18

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 a while 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 the things learned together, but seems to pick
out therefrom 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

19

FORGETTING OF NAMES AND ORDER OF WORDS

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.”

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

“She was astonished at her many mistakes, and attri-
buted them to a failure of memory. I could readily con-
vince her, however, that there was no qualitative or
quantitative disturbance 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, notwith-
standing 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.

20

‘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 participating in an amateur theatrical perfor-
mance. 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 … 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 dis-
cussion about the over-
estimation of personality among
lovers unconsciously recalled to her a disagreeable
experience, when she herself over-
estimated the per-
sonality 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 unconscious 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

21

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—he was also very corpulent—my friend is cor-
pulent, too, and I thought that he might meet the same
fate—probably he doesn’t exercise enough—when I
heard of his 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 imme-
diately 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

¹⁾The Psychology of Dementia Præcox, translated by F. Peter-
son and A. A. Brill.

22

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 im-
potence.

“At a social gathering some one quoted, Tout compren-
dre 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 emboldened 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 Max, whom we usually
called Maxie. That led me to the word ‘maxim,’ and to
the thought that at the 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 psychoanalytic experience, ‘You should go
further and acknowledge that nothing animal is foreign
to you.’

“But after I had finally found the desired recollection

23

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
assume that the mechanisms of forgetting, as demon-
strated 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 unconscious

24

stream of thought, which gives rise to the influence that
comes to light as forgetting.

I am now returning to the forgetting of names, con-
cerning 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 themselves 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 phenom-
ena? 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 following
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

25

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
disturbances, and intoxication, I am robbed by an
unknown psychic force of the disposal over the proper
names belonging 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 Genova, 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.

“Just what is the name of the place near Genova where

26

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 speciality as my own. It touched in me the “pro-
fessional 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

27

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 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
himself, 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 apprehen-
sion from these two juvenile cases was transferred to a
person of my own family.

’Thus– an incessant stream of “self-reference” flows

28

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 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 unin-
telligibly. 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

¹ The Psychology of Dementia Præcox, p. 45.

29

“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 forgetting is manifestly a direct result of the
dislike of Y. for the happy rival; he does not wish to know
anything about him.

(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 psychoanalysis
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 associa-
tion ‘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.

30

Wilde has occupied himself with young people (although
she uttered in this sentence the correct name she still
could not remember it).

“To Hauptman 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.

“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, unfortunately, also in a persistent ten-
dency 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 repug-
nance entertained by our narrator against the recollection

31

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
reminiscences which were surely not exhaustively treated
in this report. Dr. S. Ferenczi, who observed this case of
forgetting 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 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

32

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 tyranni-
cal 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 kapzsi (greed after money) surely
furnished a determinant for the displacement. Naturally
I also found those more direct associations which con-
nected 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
astonishment 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 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 corres-
ponds 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 tyrannically as did the Austrian General
after the Hungarian and Italian struggles for liberty.”

33

“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 tyran-
nized 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 occa-
sion). 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
together in Sicily six months before, exchanged reminis-
cences of those pleasant and interesting days.

“Let’s see, what was the name of that place,” asked the

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

34

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 forget-
fulness 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 accus-
tomed 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
recognition, 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 ageing, 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

35

the most flattering manner, ‘I am no longer a young man.’
That my resistance was directed 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 Castrogiovanni, 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 distur-
bance of the intended reproduction of the name through

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

36

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
professional) 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 obje-
cts 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
peculiarities 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.

37

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.