led me to

29

FORGETTING NAMES AND ORDER OF WORDS

assume that the mechanisms of forgetting, as demonstrated
in the examples “aliquis” and “Ode to Apollo,” are almost
of universal validity. It is not always very convenient to
report such analyses, for, just as those cited, they usually
lead to intimate and painful things in the person analysed;
I shall therefore add no more to the number of such examples.
What is common to all these cases, regardless of the material,
is the fact that the forgotten or distorted material becomes
connected through some associative road with an un-
conscious stream of thought, which gives rise to the influence
that comes to light as forgetting.

I am now returning to the forgetting of names, concerning
which we have so far considered exhaustively neither the
casuistic elements nor the motives. As this form of faulty
acts can at times be abundantly observed in myself, I am
not at a loss for examples. The slight attacks of migraine,
from which I am still suffering, are wont to announce them-
selves hours before through the forgetting of names, and
at the height of the attack, during which I am not forced,
however, to give up my work, I am often unable to recall
all proper names.

Still, just such cases as mine may furnish the cause for
a strong objection to our analytic efforts. Should not one
be forced to conclude from such observations that the
causation of the forgetfulness, especially the forgetting of
names, is to be sought in circulatory or functional dis-
turbances of the brain, and spare himself the trouble of
searching for psychologic explanations for these phenomena?
Not at all; that would mean to interchange the mechanism
of a process, which is the same in all cases, with its variations.
But instead of an analysis I shall cite a comparison which
will settle the argument.

Let us assume that I was so reckless as to take a walk
at night in an uninhabited neighbourhood of a big city,
and was attacked and robbed of my watch and purse. At
the nearest police-station I report the matter in the follow-
 

30

ing words: “I was in this or that street, and was there robbed
of my watch and purse by lonesomeness and darkness.”
Although these words would not express anything that is
incorrect, I would, nevertheless, run the danger of being
considered-
judging from the wording of this report-
as
not quite right in the head. To be correct, the state of affairs
could only be described by saying that, favoured by the
lonesomeness of the place and under cover of darkness,
I was robbed of my valuables by unknown malefactors.

Now, then, the state of affairs in forgetting names need
not be different. Favoured by exhaustion, circulatory dis-
turbances, and intoxication, I am robbed by an unknown
psychic force of the disposal over the proper names belong-
ing to my memory; it is the same force which in other cases
may bring about the same failure of memory during perfect
health and mental capacity.

When I analyse those cases of name-
forgetting occurring
in myself, I find almost regularly that the name withheld
shows some relation to a theme which concerns my own
person, and is apt to provoke in me strong and often painful
emotions. Following the convenient and commendable
practice of the Zurich School (Bleuler, Jung, Riklin), I
might express the same thing in the following form: The
name withheld has touched a “personal complex” in me.
The relation of the name to my person is an unexpected
one, and is mostly brought about through superficial
associations (words of double meaning and of similar sounds);
it may generally be designated as a side association. A few
simple examples will best illustrate the nature of the same:–

(a) A patient requested me to recommend to him a
sanatorium in the Riviera. I knew of such a place very
near Genoa, I also recalled the name of the German colleague
who was in charge of the place, but the place itself I could
not name, well as I believed I knew it. There was nothing
left to do but ask the patient to wait, and to appeal quickly
to the women of the family.

31

FORGETTING NAMES AND ORDER OF WORDS

“Just what is the name of the place near Genoa where
Dr. X. has his small institution in which Mrs. So-
and-so
remained so long under treatment?”
“Of course you would forget a name of that sort. The
name is Nervi.”

To be sure, I have enough to do with nerves.

(b) Another patient spoke about a neighbouring summer
resort, and maintained that besides the two familiar inns
there was a third. I disputed the existence of any third inn,
and referred to the fact that I had spent seven summers
in the vicinity and therefore knew more about the place
than he. Instigated by my contradiction, he recalled the
name. The name of the third inn was “The Hochwartner.”
Of course, I had to admit it; indeed, I was forced to confess
that for seven summers I had lived near this very inn whose
existence I had so strenuously denied. But why should I
have forgotten the name and the object? I believe because
the name sounded very much like that of a Vienna colleague
who practised the same specialty as my own. It touched in
me the “professional complex.”

