94

VII

FORGETTING OF IMPRESSIONS AND
RESOLUTIONS

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

To be sure, we are in possession of some view-
points
which we hope will receive general recognition. Thus we
assume that forgetting is a spontaneous process to which
we may ascribe a certain temporal discharge. We emphas-
ize the fact that, just as among the units of every impres-
sion or experience, in forgetting, too, a certain selection
takes place among the existing impressions. We are
acquainted with some of the conditions that underlie
the tenaciousness of memory and the awakening of that
which would otherwise remain forgotten. Nevertheless,
we can observe in innumerable cases of daily life how
unreliable and unsatisfactory our knowledge of the

95

mechanism is. Thus we may listen to two persons
exchanging reminiscences concerning the same outward
impressions, say of a journey that they have taken together
some time before. What remains most firmly in the
memory of the one is often forgotten by the other, as if it
had never occurred, even when there is not the slightest
reason to assume that this impression is of greater psychic
importance for the one than for the other. A great many
of those factors which determine the selective power of
memory are obviously still beyond our ken.
With the purpose of adding some small contribution
to the knowledge of the conditions of forgetting, I was
wont to subject to a psychologic analysis those cases in
which forgetting concerned me personally. As a rule I
took up only a certain group of those cases, namely,
those in which the forgetting astonished me, because, in
my opinion, I should have remembered the experience
in question. I wish further to remark that I am generally
not inclined to forgetfulness (of things experienced, not of
things learned), and that for a short period of my youth I
was able to perform extraordinary feats of memory. When
I was a schoolboy it was quite natural for me to be able to
repeat from memory the page of a book which I had read;
and shortly before I entered the University I could write
down practically verbatim the popular lectures on scient-
ific subjects directly after hearing them. In the tension
before the final medical examination I must have made
use of the remnant of this ability, for in certain subjects
I gave the examiners apparently automatic answers,
which proved to be exact reproductions of the text-book,
which I had skimmed through but once and then in
greatest haste.
Since those days I have steadily lost control over my

96

memory; of late, however, I became convinced that with
the aid of a certain artifice I can recall far more than I
would otherwise credit myself with remembering. For
example, when, during my office hours, a patient states
that I have seen him before and I cannot recall either the
fact or the time, then I help myself by guessing—that is,
I allow a number of years, beginning from the present
time, to come to my mind quickly. Whenever this could
be controlled by records of definite information from
the patient, it was always shown that in over ten years¹⁾
I have seldom missed it by more than six months. The
same thing happens when I meet a casual acquaintance
and, from politeness, inquire about his small child. When
he tells of its progress I try to fancy how old the child now
is. I control my estimate by the information given by
the father, and at most I make a mistake of a month, and
in older children of three months. I cannot state, however,
what basis I have for this estimate. Of late I have grown
so bold that I always offer my estimate spontaneously,
and still run no risk of grieving the father by displaying
my ignorance in regard to his offspring. Thus I extend
my conscious memory by invoking my larger unconscious
memory.

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

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

97

A. FORGETTING OF IMPRESSIONS AND
KNOWLEDGE

(a) During the summer my wife once made me very
angry, although the cause in itself was trifling. We sat
in a restaurant opposite a gentleman from Vienna whom
I knew, and who had cause to know me, and whose
acquaintance I had reasons for not wishing to renew. My
wife, who had heard nothing to the disrepute of the man
opposite her, showed by her actions that she was listening
to his conversation with his neighbours, for from time to
time she asked me questions which took up the thread of
their discussion. I became impatient and finally irritated.
A few weeks later I complained to a relative about this
behaviour on the part of my wife, but I was not able to
recall even a single word of the conversation of the gentle-
man in the case.’ As I am usually rather resentful and
cannot forget a single incident of an episode that has
annoyed me, my amnesia in this case was undoubtedly
determined by respect for my wife.

