35

I

FORGETTING OF PROPER NAMES

DURING the year 1898, I published a short essay, On the Psychic Mecha-
nism of Forgetfulness.¹⁾ I shall now repeat its contents and take it as a
starting-point for further discussion. I have there undertaken a psycho-
logic 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 oc-
currence of a failure of a psychic function—of memory—admits an ex-
planation which goes beyond the customary utilization of this phenome-
non.

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 plausi-
ble reasons for this “forgetting preference” for proper names, but he
would not assume any deep determinant for the process.

I was led to examine exhaustively the phenomenon of temporary for-
getfulness through the observation of certain peculiarities, which, al-
though 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, 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 brings
one to an incorrect substitute.

Now it is my assumption that the displacement is not left to psychic ar-
bitrariness, but that it follows lawful and rational paths. In other words,
I assume that the substitutive name (or names) stands in direct relation
to the lost name, and I hope, if I succeed in demonstrating this connection,
to throw light on the origin of the forgetting of names.

In the example which I selected for analysis in 1898, I vainly strove to

¹⁾Monatschrift f. Psychiatrie.

36

recall the name of the master who made the imposing frescoes of the “Last
Judgment” in the dome of Orvieto. Instead of the lost name—Signorelli—
two other names of artists—Botticelli and Boltraffio—obtruded them-
selves, names which my judgment immediately and definitely rejected as
being incorrect. When the correct name was imparted to me by an out-
sider, I recognized it at once without any hesitation. The examination of
the influence and association paths which caused the displacement from
Signorelli to Botticelli and Boltraffio led to the following results:

(a) The reason for the escape of the name Signorelli is neither to be
sought in the strangeness in itself of this name nor in the psychologic
character of the connection in which it was inserted. The forgotten name
was just as familiar to me as one of the substitutive names—Botticelli—
and somewhat more familiar than the other substitute—Boltraffio—o¿
the possessor of which I could hardly say more than that he belonged to
the Milanese School. The connection, too, in which the forgetting of the
name took place appeared to me harmless, and led to no further explana-
tion. I journeyed by carriage with a stranger from Ragusa, Dalmatia, to
a station in Herzegovina. Our conversation drifted to travelling in Italy,
and I asked my companion whether he had been in Orvieto and had seen
there the famous frescoes of —.

(b) The forgetting of the name could not be explained until after I
had recalled the theme discussed immediately before this conversation.
This forgetting then made itself known as a disturbance of the newly
emerging theme caused by the theme preceding it. In brief, before I asked
my travelling companion if he had been in Orvieto, we had been discuss-
ing the customs of the Turks living in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I had
related what I heard from a colleague who was practising medicine among
them, namely, that they show full confidence in the physician and com-
plete submission to fate. When one is compelled to inform them that
there is no help for the patient, they answer: “Sir (Herr), what can I say?
I know that if he could be saved, you would save him.” In these sentences
alone we can find the words and names: Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Herr
(Sir), which may be inserted in an association series between Signorelli,
Botticelli and Boltraffio.

(c) I assume that the stream of thoughts concerning the customs of
the Turks in Bosnia, etc., was able to disturb the next thought, because I
withdrew my attention from it before it came to an end. For I recalled
that I wished to relate a second anecdote which was next to the first in my
memory. These Turks value sexual pleasure above all else, and at sexual
disturbances merge into an utter despair which strangely contrasts with
their resignation at the peril of losing their lives. One of my colleague’s
patients once told him, “For you know, Sir (Herr), if that ceases, life no
longer has any charm.”

37

I refrained from imparting this characteristic feature because I did not
wish to touch upon such a delicate theme in conversation with a stranger.
But I went still further; I also deflected my attention from the continua-
tion of the thought which might have associated itself in me with the
theme “Death and Sexuality.” I was at that time under the after-effects
of a message which I had received a few weeks before, during a brief so-
journ in Trafoi. A patient on whom I had spent much effort had ended
his life on account of an incurable sexual disturbance. I know positively
that this sad event, and everything connected with it, did not come to my
conscious recollection on that trip in Herzegovina. However, the agree-
ment between Trafoi and Boltraffio forces me to assume that this remi-
niscence was at that time brought into activity despite all the intentional
deviation of my attention.

