89

VII

FORGETTING OF IMPRESSIONS AND
RESOLUTIONS

If any one should be inclined to overrate the state of our
present knowledge of mental life, all that would be needed
to force him to assume a modest attitude would be to
remind him of the function of memory. No psychologic
theory has yet been able to account for the connection
between the fundamental phenomena of remembering and
forgetting; indeed, even the complete analysis of that which
one can actually observe has as yet scarcely been grasped.
To-day forgetting has perhaps grown more puzzling than
remembering, especially since we have learned from the
study of dreams and pathologic states that even what for
a long time we believed forgotten may suddenly return to
consciousness.

To be sure, we are in possession of some view-points
which we hope will receive general recognition. Thus we
assume that forgetting is a spontaneous process to which
we may ascribe a certain temporal discharge. We emphasize
the fact that, just as among the units of every impression
or experience, in forgetting, too, a certain selection takes
place among the existing impressions. We are acquainted
with some of the conditions that underlie the tenaciousness
of memory and the awakening of that which would other-
wise remain forgotten. Nevertheless, we can observe in
innumerable cases of daily life how unreliable and un-
satisfactory our knowledge of the mechanism is. Thus we
may listen to two persons exchanging reminiscences con-
cerning the same outward impressions, say of a journey
that they have taken together some time before. What
remains most firmly in the memory of the one is often

90

forgotten by the other, as if it had never occurred, even
when there is not the slightest reason to assume that this
impression is of greater psychic importance for the one
than for the other. A great many of those factors which
determine the selective power of memory are obviously still
beyond our ken.

With the purpose of adding some small contribution to
the knowledge of the conditions of forgetting, I was wont
to subject to a psychologic analysis those cases in which
forgetting concerned me personally. As a rule I took up
only a certain group of those cases, namely, those in which
the forgetting astonished me, because, in my opinion, I
should have remembered the experience in question. I wish
further to remark that I am generally not inclined to forgetful-
ness (of things experienced, not of things learned), and that
for a short period of my youth I was able to perform extra-
ordinary feats of memory. When I was a schoolboy it was
quite natural for me to be able to repeat from memory
the page of a book which I had read; and shortly before
I entered the University I could write down practically
verbatim the popular lectures on scientific subjects directly
after hearing them. In the tension before the final medical
examination I must have made use of the remnant of this
ability, for in certain subjects I gave the examiners apparently
automatic answers, which proved to be exact reproductions
of the text-
book, which I had skimmed through but once
and then in greatest haste.

Since those days I have steadily lost control over my
memory; of late, however, I became convinced that with
the aid of a certain artifice I can recall far more than I would
otherwise credit myself with remembering. For example,
when, during my office hours, a patient states that I have
seen him before and I cannot recall either the fact or the
time, then I help myself by guessing—that is, I allow a
number of years, beginning from the present time, to come
to my mind quickly. Whenever this could be controlled

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FORGETTING IMPRESSIONS AND RESOLUTIONS

by records of definite information from the patient, it was
always shown that in over ten years¹⁾ I have seldom missed
it by more than six months. The same thing happens when
I meet a casual acquaintance and, from politeness, inquire
about his small child. When he tells of its progress I try
to fancy how old the child now is. I control my estimate
by the information given by the father, and at most I make
a mistake of a month, and in older children of three months.
I cannot state, however, what basis I have for this estimate.
Of late I have grown so bold that I always offer my estimate
spontaneously, and still run no risk of grieving the father
by displaying my ignorance in regard to his offspring. Thus
I extend my conscious memory by invoking my larger
unconscious memory.

I shall report some striking examples of forgetting which
for the most part I have observed in myself. I distinguish
forgetting of impressions and experiences, that is, the for-
getting of knowledge, from forgetting of resolutions, that
is, the forgetting of omissions. The uniform result of the
entire series of observations I can formulate as follows:
The forgetting in all cases is proved to be founded on a motive
of displeasure.

A. FORGETTING OF IMPRESSIONS AND
KNOWLEDGE.

(a) During the summer my wife once made me very angry,
although the cause in itself was trifling. We sat in a
restaurant opposite a gentleman from Vienna whom I
knew, and who had cause to know me, and whose acquain-
tance I had reasons for not wishing to renew. My wife,
who had heard nothing to the disrepute of the man opposite
her, showed by her actions that she was listening to his
conversation with his neighbours, for from time to time she
asked me questions which took up the thread of their
conversation.

¹⁾In the course of the conference the details of the previous
first visit return to consciousness.

92

discussion. I became impatient and finally irritated. A few
weeks later I complained to a relative about this behaviour
on the part of my wife, but I was not able to recall even
a single word of the conversation of the gentleman in the
case. As I am usually rather resentful and cannot forget
a single incident of an episode that has annoyed me, my
amnesia in this case was undoubtedly determined by respect
for my wife.

A short time ago I had a similar experience. I wished
to make merry with an intimate friend over a statement
made by my wife only a few hours earlier, but I found myself
hindered by the noteworthy fact that I had entirely forgotten
the statement. I had first to beg my wife to recall it to me.
It is easy to understand that my forgetting in this case may
be analogous to the typical disturbance of judgment which
dominates us when it concerns those nearest to us.