(c) On another occasion, when about to buy a railroad
ticket on the Reichenhall Station, I could not recall the
very familiar name of the next big railroad station which
I had so often passed. I was forced to look it up in the time-
table. The name was Rosehome (Rosenheim). I soon
discovered through what associations I lost it. An hour
earlier I had visited my sister in her home near Reichenhall;
my sister’s name is Rose, hence also a Rosehome. This
name was taken away by my “family complex.”

(d) This predatory influence of the “family complex”
I can demonstrate in a whole series of complexes.

One day I was consulted by a young man, a younger
brother of one of my female patients, whom I saw any
number of times, and whom I used to call by his first name.
Later, while wishing to talk about his visit, I forgot his
first name, in no way an unusual one, and could not recall

32

it in any way. I walked into the street to read the business
signs and recognized the name as soon as it met my
eyes.

The analysis showed that I had formed a parallel between
the visitor and my own brother which centred in the question:
“Would my brother, in a similar case, have behaved like
him or even more contrarily?” The outer connection
between the thoughts concerning the stranger and my own
family was rendered possible through the accident that the
name of the mothers in each case was the same, Amelia.
Subsequently I also understood the substitutive names,
Daniel and Frank, which obtruded themselves without any
explanation. These names, as well as Amelia, belong to
Schiller’s play The Robbers; they are all connected with a
joke of the Vienna pedestrian, Daniel Spitzer.

(e) On another occasion I was unable to find a patient’s
name which had a certain reference to my early life. The
analysis had to be followed over a long devious road before
the desired name was discovered. The patient expressed
his apprehension lest he should lose his eyesight; this recalled
a young man who became blind from a gunshot, and this
again led to a picture of another youth who shot hirnself,
and the latter bore the same name as my first patient,
though not at all related to him. The name became known
to me, however, only after the anxious apprehension from
these two juvenile cases was transferred to a person of my
own family.

Thus an incessant stream of “self-reference” flows through
my thoughts concerning which I usually have no inkling,
but which betrays itself through such name-
forgetting. It
seems as if I were forced to compare with my own person
all that I hear about strangers, as if my personal complexes
became stirred up at every information from others. It
seems impossible that this should be an individual peculiarity
of my own person; it must, on the contrary, point to the
way we grasp outside matters in general. I have reasons to

33

FORGETTING NAMES AND ORDER OF WORDS

assume that other individuals meet with experiences quite
similar to mine.

The best example of this kind was reported to me by a
gentleman named Lederer as a personal experience. While
on his wedding trip in Venice he came across a man with
whom he was but slightly acquainted, and whom he was
obliged to introduce to his wife. As he forgot the name of
the stranger he got himself out of the embarrassment the
first time by mumbling the name unintelligibly. But when
he met the man a second time, as is inevitable in Venice,
he took him aside and begged him to help him out of the
difficulty by telling him his name, which he unfortunately
had forgotten. The answer of the stranger pointed to a
superior knowledge of human nature: “I readily believe
that you did not grasp my name. My name is like yours
—Lederer !”

One cannot suppress a slight feeling of unpleasantness
on discovering his own name in a stranger. I had recently
felt it very plainly when I was consulted during my office
hours by a man named S. Freud. However, I am assured
by one of my own critics that in this respect he behaves
in quite the opposite manner.

(f) The effect of personal relation can be recognized also
in the following examples reported by Jung.¹⁾

“Mr. Y. falls in love with a lady who soon thereafter
marries Mr. X. In spite of the fact that Mr. Y. was an old
acquaintance of Mr. X., and had business relations with
him, he repeatedly forgot the name, and on a number of
occasions, when wishing to correspond with X., he was
obliged to ask other people for his name.”

However, the motivation for the forgetting is more evident
in this case than in the preceding ones, which were under
the constellation of the personal reference. Here the for-
getting is manifestly a direct result of the dislike of Y. for
the happy rival; he does not wish to know anything about him.

¹⁾ The Psychology of Dementia Præcox, p. 45.

34

(g) The following case, reported by Ferenczi, the analysis
of which is especially instructive through the explanation
of the substitutive thoughts (like Botticelli-Boltraffio to
Signorelli), shows in a somewhat different way how self-
reference leads to the forgetting of a name:—

“A lady who heard something about psycho-analysis
could not recall the name of the psychiatrist, Young (Jung).

“Instead, the following names occurred to her: Kl. (a
name)—Wilde—Nietzsche—Hauptmann.

“I did not tell her the name, and requested her to repeat
her free associations to every thought.

