46

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 won-
der 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 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.

47

FORGETTING NAMES AND ORDER OF WORDS
“She was astonished at her many mistakes, and attributed them to a
failure of memory. I could readily convince her, however, that there was
no qualitative or quantitative 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 . . . every-
thing is so poetically unreal. Still, it is a wonderful experience; worth go-
ing through, notwithstanding the terrible disappointments that usually
follow. It puts us on a level with the gods and incites us to all sorts of
artistic activities. We become real poets; we not only memorize and quote
poetry, but we often become Apollos ourselves.’ She then quoted the lines
given above.
“When I asked on what occasion she memorized the lines, she could
not recall. As a teacher of elocution, she was wont to memorize so much
and so often that it was difficult to tell just when she had memorized these
lines. ‘Judging by the conversation,’ I suggested, ‘it would seem that this
poem is intimately associated with the idea of over-estimation of per-
sonality 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 performance. He was, at the time, studying for the
stage, and it was predicted that some day he would be a matinée idol. He
was endowed with all the attributes needed for such a calling. He was well
built, fascinating, impulsive, very clever and . . . very fickle-minded.
She was warned against him, but she paid no heed, attributing it all to the
envy of her counsellors. Everything went well for a few months, when she
suddenly received word that her Apollo, for whom she had memorized
these lines, had eloped with and married a very wealthy young woman.
A few years later, she heard that he was living in a Western city, where
he was taking care of his father-in-law’s interests.
“The misquoted lines are now quite plain. The discussion about the
over-estimation of personality among lovers unconsciously recalled to her
a disagreeable experience, when she herself over-estimated the personality
of the man she loved. She thought he was a god, but he turned out to be
even worse than the average mortal. The episode could not come to the
surface because it was determined by very disagreeable and painful
thoughts, but the 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.”

48

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

“A man wished to recite the familiar poem, ‘A Pine Tree Stands Alone,’
etc. In the line ‘He felt drowsy’ he became hopelessly stuck at the words
‘with the white sheet.’ This forgetting of such a well-known verse seemed
to me rather peculiar, and I therefore asked him to reproduce what came
to his mind when he thought of the words ‘with the white sheet.’ He gave
the following series of associations: ‘The white sheet makes one think of
a white sheet on a corpse—a linen sheet with which one covers a dead
body—(pause)—now I think of a near friend—his brother died quite re-
cently—he is supposed to have died of heart disease—he was also very
corpulent—my friend is corpulent, too, and I thought that he might meet
the same fate—probably he doesn’t exercise enough—when I heard of
this death, I suddenly became frightened: the same thing might happen
to me, as my own family is predisposed to obesity—my grandfather died
of heart disease—I, also, am somewhat too corpulent, and for that reason,
I began an obesity cure a few days ago.’ ”

Jung remarks: “The man had unconsciously 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 in-
debted to my friend, Dr. Ferenczi, of Budapest. Unlike the former ex-
amples, it does not refer to a verse taken from poetry, but to a self-coined
saying. It may also demonstrate to us the rather unusual case where the
forgetting places itself at the disposal of discretion when the latter is in
danger of yielding to a momentary desire. The mistake thus advances to
a useful function. After we have sobered down, we justify that inner striv-
ing which at first could manifest itself only in some default, as in forget-
ting or psychic impotence.

“At a social gathering, some one quoted ‘Tout comprendre c’est tout
pardonner,’ to which I remarked that the first part of the sentence should
suffice, as ‘pardoning’ is an exemption which must be left to God and the
priest. One of the guests thought this observation very good, which in
turn 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 com-
pany and wrote my latent 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 that time, as in the present case,

¹The Psychology of Dementia Praecox, translated by A. A. Brill.

49

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 ex-
perience, ‘You should go further and acknowledge that nothing animal is
foreign to you.’

“But after I had finally found the desired recollection, I was even then
prevented from telling it in this social gathering. The young wife of the
friend whom I had reminded of the animality of the unconscious, was
also among those present, and I was perforce reminded that she was not
at all prepared for the reception of such unsympathetic views. The for-
getting spared me a number of unpleasant questions from her and a hope-
less 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 also be due to the
fact that I withdrew into a vacant room, away from the society in which
it was censored.”