(b) To oblige a woman who was a stranger in Vienna
I had undertaken to procure a small iron safe for the
preservation of documents and money. When I offered
my services, the image of an establishment in the heart
of the city where I was sure I had seen such safes floated
before me with extraordinary visual vividness. To be sure,
I could not recall the name of the street, but I felt certain
that I would discover the store in a walk through the city,
for my memory told me that I had passed it countless times.
To my chagrin I could not find this establishment with the
safes, though I walked through the inner part of the city
in every direction. I concluded that the only thing left to
do was to search through a business directory, and if
that failed, to try to identify the establishment in a second
round of the city. It did not, however, require so much
effort; among the addresses in the directory I found one
which immediately presented itself as that which had been
forgotten. It was true that I had passed the show window
countless times, each time, however, when I had gone to
visit the M. family, who have lived a great many years

93

in this identical building. After this intimate friendship
had turned to an absolute estrangement, I had taken care
to avoid the neighbourhood as well as the house, though
without ever thinking of the reason for my action. In my
walk through the city searching for the safe in the show window
I had traversed every street in the neighbourhood but the right
one, and I had avoided this as if it were forbidden ground.

The motive of displeasure which was at the bottom of
my disorientation is thus comprehensible. But the mechan-
ism of forgetting is no longer so simple as in the former
example. Here my aversion naturally does not extend to
the vendor of safes, but to another person, concerning whom
I wish to know nothing, and later transfers itself from the
latter to this incident where it brings about the forgetting.
Similarly, in the case of Burckhard mentioned above, the
grudge against the one brought about the error in writing
the name of the other. The similarity of names which here
established a connection between two essentially different
streams of thought was accomplished in the showcase
window instance by the contiguity of space and the in-
separable environment. Moreover, this latter case was
more closely knit together, for money played a great part
in the causation of the estrangement from the family living
in this house.

(c) The B. and R. Company requested me to pay a
professional call on one of their officers. On my way to
him I was engrossed in the thought that I must already
have been in the building occupied by the firm. It seemed
as if I used to see their signboard in a lower story while
my professional visit was taking me to a higher story. I
could not recall, however, which house it was nor when
I had called there. Although the entire matter was in-
different and of no consequence, I nevertheless occupied
myself with it, and at last learned in the usual roundabout
way, by collecting the thoughts that occurred to me in this
connection, that one story above the floor occupied by the

94

firm B. and R. was the Pension Fischer, where I had fre-
quently visited patients. Then I remembered the building
which sheltered both the company and the pension.

I was still puzzled, however, as to the motive that entered
into play in this forgetting. I found nothing disagreeable
in my memory concerning the firm itself or the Pension
Fischer, or the patients living there. I was also aware that
it could not deal with anything very painful, otherwise I
hardly would have been successful in tracing the thing
forgotten in a roundabout way without resorting to external
aid, as happened in the preceding example. Finally it occurred
to me that a little before, while starting on my way to a
new patient, a gentleman whom I had difficulty in recalling
greeted me in the street. Some months previously I had
seen this man in an apparently serious condition and had
made the diagnosis of general paresis, but later I had learned
of his recovery, consequently my judgment had been in-
correct. Was it not possible that we had in this case a
remission, which one usually finds in dementia paralytica?
In that contingency my diagnosis would still be justified.
The influence emanating from this meeting caused me to
forget the neighbourhood of the B. and R. Company, and
my interest to discover the thing forgotten was transferred
from this case of disputed diagnosis. But the associative
connection in this loose inner relation was effected by means
of a similarity of names: the man who recovered, contrary
to expectation, was also an officer of a large company that
recommends patients to me. And the physician with whom
I had seen the supposed paretic bore the name of Fischer,
the name of the pension in the house which I had forgotten.

(d) Mislaying a thing really has the same significance as
forgetting where we have placed it. Like most people delving
in pamphlets and books, I am well oriented about my desk,
and can produce what I want with one lunge. What appears
to others as disorder has become for me perfect order.
Why, then, did I mislay a catalogue which was sent to me

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FORGETTING IMPRESSIONS AND RESOLUTIONS

not long ago so that it could not be found? What is more,
it had been my intention to order a book which I found
announced therein, entitled Ueber die Sprache, because it
was written by an author whose spirited, vivacious style
I like, whose insight into psychology and whose knowledge
of the cultural world I have learned to appreciate. I believe
that was just why I mislaid the catalogue. It was my habit
to lend the books of this author among my friends for
their enlightenment, and a few days before, on returning
one, somebody had said: “His style reminds me altogether
of yours, and his way of thinking is identical.” The speaker
did not know what he was stirring up with this remark.

Years ago, when I was younger and in greater need of
forming alliances, I was told practically the same thing by
an older colleague, to whom I had recommended the writings
of a familiar medical author. To put it in his words, “It
is absolutely your style and manner.” I was so influenced
by these remarks that I wrote a letter to this author with
the object of bringing about a closer relation, but a rather
cool answer put me back “in my place.” Perhaps still
earlier discouraging experiences conceal themselves behind
this last one, for I did not find the mislaid catalogue. Through
this premonition I was actually prevented from ordering
the advertised book, although the disappearance of the
catalogue formed no real hindrance, as I remembered well
both the name of the book and the author.

(e) Another case of mislaying merits our interest on account
of the conditions under which the mislaid object was re-
discovered. A younger man narrates as follows: “Several
years ago there were some misunderstandings between me
and my wife. I found her too cold, and though I fully
appreciated her excellent qualities, we lived together without
evincing any tenderness for each other. One day on her
return from a walk she gave me a book which she had
bought because she thought it would interest me. I thanked
her for this mark of ‘attention,’ promised to read the book,

96

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE
put it away, and did not find it again. So months passed,
during which I occasionally remembered the lost book, and
also tried in vain to find it.