“To Kl. she at once thought of Mrs. Kl., that she was
an embellished and affected person who looked very well
for her age. ‘She does not age.’ As a general and principal
conception of Wilde and Nietzsche, she gave the association
‘mental disease.’ She then added jocosely: ‘The Freudians
will continue looking for the causes of mental diseases until
they themselves become insane.’ She continued: ‘I cannot
bear Wilde and Nietzsche. I do not understand them. I
hear that they were both homosexual. Wilde has occupied
himself with young people’ (although she uttered in this
sentence the correct name she still could not remember it).
“To Hauptmann she associated the words half and youth,
and only after I called her attention to the word youth did
she become aware that she was looking for the name Young
(Jung).”

It is clear that this lady, who had lost her husband at
the age of thirty-nine, and had no prospect of marrying a
second time, had cause enough to avoid reminiscences
recalling youth or old age. The remarkable thing is that
the concealing thoughts of the desired name came to the
surface as simple associations of content without any sound-
associations.

(h) Still different and very finely motivated is an example
of name-forgetting which the person concerned has himself
explained.

35

“While taking an examination in philosophy as a minor
subject I was questioned by the examiner about the teachings
of Epicurus, and was asked whether I knew who took up
his teachings centuries later. I answered that it was Pierre
Gassendi, whom two days before while in a café I had
happened to hear spoken of as a follower of Epicurus. To
the question how I knew this I boldly replied that I had
taken an interest in Gassendi for a long time. This resulted
in a certificate with a magna cum laude, but later, un-
fortunately, also in a persistent tendency to forget the name
Gassendi. I believe that it is due to my guilty conscience
that even now I cannot retain this name despite all efforts.
I had no business knowing it at that time.”

To have a proper appreciation of the intense repugnance
entertained by our narrator against the recollection of this
examination episode, one must have realized how highly
he prizes his doctor’s degree, and for how many other
things this substitute must stand.

I add here another example of forgetting the name of
a city, an instance which is perhaps not as simple as those
given before, but which will appear credible and valuable
to those more familiar with such investigations. The name
of an Italian city withdrew itself from memory on account
of its far-
reaching sound-similarity to a woman’s first name,
which was in turn connected with various emotional reminis-
cences which were surely not exhaustively treated in this
report. Dr. S. Ferenczi, who observed this case of for-
getting in himself, treated it—quite justly—as an analysis
of a dream or an erotic idea.

“To-day I visited some old friends, and the conversation
turned to cities of Northern Italy. Some one remarked that
they still showed the Austrian influence. A few of these
cities were cited. I, too, wished to mention one, but the
name did not come to me, although I knew that I had spent
two very pleasant days there; this, of course, does not
quite concur with Freud’s theory of forgetting. Instead

36

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE

of the desired name of the city there obtruded themselves
the following thoughts: ‘Capua—Brescia—the lion of
Brescia.’ This lion I saw objectively before me in the form
of a marble statue, but I soon noticed that he resembled
less the lion of the statue of liberty in Brescia (which I saw
only in a picture) than the other marble lion which I saw
in Lucerne on the monument in honour of the Swiss Guard
fallen in the Tuileries. I finally thought of the desired name:
it was Verona.

“I knew at once the cause of this amnesia. No other
than a former servant of the family whom I visited at the
time. Her name was Veronica; in Hungarian Verona. I
felt a great antipathy for her on account of her repulsive
physiognomy, as well as her hoarse, shrill voice and her
unbearable self-assertion (to which she thought herself
entitled on account of her long service). Also the tyrannical
way in which she treated the children of the family was
insufferable to me. Now I knew the significance of the
substitutive thoughts.

“To Capua I immediately associated caput mortuum. I
had often compared Veronica’s head to a skull. The
Hungarian word kapzoi (greed after money) surely furnished
a determinant for the displacement. Naturally I also found
those more direct associations which connected Capua and
Verona as geographical ideas and as Italian words of the
same rhythm.

“The same held true for Brescia; here, too, I found
concealed side-tracks of associations of ideas.

“My antipathy at that time was so violent that I thought
Veronica very ugly, and have often expressed my astonish-
ment at the fact that any one should love her: ‘Why, to
kiss her,’ I said, ‘must provoke nausea.’