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

(b) To oblige a woman who was a stranger in Vienna
I had undertaken to procure a small iron safe for the
preservation of documents and money. When I offered
my services, the image of an establishment in the heart

98

of the city where I was sure I had seen such safes floated
before me with extraordinary visual vividness. To be
sure, I could not recall the name of the street, but I felt
certain that I would discover the store in a walk through
the city, for my memory told me that I had passed it
countless times. To my chagrin I could not find this
establishment with the safes, though I walked through the
inner part of the city in every direction. I concluded that
the only thing left to do was to search through a business
directory, and if that failed, to try to identify the establish-
ment in a second round of the city. It did not, however,
require so much effort; among the addresses in the
directory I found one which immediately presented itself
as that which had been forgotten. It was true that I had
passed the show window countless times, each time,
however, when I had gone to visit the M. family, who
have lived a great many years in this identical building.
After this intimate friendship had turned to an absolute
estrangement, I had taken care to avoid the neighbour-
hood as well as the house, though without ever thinking
of the reason for my action. In my walk through the
city searching for the safe in the show window I had
traversed every street in the neighbourhood but the
right one, and I had avoided this as if it were forbidden
ground.

The motive of displeasure which was at the bottom of
my disorientation is thus comprehensible. But the
mechanism of forgetting is no longer so simple, as in the
former example. Here my aversion naturally does not
extend to the vendor of safes, but to another person, con-
cerning whom I wish to know nothing, and later transfers
itself from the latter to this incident where it brings about
the forgetting. Similarly, in the case of Burckhard

99

mentioned above, the grudge against the one brought
about the error in writing the name of the other. The
similarity of names which here established a connection
between two essentially different streams of thought was
accomplished in the showcase window instance by the
contiguity of space and the inseparable environment.
Moreover, this latter case was more closely knit together,
for money played a great part in the causation of the
estrangement from the family living in this house.

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

I was still puzzled, however, as to the motive that
entered into play in this forgetting. I found nothing
disagreeable in my memory concerning the firm itself or
the Pension Fischer, or the patients living there. I was
also aware that it could not deal with anything very
painful, otherwise I hardly would have been successful in
tracing the thing forgotten in a roundabout way without
resorting to external aid, as happened in the preceding

100

example. Finally it occurred to me that a little before,
while starting on my way to a new patient, a gentleman
whom I had difficulty in recalling greeted me in the street.
Some months previously I had seen this man in an
apparently serious condition and had made the diagnosis
of general paresis, but later I had learned of his recovery,
consequently my judgment had been incorrect. Was it
not possible that we had in this case a remission, which
one usually finds in dementia paralytica? In that contin-
gency my diagnosis would still be justified. The influence
emanating from this ‘meeting caused me to forget the
neighbourhood of the B. and R. Company, and my
interest to discover the thing forgotten was transferred
from this case of disputed diagnosis. But the associative
connection in this loose inner relation was effected by
means of a similarity of names: the man who recovered,
contrary to expectation, was also an officer of a large
company that recommends, patients to me. And the
physician with whom I had seen the supposed paretic
bore the name of Fischer, the name of the pension in the
house which I had forgotten.

(d) Mislaying a thing really has the same significance
as forgetting where we have placed it. Like most people
delving in pamphlets and books, I am well oriented about
my desk, and can produce what I want with one lunge.
What appears to others as disorder has become for me
perfect order. Why, then, did I mislay a catalogue which
was sent to me not long ago so that it could not be found?
What is more, it had been my intention to order a book
which I found announced therein, entitled Ueber die
Sprache, because it was written by an author whose
spirited, vivacious style I like, whose insight into psycho-
logy and whose knowledge of the cultural world I have

101

learned to appreciate. I believe that was just why I
mislaid the catalogue. It was my habit to lend the books
of this author among my friends for their enlightenment,
and a few days before, on returning one, somebody had
said: “His style reminds me altogether of yours, and his
way of thinking is identical.” The speaker did not know
what he was stirring up with this remark. Years ago, when
I was younger and in greater need of forming alliances, I
was told practically the same thing by an older colleague,
to whom I had recommended the writings of a familiar
medical author. To put it in his words, “It is absolutely
your style and, manner.” I was so influenced by these
remarks that I wrote a letter to this author with the
object of bringing about a closer relation, but a rather
cool answer put me back “in my place.” Perhaps still
earlier discouraging experiences conceal themselves be-
hind this last one, for I did not find the mislaid catalogue.
Through this premonition I was actually prevented from
ordering the advertised book, although the disappearance
of the catalogue formed no real hindrance, as I remem-
bered well both the name of the book and the author.