“About six months later my beloved mother, who was
not living with us, became ill. My wife left home to nurse
her mother-in-law. The patient’s condition became serious
and gave my wife the opportunity to show the best side of
herself. One evening I returned home full of enthusiasm
over what my wife had accomplished, and felt very grateful
to her. I stepped to my desk and, without definite intention
but with the certainty of a somnambulist, I opened a certain
drawer, and in the very top of it I found the long-missing,
mislaid book.”

The following example of “misplacing” belongs to a type
well known to every psychoanalyst. I must add that the
patient who experienced this misplacing has himself found
the solution of it.

This patient, whose psychoanalytic treatment had to be
interrupted through the summer vacation when he was in
a state of resistance and ill-health, put away his keys in
the evening in their usual place, or so he thought. He then
remembered that he wished to take some things from his
desk, where he also had put the money which he needed
on the journey. He was to depart the next day, which was
the last day of treatment and the date when the doctor’s
fee was due. But the keys had disappeared.

He began a thorough and systematic search through his
small apartment. He became more and more excited over
it, but his search was unsuccessful. As he recognized this
“misplacement” as a symptomatic act—that is, as being
intentional—he aroused his servant in order to continue
his search with the help of an “unprejudiced” person. After
another hour he gave up the search and feared that he had
lost the keys. The next morning he ordered new keys from
the desk factory, which were hurriedly made for him. Two
acquaintances who had been with him in a cab even recalled

97

hearing something fall to the ground as he stepped out
of the cab, and he was therefore convinced that the keys
had slipped from his pocket. They were found lying between
a thick book and a thin pamphlet, the latter a work of one
of my pupils, which he wished to take along as reading
matter for his vacation; and they were so skilfully placed
that no one would have supposed that they were there.
He himself was unable to replace the keys in such a position
as to render them invisible. The unconscious skill with
which an object is misplaced on account of secret but strong
motives reminds one of “somnambulistic sureness.” The
motive was naturally ill-
humour over the interruption of
the treatment and the secret rage over the fact that he had
to pay such a high fee when he felt so ill.

(g) Brill relates:¹ “A man was urged by his wife to attend
a social function in which he really took no interest. Yield-
ing to his wife’s entreaties, he began to take his dress-suit
from the trunk when he suddenly thought of shaving. After
accomplishing this he returned to the trunk and found it
locked. Despite a long, earnest search the key could not
be found. A locksmith could not be found on Sunday
evening, so that the couple had to send their regrets. On
having the trunk opened the next morning the lost key
was found within. The husband had absentmindedly dropped
the key into the trunk and sprung the lock. He assured
me that this was wholly unintentional and unconscious, but
we know that he did not wish to go to this social affair.

The mislaying of the key therefore lacked no motive.”

Ernest Jones noticed in himself that he was in the habit
of mislaying his pipe whenever he suffered from the effects of
over-
smoking. The pipe was then found in some unusual place
where it did not belong and which it normally did not occupy.

If one looks over the cases of mislaying it will be difficult
to assume that mislaying is anything other than the result
of an unconscious intention.

¹Brill, loc. cit., p. 107.

98

(h) In the summer of 1901 I once remarked to a friend
with whom I was then actively engaged in exchanging ideas
on scientific questions: “These neurotic problems can be
solved only if we take the position of absolutely accepting
an original bi-
sexuality in every individual.” To which he
replied: “I told you that two and a half years ago while
we were taking an evening walk in Br. At that time you
wouldn’t listen to it.”

It is truly painful to be thus requested to renounce one’s
originality. I could neither recall such a conversation nor
my friend’s revelation. One of us must be mistaken; and
according to the principle of the question cui prodest ? I
must be the one. Indeed, in the course of the following
weeks everything came back to me just as my friend had
recalled it. I myself remembered that at that time I gave
the answer: “I have not yet got so far, and I do not care
to discuss it.” But since this incident I have grown more
tolerant when I miss any mention of my name in medical
literature in connection with ideas for which I deserve credit.
It is scarcely accidental that the numerous examples of
forgetting which have been collected without any selection
should require for their solution the introduction of such
painful themes as exposing of one’s wife; a friendship that
has turned into the opposite; a mistake in medical diagnosis;
enmity on account of similar pursuits, or the borrowing
of somebody’s ideas. I am rather inclined to believe that
every person who will undertake an inquiry into the motives
underlying his forgetting will be able to fill up a similar
sample card of vexatious circumstances. The tendency to
forget the disagreeable seems to me to be quite general;
the capacity for it is naturally differently developed in
different persons. Certain denials which we encounter in
medical practice can probably be ascribed to forgetting.¹

¹If we inquire of a person whether he suffered from luetic
infection ten or fifteen years ago, we are only too apt to forget
that psychically the patient has looked upon this disease in an

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FORGETTING IMPRESSIONS AND RESOLUTIONS

Our conception of such forgetting confines the distinction
between this and that behaviour to purely psychologic-
relations, and permits us to see in both forms of reaction
the expression of the same motive. Of the numerous examples
of denials of unpleasant recollection which I have observed
in kinsmen of patients, one remains in my memory as
especially singular.