(d) I can no longer conceive the forgetting of the name Signorelli as
an accidental occurrence. I must recognize in this process the influence of
a motive. There were motives which actuated the interruption in the com-
munication of my thoughts (concerning the customs of the Turks, etc.),
which later influenced me to exclude from my consciousness the thoughts
connected with them, and which might have led to the message concern-
ing the incident in Trafoi—that is, I wanted to forget something, I re-
pressed something. To be sure, I wished to forget something other than
the name of the master of Orvieto; but this other thought brought about
an associative connection between itself and this name, so that my act of
volition missed the aim, and I forgot the one against my will, while I in-
tentionally wished to forget the other. The disinclina-
tion to recall directed
itself against the one content; the inability to remember appeared in an
other. The case would have been obviously simpler if this disinclination
and the inability to remember had concerned the same content. The sub-
stitutive names no longer seem so thoroughly unjustified as they seemed
before this explanation. They remind me (after the form of a compro-
mise) as much of what I wished to forget as of what I wished to remem-
be¿, and show me that my object to forget something was neither a perfe¿t
su¿cess nor a failure.

(e) The nature of the association formed between the lost name and
the repressed theme (death and sexuality, etc.), containing the names of
Bosnia, Herzegovina and Trafoi, is also very strange. In the scheme in-
serted here, which originally appeared in 1898, an attempt is made to
graphically represent these associations.
The name Signorelli was thus divided into two parts. One pair of syl-
lables (elli) returned unchanged in one of the substitutions, while the
other had gained, through the translation of signor (Sir, Herr), many
and diverse relations to the name contained in the repressed theme, but
was lost through it in the reproduction. Its substitution was formed in a

38

way to suggest that a displacement took place along the same associations
—“Herzegovina and Bosnia”—regardless of the sense and acoustic de-
marcation. The names were therefore treated in this process like the writ-
ten pictures of a sentence which is to be transformed into a picture-puzzle
(rebus). No information was given to consciousness concerning the whole
process, which, instead of the name Signorelli, was thus changed to the
substitutive names. At first sight, no relation is apparent between the
theme that contained the name Signorelli and the repressed one which
immediately preceded it.

Signor elli

Bo tticelli

Bo l traffio

Bo snia

Her zegovina and

Trafoi

Herr Sir, What can I say, etc.

Death and Sexuality

Repressed Thoughts

39

FORGETTING OF PROPER NAMES

Perhaps it is not superfluous to remark that the given explanation does
not contradict the conditions of memory reproduction and forgetting as-
sumed by other psychologists, which they seek in certain relations and
dispositions. Only in certain cases have we added another motive to the
factors long recognized as causative in forgetting names, and have thus
laid bare the mechanism of faulty memory. The assumed dispositions are
indispensable also in our case, in order to make it possible for the re-
pressed element to associatively gain control over the desired name and
take it along into the repression. Perhaps this would not have occurred
in another name having more favorable conditions of reproduction. For
it is quite probable that a suppressed element continually strives to assert
itself in some other way, but attains this success only where it meets with
suitable conditions. At other times, the suppression succeeds without dis-
turbance of function, or, as we may justly say, without symptoms.

When we recapitulate the conditions for forgetting a name with faulty
recollection we find: (1) a certain disposition to forget the name; (2) a
process of suppression which has taken place shortly before; and (3) the
possibility of establishing an outer association between the concerned
name and the element previously suppressed. The last condition will
probably not have to be much overrated, for the slightest claim on the
association is apt in most cases to bring it about. But it is a different and
far-reaching question whether such outer association can really fur-
nish the proper condition to enable the suppressed element to disturb the
reproduction of the desired name, or whether after all a more intimate
connection between the two themes is not necessarily required. On super-
ficial consideration, one may be willing to reject the latter requirement
and consider the temporal meeting in perfectly dissimilar contents as
sufficient. But on more thorough examination, one finds more and more
frequently that the two elements (the repressed and the new one) con-
nected by an outer association, possess besides a connection in content,
and this can also be demonstrated in the example, Signorelli.

The value of the understanding gained through the analysis of the ex-
ample Signorelli naturally depends on whether we must explain this case
as a typical or as an isolated process. I must now maintain that the for-
getting of a name associated with faulty recollection not uncommonly
follows the same process as was demonstrated in the case of Si-
gnorelli. Almost every time that I observed this phenomenon in myself,
I was able to explain it in the manner indicated above as being motivated
by repression.

I must mention still another viewpoint in favor of the typical nature
of our analysis. I believe that one is not justified in separating the cases
of name-forgetting with faulty recollection from those in which incorrect
substitutive names have not obtruded themselves. These substitutive

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