I have since then analyzed 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 demonstrated in the examples aliquis and Ode to Apollo, are al-
most universally true. 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 analyzed; I shall therefore add no more to the num-
ber of such examples. What is common to all these cases, regardless of the
material, is the fact that the forgotten or distorted material becomes con-
nected through some associative path with an unconscious stream of
thought which gives rise to the influence that comes to light as forgetting.

I am now returning to the forgetting of names, concerning which we
have so far considered exhaustively neither the casuistic elements nor the
motives. As this form of faulty acts can at times be abundantly observed
in myself, I am not at a loss for examples. The slight attacks of migraine,
from which I am still suffering, are wont to announce themselves hours
before through the forgetting of names, and at the height of the attack,

50

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 objec-
tion to our analytic efforts. Should not one be forced to conclude from
such observations that the causation of forgetfulness, especially forget-
ting of names, is to be sought in circulatory or functional disturbances of
the brain, and spare himself the trouble of searching for psychologic ex-
planations for these phenomena? Not at all; that would mean to substi-
tute the mechanism of a process, which is the same in all cases, by a vari-
able. 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 neighborhood 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 affairs
could only be described by saying that favored 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.
Favored by exhaustion, circulatory disturbances and intoxication, I am
robbed by an unknown psychic force of the control 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 analyze those cases of name-forgetting 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 Zürich 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 single examples will best illustrate the nature
of the same:

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

51

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 Genoa where Dr. X has his
small institution in which Mrs. So-and-So remained so long under treat-
ment?”

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

(c) On another occasion, when about to buy a railroad ticket on the
Reichenhall station, I could not recall the very familiar name of the next
big railroad station which I had so often passed. I was forced to look it up
in the time-
table. The name was Rosehome (Rosenheim). I soon discov-
ered 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 demon-
strate in a whole series of complexes.

One day, I was consulted by a young man, a younger brother of one of
my female patients, whom I saw any number of times, and whom I used
to call by his first name. Later, while wishing to talk about his visit, I for-
got 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 centered 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 un-
derstood the substitutive names, Daniel and Frank, which obtruded them-
selves 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.

52

(e) On another occasion, I was unable to recall 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 pa-
tient expressed his apprehension lest he should lose his eyesight; this re-
called a young man who became blind from a gunshot, and the latter bore the
same name as my first patient, though not at all related to him. The name
became known to me, however, only after the anxious apprehension from
these two juvenile cases was transferred to a person of my own family.

Thus an incessant stream of “self-reference” flows through my thoughts
concerning which I usually have no inkling, but which betrays itself
through such name-forgetting. It seems as if I were forced to compare
with my own person all that I hear about strangers, as if my personal com-
plexes became stirred up by associations from without. It seems im-
possible 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 expe-
riences quite similar to mine.

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

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

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

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

However, the motivation for the forgetting is more evident in this case

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

53

than in the preceding ones, which were under the constellation of the per-
sonal reference. Here the forgetting is manifestly a direct result of the dis-
like 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 asso-
ciations to every thought.”
“To Kl. she at once thought of Mrs. Kl., that she was an embellished
and affected person who looked very well for her age. ‘She does not age.’ As
a general and principal conception of Wilde and Nietzsche, she gave the
association ‘mental disease.’ She continued: ‘I cannot bear Wilde and
Nietzsche. I do not understand them. I hear that they were both homo-
sexual. Wilde has occupied himself with young people’ (although she
uttered in this sentence the correct name, she still could not remember it).
“To Hauptmann she associated the words half and youth, and only
after I called her attention to the word youth did she become aware that
she was looking for the name Young (Jung).”

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

(h) Still different and very finely motivated is an example of name-
forgetting which the person concerned has himself explained.
“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 an-
swered 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 tendency to forget the
name Gassendi. I believe that it is due to my guilty conscience that even
now I cannot retain this name despite all efforts. I had no business know-
ing it at that time.”

To have a proper appreciation of the intense repugnance entertained

54

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

(i) 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 investi-
gations. The name of an Italian city withdrew itself from memory on ac-
count 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 ob-
served this case of forgetting in himself, treated it—quite justly—as an
analysis of a dream or a neurotic idea.

“Today I visited some old friends, and the conversation turned to cities
of Northern Italy. Someone 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 honor of the Swiss Guard
fallen in the Tuileries. I finally thought of the desired name: it was
Verona.