A mother telling me of the childhood of her nervous son,
now in his puberty, made the statement that, like his brothers
and sisters, he was subject to bed-
wetting throughout his
childhood, a symptom which certainly has some significance

entirely different manner than on, let us say, an acute attack of
rheumatism. In the anamneses which parents give about their
neurotic daughters, it is hardly possible to distinguish with any
degree of certainty the portion forgotten from that hidden, for
the way of the girl’s future marriage is
systematically set aside by the parents, that is, it becomes re-
pressed. A man who had recently lost his beloved wife from an
affection of the lungs reported to me the following case of mislead-
ing the doctor, which can only be explained by the theory of such
forgetting. “As my poor wife’s pleuritis had not disappeared
after many weeks, Dr. P. was called in consultation. While taking
the history he asked among others the customary questions whether
there were any cases of lung trouble in my wife’s family. My
wife denied any such cases, and even I myself could not remember
any. While Dr. P. was taking leave the conversation accidentally
turned to excursions, and my wife said: ‘Yes, even to Landgers-
dorf, where my poor brother lies buried, is a long journey.’ This
brother died about fifteen years ago, after having suffered for years
from tuberculosis. My wife was very fond of him, and often
spoke about him. Indeed, I recall that when her malady was
diagnosed as pleurisy she was very worried and sadly remarked:
‘My brother also died of lung trouble.’ But the memory was so
very repressed that even after the above-cited conversation about
the trip to L. she found no occasion to correct her information
concerning the diseases of her family. I myself was struck by
this forgetting at the very moment she began to talk about Land-
gersdorf.” A perfectly analogous experience is related by
Ernest Jones in his work. A physician whose wife suffered from
some obscure abdominal malady remarked to her: “It is com-
forting to think that there has been no tuberculosis in your family.”
She turned to him very astonished and said, “Have you forgotten
that my mother died of tuberculosis, and that my sister recovered
from it only after having been given up by the doctors?”

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PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE

in a history of a neurotic patient. Some weeks later, while
seeking information regarding the treatment, I had occasion
to call her attention to signs of a constitutional morbid
predisposition in the young man, and at the same time
referred to the bed-
wetting recounted in the anamnesis. To
my surprise she contested this fact concerning him, denying
it as well for the other children, and asked me how I could
possibly know this. Finally I let her know that she herself
had told me a short time before what she had thus forgotten.¹⁾

One also finds abundant indications which show that even
in healthy, not neurotic, persons resistances are found against
the memory of disagreeable impressions and the idea of
painful thoughts.²⁾ But the full significance of this fact can

¹⁾During the days when I was first writing these pages the fol-
lowing almost incredible case of forgetting happened to me. On
the 1st of January I examined my notes so that I could send out
my bills. In the month of June I came across the name M—l,
and could not recall the person to whom it belonged. My sur-
prise increased when I observed from my books that I treated the
case in a sanatorium, and that for weeks I had called on the patient
daily. A patient treated under such conditions is rarely forgotten
by a physician in six months. I asked myself if it could have been
a man—a paretic—a case without interest? Finally, the note
about the fee received brought to my memory all the knowledge
which strove to elude it. M—l was a fourteen-
year-
old girl,
the most remarkable case of my latter years, a case which taught me
a lesson I am not likely ever to forget, a case whose upshot gave me
many painful hours. The child became afflicted with an unmistak-
able hysteria, which quickly and thoroughly improved under my
care. After this improvement the child was taken away from me
by the parents. She still complained of abdominal pains which
had played the part in the hysterical symptoms. Two months
later she died of sarcoma of the abdominal glands. The hysteria,
to which she was greatly predisposed, took the tumour-
formation
as a provocative agent, and I, fascinated by the tumultuous but
harmless manifestations of hysteria, perhaps overlooked the first
sign of the insidious and incurable disease.

²⁾A Pick (“Zur Psychologie des Vergessens bei Geistes und
Nervenkranken,” Archiv. f. Kriminal-Anthropologie u. Kriminal-
istik, von H. Gross) has recently collected a number of authors
who realize the value of the influence of the affective factors on
memory, and who more or less clearly recognize that a defensive
striving against pain can lead to forgetting. But none of us has
been able to represent this phenomenon and its psychologic

101

be estimated only when we enter into the psychology of
neurotic persons. One is forced to make such elementary
defensive striving against ideas which can awaken painful
feelings, a striving which can be put side by side only with
the flight-
reflex in painful stimuli, as the main pillar of the
mechanism which carries the hysterical symptoms. One
need not offer any objection to the acceptance of such
defensive tendency on the ground that we frequently find
it impossible to rid ourselves of painful memories which
cling to us, or to banish such painful emotions as remorse
and reproaches of conscience. No one maintains that this
defensive tendency invariably gains the upper hand, that
in the play of psychic forces it may not strike against factors
which stir up the contrary feeling for other purposes and
bring it about in spite of it.

As the architectural principle of the psychic apparatus we
may conjecture a certain stratification or structure of instances
deposited in strata. And it is quite possible that this defensive
tendency belongs to a lower psychic instance, and is inhibited
by higher instances. At all events, it speaks for the existence
and force of this defensive tendency, when we can trace
it to processes such as those found in our examples of
forgetting. We see then that something is forgotten for
its own sake, and where this is not possible the defensive
tendency misses the target and causes something else to
be forgotten—something less significant, but which has
fallen into associative connection with the disagreeable
material.

The view here developed, namely, that painful memories
merge into motivated forgetting with special ease, merits
application in many spheres where as yet it has found no,
or scarcely any, recognition. Thus it seems to me that it

determination as exhaustively, and at the same time as effectively,
as Nietzsche in one of his aphorisms (Jenseits von Gut und Bösen,
ii., Haupstück 68):

“I have done that,” says my Memory. “I
could not have done that,” says my Pride, and remains inexorable.
Finally, my Memory yields.”

