FORGETTING OF PROPER NAMES

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I

FORGETTING OF PROPER NAMES

DURING the year 1898 I published a short essay
On the Psychic Mechanism of Forgetfulness.¹⁾
I shall now repeat its contents and take it as a
starting-
point for further discussion. I have
there undertaken a psychologic analysis of a
common case of temporary forgetfulness of
proper names, and from a pregnant example of
my own observation I have reached the con-
clusion that this frequent and practically unim-
portant occurrence of a failure of a psychic
function–of memory–admits an explanation
which goes beyond the customary utilization of
this phenomenon.

If an average psychologist should be asked
to explain how it happens that we often fail to
recall a name which we are sure we know, he
would probably content himself with the answer
that proper names are more apt to be forgotten
than any other content of memory. He might
give plausible reasons for this “forgetting pre-
”

¹⁾Monatschrift f. Psychiatrie.

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

ference ” for proper names, but he would not
assume any deep determinant for the process.

I was led to examine exhaustively the pheno-
menon of temporary forgetfulness 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 conscious-
ness 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 displace-
ment is not left to psychic arbitrariness, 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 recall the name of the
master who made the imposing frescoes of the
“Last Judgment” in the dome of Orvieto. In-
stead of the lost name—Signorelli—two other
names of artists—Botticelli and Boltraffio—
obtruded themselves, names which my judg-
 

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Forgetting of Proper Names

ment immediately and definitely rejected as
being incorrect. When the correct name was
imparted to me by an outsider 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 strange-
ness in itself of this name nor in the psycho-
logic 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—of the possessor
of which I could hardly say more than that he
belonged to the Milanese School. The connec-
tion, too, in which the forgetting of the name
took place appeared to me harmless, and led
to no further explanation. 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

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

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 discussing 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 complete 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, Herze-
govina, 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 the 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.”

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Forgetting of Proper Names

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 de-
flected my attention from the continuation 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 sojourn 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 agreement be-
tween Trafoi and Boltraffio forces me to assume
that this reminiscence was at that time brought
to activity despite all the intentional deviation
of my attention.

(d) I can no longer conceive the forgetting
of the name Signorelli as an accidental occur-
rence. I must recognize in this process the
influence of a motive. There were motives which
actuated the interruption in the communication
of my thoughts (concerning the customs of the
Turks, etc.), and which later influenced me to
exclude from my consciousness the thought
connected with them, and which might have led
to the message concerning the incident in

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

Trafoi—that is, I wanted to forget something, 
I repressed 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 intentionally wished to forget the 
other. The disinclination to recall directed itself 
against the one content; the inability to re-
member appeared in another. The case would 
have been obviously simpler if this disinclina-
tion and the inability to remember had concerned 
the same content. The substitutive names no 
longer seem so thoroughly justified as they were 
before this explanation. They remind me (after 
the form of a compromise) as much of what I 
wished to forget as of what I wished to re-
member, and show me that my object to forget 
something was neither a perfect success 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 inserted 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 syllables (elli) returned

Signor

alli

Herr

zegovina and

Herr

Sir, What can I say, etc.

Botticelli

Bosnia

Bo

l traffio

Trafoi

Death and Sexuality

Repressed thoughts

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

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

Perhaps it is not superfluous to remark that
the given explanation does not contradict the
conditions of memory reproduction and forgetting
assumed 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 for-
getting 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 repressed

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Forgetting of Proper Names

element to associatively gain control over the
desired name and take it along into the repres-
sion. Perhaps this would not have occurred
in another name having more favourable
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 suppres-
sion succeeds without disturbance of function,
or, as we may justly say, without symptoms.

When we recapitulate the conditions for for-
getting a name with faulty recollection we find :
(1) a certain disposition to forget the same ; (2)
a process of suppression which has taken place
shortly before ; and (3) the possibility of estab-
lishing an outer association between the con-
cerned 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
farther-reaching question whether such outer
association can really furnish the proper condi-
tion 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
superficial consideration one may be willing to
reject the latter requirement and consider the

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

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 example Signorelli naturally
depends on whether we must explain this case
as a typical or as an isolated process. I must
now maintain that the forgetting of a name
associated with faulty recollection uncommonly
often follows the same process as was demon-
strated in the case of Signorelli. 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 view-point in
favour of the typical nature of our analysis. I
believe that one is not justified in separating
the cases of name-
forgetting with faulty recol-
lection from those in which incorrect substitu-
tive names have not obtruded themselves. These
substitutive names occur spontaneously in a
number of cases; in other cases, where they do
not come spontaneously, they can be brought
to the surface by concentration of attention, and
they then show the same relation to the repressed
element and the lost name as those that come

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Forgetting of Proper Names

spontaneously. Two factors seem to play a part
in bringing to consciousness the substitutive
names: first, the effort of attention, and second,
an inner determinant which adheres to the
psychic material. I could find the latter in the
greater or lesser facility which forms the required
outer associations between the two elements. A
great many of the cases of name-
forgetting without faulty recollection therefore belong to
the cases with substitutive name formation, the
mechanism of which corresponds to the one in
the example Signorelli. But I surely shall not
venture to assert that all cases of name-
forgetting belong to the same group. There is no doubt
that there are cases of name-
forgetting that
proceed in a much simpler way. We shall
represent this state of affairs carefully enough
if we assert that besides the simple forgetting
of proper names there is another forgetting
which is motivated by repression.

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