“I knew at once the cause of this amnesia. No other than a former
servant of the family whom I visited at the time. Her name was Veronica;
in Hungarian Verona. I felt a great antipathy for her on account of her
repulsive physiognomy, as well as her hoarse, shrill voice and her unbear-
able self-assertion (to which she thought herself entitled on account of
her long service). Also the tyrannical way in which she treated the chil-
dren 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 com-
pared Veronica’s head to a skull. The Hungarian word kapzoi (greed after
money) surely furnished a determinant for the displacement. Naturally
I also found those more direct associations which connected Capua and
Verona as geographical ideas and as Italian words of the same rhythm.
“The same held true for Brescia; here, too, I found concealed side-
tracks of associations of ideas.

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

51

FORGETTING OF NAMES AND ORDER OF WORDS

“Brescia, at least in Hungary, is very often mentioned not in connec
tion 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 Hay-
nau, one stream of thought leads over Brescia to the city of Verona, and
the other over the idea of the grave-digging animal with the hoarse voice
(which corresponds to the thought of a monument to the dead), to the
skull, and to the disagreeable organ of Veronica, which was so cruelly
insulted in my unconscious mind. Veronica, in her time, ruled as tyranni-
cally as did the Austrian General after the Hungarian and Italian struggles
for liberty.

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

“I expressly observe that this antipathy of mine against Veronica con-
sciously 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 recol-
lection might have taken part in the displacement of the hyena by the
lion.”

(j) 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 reminiscences of those pleasant and inter-
esting days.

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

The elder rejected this by saying: “Certainly not; but I have forgotten
the name, too, although I can recall perfectly all the details of the place.
Whenever I hear someone forget a name, it immediately produces forget-
¹Zentralb. f. Psychoanalyse, I. 9, 1911.

56

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 accustomed to inter-
change 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: Castrogio-
vanni.” 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 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 substitu-
tive name Caltanisetta.”

“What about the name Caltanisetta itself?” asked the younger.

“That always seemed to me like a pet name of a young woman,” ad-
mitted the elder.

Somewhat later he added: “The name for Enna was also only a substi-
tutive name. And now it occurs to me that the name Castrogio-
vanni, which obtruded itself with the aid of a rationalization, alludes as expressly
to giovane, young, as the last name, Castelvetrano, to veteran.”

The older man believed that he had thus accounted for his forgetting
the name. What the motive was that led the young man to this memory
failure was not investigated.

In some cases, one must have recourse to all the fineness of psycho-
analytic 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 Pro-
fessor Ernest Jones.¹

Brill reports the following interesting example:

“Soon after I became an assistant in the Clinic of Psychiatry at Zürich,

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

57

I had an interesting experience in forgetting a name, which I may say,
finally converted me to Freud’s teachings. At that time, I was not fully
convinced of his theories, and my attitude was skeptical, though by no
means unsympathetic. I approached the whole subject in the spirit of an
investigator and student who made every effort to discover and under-
stand all the data before passing final judgment on his psychology.
Spurred on by Professor Bleuler, all the physicians in the hospital were
firm and ardent workers with the new theories. In fact, we were in the
only hospital or clinic where the Freudian principles were applied in the
study and treatment of patients. Those were the pioneer days of Freud
among psychiatrists, and we observed and studied and noted whatever
was done or said about us with unfailing patience and untiring interest
and zeal. We made no scruples, for instance, of asking a man at table
why he did not use his spoon in the proper way, or why he did such and
such a thing in such and such a manner. It was impossible for one to show
any degree of hesitation or make some abrupt pause in speaking without
being at once called to account. We had to keep ourselves well in hand,
ever ready and alert, for there was no telling when and where there would
be a new attack. We had to explain why we whistled or hummed some par-
ticular tune or why we made some slip in talking or some mistake in writ-
ing. But we were glad to do this if for no other reason than to learn to face
the truth.

“One afternoon, when I was off duty, I was reading about a certain case
which recalled to my mind a similar one I had when I was in a hospital
in New York. I am in the habit of making marginal notes and so I took
up my pencil to write down the case, but when I came to note the name
of the patient whom I had known for a number of months and in whom I
had taken an unusual amount of interest, I found that I could not recall it.
I tried very hard to bring it back to my mind, but without success. It was
strange and puzzling; but as I knew definitely whom I meant, I finished
the note. Now, according to Freud, I thought at once to myself, the name
must be connected with something painful and unpleasant. I decided right-
there and then to find it by the Freudian free association method.