102

has not yet been strongly enough emphasized in the estima-
tion of testimony taken in court,¹ where the putting of a
witness under oath obviously leads us to place too great a
trust on the purifying influence of his psychic play of forces.
It is universally admitted that in the origin of the traditions
and folklore of a people care must be taken to eliminate
from memory such a motive as would be painful to the
national feeling. Perhaps on closer investigation it may be
possible to form a perfect analogy between the manner of
development of national traditions and infantile reminis-
cences of the individual. The great Darwin has formulated
a “golden rule” for the scientific worker from his insight
into this pain-motive of forgetting.²

Almost exactly as in the forgetting of names, faulty recol-
lections can also appear in the forgetting of impressions,
and when finding credence they may be designated as
delusions of memory. The memory disturbance in pathologic
cases (in paranoia it actually plays the rôle of a constituting
factor in the formation of delusions) has brought to light
an extensive literature in which there is no reference what-
ever to its being motivated. As this theme also belongs to
the psychology of the neuroses it goes beyond our present
treatment. Instead, I will give from my own experience a
curious example of memory disturbance showing clearly
enough its determination through unconscious repressed
material and its connection with this material.

While writing the latter chapters of my volume on the
interpretation of dreams, I happened to be in a summer
resort without access to libraries and reference books, so

¹Cf. Hans Gross, Kriminal Psychologie, 1898.

²Darwin on forgetting. In Darwin’s autobiography one finds
the following passage that does equal credit to his scientific
honesty and his psychologic acumen: “I had during many years
followed a golden rule, namely, that whenever a published fact,
a new observation or thought, came across me which was opposed
to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail
and at once; for I had found by experience that such facts and
thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than
favourable ones” (quoted by Jones, loc. cit., p. 38).

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FORGETTING IMPRESSIONS AND RESOLUTIONS

that I was compelled to introduce into the manuscript all
kinds of references and citations from memory. These I
naturally reserved for future correction. In the chapter on
day-
dreams I thought of the distinguished figure of the poor
book-
keeper in Alphonse Daudet’s Nabob, through whom
the author probably described his own day-
dreams. I
imagined that I distinctly remembered one fantasy of this
man, whom I called Mr. Jocelyn, which he hatched while
walking the streets of Paris, and I began to reproduce it
from memory. This fantasy described how Mr. Jocelyn
boldly hurled himself at a runaway horse and brought it
to a standstill; how the carriage door opened and a great
personage stepped from the coupé, pressed Mr. Jocelyn’s
hand and said: “You are my saviour—I owe my life to
you! What can I do for you?”

I assured myself that casual inaccuracies in the rendition
of this fantasy could readily be corrected at home, on con-
sulting the book. But when I perused Nabob in order to
compare it with my manuscript, I found to my very great
shame and consternation that there was nothing to suggest
such a dream by Mr. Jocelyn; indeed, the poor book-
keeper
did not even bear this name—he was called Mr. Joyeuse.

This second error then furnished the key for the solution
of the first mistake, the faulty reminiscence. Joyeux, of
which Joyeuse is the feminine form, was the only possible
word which would translate my own name Freud into French.
Whence, therefore, came this falsely remembered fantasy
which I had attributed to Daudet? It could only be a product
of my own, a day-
dream which I myself had spun, and
which did not become conscious, or which was once conscious
and had since been absolutely forgotten. Perhaps I invented
it myself in Paris, where frequently enough I walked the
streets alone, and full of longing for a helper and protector,
until Charcot took me into his circle. I had often met the
author of Nabob in Charcot’s house. But the provoking
part of it all is the fact that there is scarcely anything to

104

which I am so hostile as the thought of being some one’s
protégé. What we see of this sort of thing in our country
spoils all desire for it, and my character is little suited to
the rôle of a protected child. I have always entertained an
immense desire to “be the strong man myself.” And it had
to happen that I should be reminded of such a, to be sure,
never fulfilled, day-
dream! Besides, this incident is a good
example of how the restraint relation to one’s ego, which
breaks forth triumphantly in paranoia, disturbs and entangles
us in the objective grasp of things.

Another case of faulty recollection which can be satisfac-
torily explained resembles the fausse reconnaissance to be
discussed later. I related to one of my patients, an ambitious
and very capable man, that a young student had recently
gained admittance into the circle of my pupils by means of
an interesting work, Der Künstler, Versuch einer Sexual-
psychologie. When, a year and a quarter later, this work
lay before me in print, my patient maintained that he re-
membered with certainty having read somewhere, perhaps
in a bookseller’s advertisement, the announcement of the
same book even before I first mentioned it to him. He
remembered that this announcement came to his mind at
that time, and he ascertained besides that the author had
changed the title, that it no longer read “Versuch” but
“Ansätze zu einer Sexualpsychologie.”

Careful inquiry of the author and comparison of all dates
showed conclusively that my patient was trying to recall the
impossible. No notice of this work had appeared anywhere
before its publication, certainly not a year and a quarter
before it went to print. However, I neglected to seek a
solution for this false recollection until the same man
brought about an equally valuable renewal of it. He thought
that he had recently noticed a work on “agoraphobia” in
the show window of a bookshop, and as he was now look-
ing for it in all available catalogues I was able to explain
to him why his effort must remain fruitless. The work on

105

agoraphobia existed only in his fantasy as an unconscious
resolution to write such a book himself. His ambition to
emulate that young man, and through such a scientific work
to become one of my pupils, had led him to the first as well
as to the second false recollection. He also recalled later
that the bookseller’s announcement which had occasioned
his false reminiscence dealt with a work entitled Genesis,
Das Gesetz der Zeugung (“Genesis, The Law of Generation”).
But the change in the title as mentioned by him was really
instigated by me; I recalled that I myself have perpetrated
the same inaccuracy in the repetition of the title by saying
“Ansätze” in place of “Versuch.”