“Brescia, at least in Hungary, is very often mentioned
not in connection with the lion but with another wild beast.
The most hated name in this country, as well as in North
Italy, is that of General Haynau, who is briefly referred

37

to as the hyena of Brescia. From the hated tyrant Haynau
one stream of thought leads over Brescia to the city of
Verona, and the other over the idea of the grave-digging
animal with the hoarse voice (which corresponds to the
thought of a monument to the dead), to the skull, and to
the disagreeable organ of Veronica, which was so cruelly
insulted in my unconscious mind. Veronica in her time
ruled as tyranically as did the Austrian General after the
Hungarian and Italian struggles for liberty.

“Lucerne is associated with the idea of the summer which
Veronica spent with her employers in a place near Lucerne.
The Swiss Guard again recalls that she tyrannized not only
the children but also the adult members of the family, and
thus played the part of the ‘Garde-Dame.’

“I expressly observe that this antipathy of mine against
V. consciously belongs to things long overcome. Since that
time she has changed in her appearance and manner, very
much to her advantage, so that I am able to meet her with
sincere regard (to be sure I hardly find such occasion).
As usual, however, my unconscious sticks more tenaciously
to those impressions; it is old in its resentment.

“The Tuileries represent an allusion to a second personality,
an old French lady who actually ‘guarded’ the women of
the house, and who was in high regard and somewhat feared
by everybody. For a long time I was her élève in French
conversation. The word élève recalls that when I visited
the brother-in-law of my present host in northern Bohemia
I had to laugh a great deal because the rural population
referred to the élèves (pupils) of the school of forestry as
löwen (lions). Also this jocose recollection might have taken
part in the displacement of the hyena by the lion.”

(i) The following example can also show how a personal
complex swaying the person at the time being may by
devious ways bring about the forgetting of a name.¹⁾

Two men, an elder and a younger, who had travelled

¹⁾Zentralb. f. Psychoanalyse, I. 9, 1911.

38

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE

together in Sicily six months before, exchanged reminiscences
of those pleasant and interesting days.

“Let’s see, what was the name of that place,” asked the
younger, “where we passed the night before taking the
trip to Selinunt ? Calatafini, was it not ?”

The elder rejected this by saying: “Certainly not; but
I have forgotten the name, too, although I can recall perfectly
all the details of the place. Whenever I hear some one forget
a name it immediately produces forgetfulness in me. Let
us look for the name. I cannot think of any other name
except Caltanisetta, which is surely not correct.”

“No,” said the younger, “the name begins with, or
contains, a w.”

“But the Italian language contains no w,” retorted the
elder.

“I really meant a v, and I said w because I am accustomed
to interchange them in my mother tongue.”

The elder, however, objected to the v. He added: “I
believe that I have already forgotten many of the Sicilian
names. Suppose we try to find out. For example, what is
the name of the place situated on a height which was called
Enna in antiquity ?”

“Oh, I know that: Castrogiovanni.” In the next moment
the younger man discovered the lost name. He cried out
‘Castelvetrano,’ and was pleased to be able to demonstrate
the supposed v.

For a moment the elder still lacked the feeling of recogni-
tion, 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 aging, 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

39

FORGETTING NAMES AND ORDER OF WORDS

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 Castrogio-
vanni, 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.¹⁾

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 pro-
fessional) is thus the condition for the forgetting of names.

¹⁾“Analyse eines Falles von Namenvergessen,” Zentralb. f.
Psychoanalyse. Jahrg. 11, Heft 2, 1911.

40

fessional) 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.

In general one may distinguish two principal cases of
name-
forgetting; when the name itself touches something
unpleasant, or when it is brought into connection with other
associations which are influenced by such effects. So that
names can be disturbed on their own account or on account
of their nearer or more remote associative relations in the
reproduction.

A review of these general principles readily convinces us
that the temporary forgetting of a name is observed as the
most frequent faulty action of our mental functions.

However, we are far from having described all the pecu-
liarities of this phenomenon. I also wish to call attention
to the fact that name-forgetting is extremely contagious. In
a conversation between two persons the mere mention of
having forgotten this or that name by one often suffices
to induce the same memory slip in the other. But wherever
the forgetting is induced, the sought for name easily comes
to the surface.

There is also a continuous forgetting of names in which
whole chains of names are withdrawn from memory. If
in the course of endeavouring to discover an escaped name
one finds others with which the latter is intimately connected,
it often happens that these new names also escape. The
forgetting thus jumps from one name to another, as if to
demonstrate the existence of a hindrance not to be easily
removed.