“Now, the patient whose name I could not recall, was the same man
who, some years ago, attempted to set fire to the St. Patrick’s Cathedral
in New York; he gathered together some odds and ends before the en-
trance of the church and set fire to it. He was, of course, arrested, brought
to the psychopathic pavilion in Bellevue and later to the State Hospital
where he became my patient. I diagnosed him as a psychic epileptic. I
decided that he suffered from a form of epilepsy which does not manifest
itself in fits, as the general cases do, but rather in peculiar psychic actions
which may last for a few minutes, hours, or perhaps for weeks, months

58

or years. Nobody agreed with me in the diagnosis; my senior doctor held
that the patient suffered from dementia praecox.

“Within a week or so, the patient recovered and was entirely normal,
thus corroborating my diagnosis in every respect. The patient told us that
this was his fifth attack and that in some of his previous ones, he had
burned a railroad station, a church and several barns. He would run away
from home, his wife and children, and wander off, scot-
free, when one
of these fits came upon him. He was an editor of a journal and newspaper
in Canada, a man of considerable intelligence and refinement. On one of
his attacks during the Boer War, he ran away from Canada and came to
London, where, seeing calls for volunteers, he enlisted and was sent to
South Africa. He fought bravely and was promoted to sergeant in a few
weeks. When he came to himself, he was quite surprised to find himself a
soldier and did not have the least idea how he got to South Africa. Previ-
ous experience told him, however, what his condition meant and upon
reporting it to the physicians, he was honorably discharged. He sent a
cable to his wife and returned home. He gave us various details about
himself, the hospital where he found himself last, his former doctor, all
of which we were soon able to corroborate. He had what we called a
“fugue” or “poriomania.” Cases like this have been reported where the
person disappeared for as many as three years. Indeed, they are not as
rare as you may suppose.

“Everybody congratulated me on my clever diagnosis, and I myself
was greatly elated. The superintendent assured me that I had all good
reason to be proud of myself and he went on to state, to my profound
disappointment and displeasure, that he would report the case to a medi-
cal society. I had spent a tremendous amount of time and effort on it and
desired to publish it as my first contribution to medical literature.

“A few days before the meeting, the superintendent changed his mind
and asked me to read it. I was very much pleased at this and felt quite
relieved. But the programs were already printed, and when I went before
the society, everybody thought it was the superintendent’s paper and that
he sent me merely to read it for him. You may realize how deeply I felt
about the whole affair.

“Now, I am dwelling quite at length on the phase of the situation be-
cause I would like you to note carefully that there was enough of the dis-
agreeable and unpleasant associated with the whole experience to account
for my forgetting the name of the patient.

“For hours on end, I sat there writing down the associations, but I was
not a whit nearer to knowing the name than when I began. Various details
and incidents came swarming into my mind and I had to write mighty
rapidly to keep pace with them. I could see clearly how this New York
patient looked, the color of his hair, the peculiar expression on his face.

59

FORGETTING OF NAMES AND ORDER OF WORDS

I became discouraged and thought to myself, ‘If that is the way to find
a thing through the Freudian method, I shall never be a Freudian.’ It was
now evening and one of my colleagues, surprised to find me indoors, asked
me to make his rounds for him inasmuch as I was not going out. I con-
sented gladly, for I was tired of these Freudian labors. But when I was
done, I felt refreshed and returned to the associations with renewed inter-
est. At eleven o’clock, I was still in as much darkness about the name as
before. I went to bed disheartened and thoroughly disgusted with the
whole affair. At about four o’clock in the morning, I awoke and made a
supreme effort to dismiss it from my mind, but in vain. Volens volens, I
soon began to associate in bed, and finally, at about a little after five, the
long-sought name suddenly came to me. My joy and elation was not at
all free from a sense of relief; it was as if I had solved a long vexing prob-
lem. I have no doubt now that had I not been able to find it, I probably
would never have continued to take the slightest interest in Freud. I spent
so much time and effort in trying to ferret it out that I felt quite out of
humor with myself; but I was well compensated no less by the sense of
pleasure and satisfaction that went with the discovery, than by the fresh
conviction it gave me in Freudian psychology.