B. FORGETTING OF INTENTIONS.

No other group of phenomena is better qualified to
demonstrate the thesis that lack of attention does not in
itself suffice to explain faulty acts as the forgetting of inten-
tions. An intention is an impulse for an action which has
already found approbation, but whose execution is post-
poned for a suitable occasion. Now, in the interval thus
created sufficient change may take place in the motive to
prevent the intention from coming to execution. It is not,
however, forgotten, it is simply revised and omitted.

We are naturally not in the habit of explaining the for-
getting of intentions which we daily experience in every
possible situation as being due to a recent change in the
adjustment of motives. We generally leave it unexplained,
or we seek a psychologic explana-
tion in the assumption that
at the time of execution the required attention for the action,
which was an indispensable condition for the occurrence of
the intention, and was then at the disposal of the same
action, no longer exists. Observation of our normal beha-
viour towards intentions urges us to reject this tentative explana-
tion as arbitrary. If I resolve in the morning to carry out a
certain intention in the evening, I may be reminded of it
several times in the course of the day, but it is not at all

106

necessary that it should become conscious throughout the
day. As the time for its execution approaches it suddenly
occurs to me and induces me to make the necessary prepara-
tion for the intended action. If I go walking and take a
letter with me to be posted, it is not at all necessary that I,
as a normal not nervous individual, should carry it in my
hand and continually look for a letter-box. As a matter of
fact I am accustomed to put it in my pocket and give my
thoughts free rein on my way, feeling confident that the
first letter-box will attract my attention and cause me to
put my hand in my pocket and draw out the letter.

This normal behaviour in a formed intention corresponds
perfectly with the experimentally produced conduct of
persons who are under a so-called “post-hypnotic suggestion”
to perform something after a certain time.¹⁾ We are accus-
tomed to describe the phenomenon in the following manner:
the suggested intention slumbers in the person concerned
until the time for its execution approaches. Then it awakes
and excites the action.

In two positions of life even the layman is cognizant of
the fact that forgetting referring to intended purposes can
in no wise claim consideration as an elementary phenomenon
no further reducible, but realizes that it ultimately depends
on unadmitted motives. I refer to affairs of love and military
service. A lover who is late at the appointed place will
vainly tell his sweetheart that unfortunately he has entirely
forgotten their rendezvous. She will not hesitate to answer
him: “A year ago you would not have forgotten. Evidently
you no longer care for me.” Even if he should grasp the
above cited psychologic explanation, and should wish to
excuse his forgetting on the plea of important business, he
would only elicit the answer from the woman, who has
become as keen-sighted as the physician in the psychoanalytic
treatment, “How remarkable that such business disturb-
 

¹⁾Cf. Bernheim, Neue Studien über Hypnotismus, Suggestion und
Psychotherapie, 1892.

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FORGETTING IMPRESSIONS AND RESOLUTIONS

ances did not occur before!” Of course the woman does
not wish to deny the possibility of forgetting; but she be-
lieves, and not without reason, that practically the same
inference of a certain unwillingness may be drawn from the
unintentional forgetting as from a conscious subterfuge.

Similarly, in military service no distinction is recognized
between an omission resulting from forgetting and one in
consequence of intentional neglect. And rightly so. The
soldier dares forget nothing that military service demands
of him. If he forgets in spite of this, even when he is ac-
quainted with the demands, then it is due to the fact that
the motives which urge the fulfilment of the military exac-
tions are opposed by contrary motives. Thus the one year’s
volunteer¹⁾ who at inspection pleads forgetting as an excuse
for not having polished his buttons is sure to be punished.
But this punishment is small in comparison to the one he
courts if he admits to his superiors that the motive for his
negligence is because “this miserable menial service is
altogether disgusting to me.” Owing to this saving of
punishment for economic reasons, as it were, he makes use
of forgetting as an excuse, or it comes about as a com-
promise.

The service of women (as well as the military service of
the State) demands that nothing relating to that service be
subject to forgetting. Thus it but suggests that forgetting
is permissible in unimportant matters, but in weighty mat-
ters its occurrence is an indication that one wishes to treat
weighty matters as unimportant: that is, that their import-
ance is disputed.²⁾ The view-
point of psychic validity is in

¹⁾Young men of education who can pass the examination and
pay for their maintenance serve one instead of two years’ com-
pulsory service.

²⁾In Bernard Shaw’s Cæsar and Cleopatra, Cæsar’s indifference
to Cleopatra is depicted by his being vexed on leaving Egypt at
having forgotten to do something. He finally recollected what he
had forgotten–to take leave of Cleopatra–this, to be sure, is in
full accord with historical truth. How little Cæsar thought of the
little Egyptian princess! Cited from Jones, loc. cit., p. 50.

108

fact not to be contested here. No person forgets to carry
out actions that seem important to himself without exposing
himself to the suspicion of being a sufferer from mental
weakness. Our investigations therefore can extend only to
the forgetting of more or less secondary intentions, for no
intention do we deem absolutely indifferent, otherwise it
would certainly never have been formed.

As in the preceding functional disturbances, I have col-
lected the cases of neglect through forgetting which I have
observed in myself, and endeavoured to explain them. I
have found that they could invariably be traced to some
interference of unknown and unadmitted motives—or, as
may be said, they were due to a counter-will. In a number
of these cases I found myself in a position similar to that
of being in some distasteful service; I was under a constraint
to which I had not entirely resigned myself, so that I showed
my protest in the form of forgetting. This accounts for the
fact that I am particularly prone to forget to send con-
gratulations on such occasions as birthdays, jubilees, wed-
ding celebrations, and promotions to higher rank. I con-
tinually make new resolutions, but I am more than ever
convinced that I shall not succeed. I am now on the point
of giving it up altogether, and to admit consciously the
striving motives. In a period of transition, I told a friend
who asked me to send a congratulatory telegram for him,
at a certain time when I was to send one myself, that I would
probably forget both. It was not surprising that the prophecy
came true. It is undoubtedly due to painful experiences in
life that I am unable to manifest sympathy where this
manifestation must necessarily appear exaggerated, for the
small amount of my feeling does not admit the corresponding
expression. Since I have learned that I often mistook the
pretended sympathy of others for real, I am in rebellion
against the conventions of expressing sympathy, the social
expediency of which I naturally acknowledge. Condolences
in cases of death are excepted from this double treatment;

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FORGETTING IMPRESSIONS AND RESOLUTIONS

once I determine to send them I do not neglect them. Where
my emotional participation has nothing more to do with
social duty, its expression is never inhibited by forgetting.

Cases in which we forget to carry out actions which we
have promised to do as a favour for others can similarly
be explained as antagonism to conventional duty and as an
unfavourable inward opinion. Here it regularly proves
correct, inasmuch as the only person appealed to believes
in the excusing power for forgetfulness, while the one
requesting the favour has no doubt about the right answer:
he has no interest in this matter, otherwise he would not
have forgotten it.

There are some who are noted as generally forgetful, and
we excuse their lapses in the same manner as we excuse
those who are short-sighted when they do not greet us in
the street.¹⁾ Such persons forget all small promises which
they have made; they leave unexecuted all orders which they
have received; they prove themselves unreliable in little
things; and at the same time demand that we shall not take
these slight offences amiss—that is, they do not want us to
attribute these failings to personal characteristics but to
refer them to an organic peculiarity.²⁾ I am not one of these

¹⁾ Women, with their fine understanding of unconscious mental
processes, are, as a rule, more apt to take offence when we do
not recognize them in the street, and hence do not greet them,
than to accept the most obvious explanation, namely, that the
dilatory one is short-sighted or so engrossed in thought that he
did not see them. They conclude that they surely would have
been noticed if they had been considered of any consequence.

²⁾ Dr. Ferenczi reports that he was a distracted person himself,
and was considered peculiar by his friends on account of the
frequency and strangeness of his failing. But the signs of this
inattention have almost all disappeared since he began to practise
psychoanalysis with patients, and was forced to turn his attention
to the analysis of his own ego. He believes that one renounces these
failings when one learns to extend by so much one’s own responsi-
bilities. He therefore justly maintains that distractedness is a
state which depends on unconscious complexes, and is cur-
able by psychoanalysis. One day he was reproaching himself
for having committed a technical error in the psychoanalysis of
a patient, and on this day all his former distractions reappeared.

110

people myself, and have had no opportunity to analyse the
actions of such a person in order to discover from the selec-
tion of forgetting the motive underlying the same. I cannot
forego, however, the conjecture per analogiam, that here the
motive is an unusual large amount of unavowed disregard
for others which exploits the constitutional factor for its
purpose.¹

In other cases the motives for forgetting are less easy to
discover, and when found excite greater astonishment.
Thus, in former years I observed that of a great number
of professional calls I only forgot those that I was to make
on patients whom I treated gratis or on colleagues. The
mortification caused by this discovery led me to the habit
of noting every morning the calls of the day in a form of
resolution. I do not know if other physicians have come to
the same practice by a similar road. Thus we get an idea
of what causes the so-
called neurasthenic to make a memor-
andum of the communications he wishes to make to the
doctor. He apparently lacks confidence in the reproductive
capacity of his memory. This is true, but the scene usually
proceeds in this manner. The patient has recounted his
various complaints and inquiries at considerable length.
After he has finished he pauses for a moment, then he pulls
out the memorandum and says apologetically, “I have made
some notes because I cannot remember anything.” As a
rule he finds nothing new on the memorandum. He repeats
each point and answers it himself: “Yes, I have already
asked about that.” By means of the memorandum he
probably only demonstrates one of his symptoms, the

He stumbled while walking in the street (a representation of
that faux pas in the treatment), he forgot his pocket-
book at home,
he was a penny short in his car fare, he did not properly button
his clothes, etc.

¹E. Jones remarks regarding this: “Often the resistance is of
a general order. Thus a busy man forgets to mail a letter entrusted
to him—to his slight annoyance—by his wife, just as he may ‘forget’
to carry out her shopping orders.

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FORGETTING IMPRESSIONS AND RESOLUTIONS
frequency with which his resolutions are disturbed through
the interference of obscure motives.

I am touching, moreover, on an affliction to which even
most of my healthy acquaintances are subject, when I admit
that especially in former years I had the habit of easily
forgetting for a long time to return borrowed books, also
that it very often happened that I deferred payments through
forgetfulness. One morning not long ago I left the tobacco-
shop where I make my daily purchase of cigars without
paying. It was a most harmless omission, as I am known
there and could therefore expect to be reminded of my
debt the next morning. But this slight neglect, the attempt
to contract a debt, was surely not unconnected with reflec-
tions concerning the budget with which I had occupied
myself throughout the preceding day. Even among the
so-called respectable people one can readily demonstrate a
double behaviour when it concerns the theme of money and
possession. The primitive greed of the suckling which wishes to
seize every object (in order to put it in its mouth) has generally
been only imperfectly subdued through culture and training.¹