“Now, what was the situation? Let me say first that when you begin
to associate freely, you will soon be surprised to find that thousands of
associations begin pouring in upon consciousness. Sometimes, three or
four of these associations come at the same moment and you pause and
wonder which one to write down first. You soon make some selection and
continue. In my own case, I observed that a few very definite associations
kept on recurring continually. Every time I asked myself the name of this
New York patient, there would invariably come to my mind the case of
a real epileptic I then had in the Zürich hospital. His name was Appen-
zeller; he was just a Swiss peasant, and I explained the association on
the ground that they were both epileptics, the New York patient, as you
remember, being a psychic epileptic. Another continually recurring asso-
ciation was this: When I thought of the hospital on Long Island and all
that happened there during the five years I was connected with it, one
particular scene would stand out very clearly and prominently; my mind
would revert to it all the time. There were very often forest fires near the
hospital and on many occasions, we had to go out and check them lest
they reached our buildings. The particular scene was on a Friday; there
was a big fire raging near the hospital and we had to send out as many
doctors and nurses as we could possibly spare to help control it. I was
there to see that there was no confusion, that things were carried out
properly; I was chatting with a physician who was with me in the same
capacity. The fire was consuming a good deal of scrub pine; and now
and then, an attendant would succeed in shooting one of the rabbits that

60

were fleeing from the brush wood. As I was standing there, the superin-
tendent came up to us, passed some remark or other, and then, spying a
rabbit some distance away, asked one of the attendants for his shotgun
to try his skill, saying: ‘Let’s see if I can get that rabbit.’ We all looked
on knowingly, for we never had very much faith in the superintendent’s
marksmanship, and no mistake, he missed his aim and the rabbit escaped.
He turned to me and declared somewhat uneasily, and by way of expla-
nation, that his fingers slipped, for it was beginning to rain. I seemingly
concurred in the observation, but in my heart I smiled at his discomfiture.
I could see him very plainly as he stood there, saying, ‘Let’s see if I can
get that rabbit,’ and he would then aim, shoot and miss it. Finally I saw
the scene again in the morning, and with the words, ‘Let’s see if I can get
that rabbit,’ the name came to me. It was Lapin, the French word for rab-
bit. Later on, when I actually counted my associations, I found that this
particular association came up twenty eight times more than any of the
others.

“This may seem strange to you, but that is exactly the way the mind
works unconsciously. The name was symbolically represented by the
scene; the whole situation was under repression and that is the manner
in which the unconscious elaborated it. The repressed emotion attached
itself to an actual occurrence: the superintendent fails to shoot the rabbit,
i.e., he fails to deprive me of the case. You can easily see also why I
thought of Appenzeller. There was the sound association of the first part
of Appenzeller, Appen, Lapin; and what is just as important, both pa-
tients were epileptics. You may thus see, first, that there was something
distinctly disagreeable and painful associated with the name, and sec-
ondly, that there was a definite symbolic expression of it in the form of
a repressed emotion.”

I could multiply the examples of name-forgetting and prolong the dis-
cussion very much further if I did not wish to avoid elucidating here al-
most all the viewpoints which will be considered in later themes. I shall,
however, take the liberty of comprehending in a few sentences the re-
sults of the analyses reported here.

The mechanism of forgetting, or rather of losing or temporary forget-
ting of a name, consists in the disturbance of the intended reproduction
of the name through a strange stream of thought unconscious at the time.
Between the disturbed name and the disturbing complex, there exists a
connection either from the beginning or such a connection has been
formed—perhaps by artificial means—through superficial (outer) asso-
ciations.

The self-reference complex (personal, family or professional) proves
to be the most effective of the disturbing complexes.

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FORGETTING OF NAMES AND ORDER OF WORDS

A name which, by virtue of its many meanings, belongs to a number of
thought associations (complexes) is frequently disturbed in its connec-
tion to one series of thoughts through a stronger complex belonging to the
other associations.

To avoid the awakening of pain through memory is one of the objects
among the motives of these disturbances.

In general, one may distinguish two principal cases of name-forgetting;
when the name itself touches something unpleasant, or when it is brought
into connection with other associations which are influenced by such ef-
fects. Thus, 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 tem-
porary forgetting of a name is observed as the most frequent faulty ac-
tion 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 in-
duce the same memory slip in the other. But wherever the forgetting is
induced, the sought-for name easily comes to the surface.

There is also a continuous forgetting of names in which whole chains
of names are withdrawn from memory. If, in the course of endeavoring
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 demon-
strate the existence of a hindrance not to be easily removed.