¹For the sake of the unity of the theme I may here digress from
the accepted classification, and add that the human memory
evinces a particular partiality in regard to money matters. False
reminiscences of having already paid something are often very
obstinate, as I know from personal experience. When free sway
is given to avaricious intent outside of the serious interests of life,
when it is indulged in in the spirit of fun, as in card playing, we
then find that the most honourable men show an inclination to
errors, mistakes in memory and accounts, and without realizing
how, they even find themselves involved in small frauds. Such
liberties depend in no small part also on the psychically refreshing
character of the play. The saying that in play we can learn a
person’s character may be admitted if we can add “the repressed
character.” If waiters ever make unintentional mistakes they are
apparently due to the same mechanism. Among merchants we
can frequently observe a certain delay in the paying out of sums of
money, in payments of bills and the like, which brings the owner
no profit and can be only understood psychologically as the expres-
sion of a counter-will against giving out money. Brill sums it up
with epigrammatic keenness: “We are more apt to mislay letters
containing bills than cheques” (Brill, Psychoanalysis, its Theories
and Practical Application, p. 197).

112

I fear that in all the examples thus far given I have grown
quite commonplace. But it can be only a pleasure to me if
I happen upon familiar matters which every one understands,
for my main object is to collect everyday material and utilize
it scientifically. I cannot conceive why wisdom, which is,
so to speak, the sediment of everyday experiences, should
be denied admission among the acquisitions of knowledge.
For it is not the diversity of objects but the stricter method
of verification and the striving for far-
reaching connections
which make up the essential character of scientific work.

We have invariably found that intentions of some import-
ance are forgotten when obscure motives arise to disturb
them. In still less important intentions we find a second
mechanism of forgetting. Here a counter-will becomes
transferred to the resolution from something else after an
external association has been formed between the latter
and the content of the resolution. The following example
reported by Brill illustrates this: “A patient found that she
had suddenly became very negligent in her correspondence.
She was naturally punctual and took pleasure in letter-
writing, but for the last few weeks she simply could not
bring herself to write a letter without exerting the greatest
amount of effort. The explanation was quite simple. Some
weeks before she had received an important letter calling
for a categorical answer. She was undecided what to say,
and therefore did not answer it at all. This indecision in
the form of inhibition was unconsciously transferred to
other letters and caused the inhibition against letter-writing
in general.”

Direct counter-will and more remote motivation are
found together in the following example of delaying: I had
written a short treatise on the dream for the series Grenzfragen
des Nerven- und Seelenlebens, in which I gave an abstract
of my book, The Interpretation of Dreams.¹ Bergmann, the
publisher, had sent me the proof sheets and asked for a

¹Translated by A.A. Brill.

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FORGETTING IMPRESSIONS AND RESOLUTIONS

speedy return of the same as he wished to issue the pam-
phlet before Christmas. I corrected the sheets the same night,
and placed them on my desk in order to take them to the
post office the next morning. In the morning I forgot all
about it, and only thought of it in the afternoon at the sight
of the paper cover on my desk. In the same way I forgot
the proofs that evening and the following morning, and
until the afternoon of the second day, when I quickly took
them to a letter-box, wondering what might be the basis
of this procrastination. Obviously I did not want to send
them off, although I could find no explanation for such an
attitude.

After posting the letter I entered the shop of my Vienna
publisher, who put out my Interpretation of Dreams. I left
a few orders; then, as if impelled by a sudden thought,
said, “You undoubtedly know that I have written the
‘Dream’ book a second time?” “Ah!” he exclaimed,
“then I must ask you to—” “Calm yourself,” I inter-
posed; “it is only a short treatise for the Löwenfeld-Kurella
collection.” But still he was not satisfied; he feared that
the abstract would hurt the sale of the book. I disagreed
with him, and finally asked: “If I had come to you before,
would you have objected to the publication?” “No; under
no circumstances,” he answered.

Personally I believe I acted within my full rights and did
nothing contrary to the general practice; still it seems
certain to me that a thought similar to that entertained by
the publisher was the motive for my procrastination in
dispatching the proof sheets.

This reflection leads back to a former occasion when
another publisher raised some difficulties because I was
obliged to take out several pages of the text from an earlier
work on cerebral infantile paralysis, and put them un-
changed into a work on the same theme in Nothnagel’s
handbook. There again the reproach received no recog-
nition; that time also I had loyally informed my first

114

publisher (the same who published The Interpretation of
Dreams) of my intention.

However, if this series of recollections is followed back
still farther it brings to light a still earlier occasion relating
to a translation from the French, in which I really violated
the property rights that should be considered in a publica-
tion. I had added notes to the text without asking the
author’s permission, and some years later I had cause to
think that the author was dissatisfied with this arbitrary
action.

There is a proverb which indicates the popular knowledge
that the forgetting of intentions is not accidental. It says:
“What one forgets once he will often forget again.”

Indeed, we sometimes cannot help feeling that no matter
what may be said about forgetting and faulty actions, the
whole subject is already known to everybody as something
self-evident. It is strange enough that it is still necessary to
push before consciousness such well-known facts. How
often I have heard people remark: “Please do not ask me
to do this, I shall surely forget it.” The coming true of this
prophecy later is surely nothing mysterious in itself. He
who speaks thus perceives the inner resolution not to carry
out the request, and only hesitates to acknowledge it to
himself.

Much light is thrown, moreover, on the forgetting of
resolutions through something which could be designated
as “forming false resolutions.” I had once promised a
young author to write a review of his short work, but on
account of inner resistances, not unknown to me, I promised
him that it would be done the same evening. I really had
serious intentions of doing so, but I had forgotten that I
had set aside that evening for the preparation of an expert
testimony that could not be deferred. After I thus recog-
nized my resolution as false, I gave up the struggle against
my resistances and refused the author’s request.