(e) Another case of mislaying merits our interest on
account of the conditions under which the mislaid
object was rediscovered. A younger man narrates as
follows: “Several years ago there were some misunder-
standings between me and my wife. I found her too cold,
and though I fully appreciated her excellent qualities, we
lived together without evincing any tenderness for each
other. One day on her return from a walk she gave me a
book which she had bought because she thought it would
interest me. I thanked her for this mark of ‘attention,’
promised to read the book, put it away, and did not
find it again. So months passed, during which I

102

occasionally remembered the lost book, and also tried in
vain to find it.

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

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

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

He began a thorough and systematic search through
his small apartment. He became more and more excited
over it, but his search was unsuccessful. As he recognized
this “misplacement” as a symptomatic act–that is as being
intentional–he aroused his servant in order to continue
his search with the help of an “unprejudiced” person.
After another hour he gave up the search and feared that
he had lost the keys. The next morning he ordered new

103

keys from the desk factory, which were hurriedly made
for him. Two acquaintances who had been with him in a
cab even recalled hearing something fall to the ground as
he stepped out of the cab, and he was therefore convinced
that the keys had slipped from his pockets. They were
found lying between a thick book and a thin pamphlet,
the latter a work of one of my pupils, which he wished to
take along as reading matter for his vacation; and they
were so skilfully placed that no one would have supposed
that they were there. He himself was unable to replace
the keys in such a position as to render them invisible.
The unconscious skill with which an object is misplaced
on account of secret but strong motives reminds one of
“somnambulistic sureness.” The motive was naturally
ill-
humour over the interruption of the treatment and the
secret rage over the fact that he had to pay such a high
fee when he felt so ill.
(g) Brill relates:¹ “A man was urged, by his wife to
attend a social function in which he really took no interest.
Yielding to his wife’s entreaties, he began to take his
dress-
suit from the trunk when he suddenly thought of
shaving. After accomplishing this he returned to the
trunk and found it locked. Despite a long, earnest search
the key could not be found. A locksmith could not be
found on Sunday evening, so that the couple had to send
their regrets. On having the trunk opened the next
morning the lost key was found within. The husband had
absentmindedly dropped the key into the trunk and
sprung the lock. He assured me that this was wholly
unintentional and unconscious, but we know that he did
not wish to go to this social affair. The mislaying of the
key therefore lacked no motive.”

¹Brill, loc. cit., p. 197.

104

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

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

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

It is truly painful to be thus requested to renounce
one’s originality. I could neither recall such a conversa-
tion nor my friend’s revelation. One of us must be
mistaken; and according to the principle of the question
cui prodest? I must be the one. Indeed, in the course of
the following weeks everything came back to me just as
my friend had recalled it. I myself remembered that at
that time I gave the answer: “I have not yet got so far, and
I do not care to discuss it.” But since this incident I
have grown more tolerant when I miss any mention of my
name in medical literature in connection with ideas for
which I deserve credit.

It is scarcely accidental that the numerous examples of
forgetting which have been collected without any selection
should require for their solution the introduction of such
painful themes as exposing of one’s wife; a friendship that
has turned into the opposite; a mistake in medical diagnosis;

105

FORGETTING OF IMPRESSIONS AND RESOLUTIONS
enmity on account of similar pursuits, or the borrowing
of somebody’s ideas. I am rather inclined to believe
that every person who will undertake an inquiry into the
motives underlying his forgetting will be able to fill up a
similar sample card of vexatious circumstances. The
tendency to forget the disagreeable seems to me to be
quite general; the capacity for it is naturally differently
developed in different persons. Certain denials which we
encounter in medical practice can probably be ascribed
to forgetting.¹⁾ Our conception of such forgetting confines

¹⁾If we inquire of a person whether he suffered from luetic
infection ten or fifteen years ago, we are only too apt to forget
that psychically the patient has looked upon this disease in an
entirely different manner than on, let us say, an acute attack of
rheumatism. In the anamneses which parents give about their
neurotic daughters, it is hardly possible to distinguish with any
degree of certainty the portion forgotten from that hidden, for
anything that stands in the way of the girl’s future marriage is
systematically set aside by the parents, that is, it becomes
repressed. A man who had recently lost his beloved wife from
an affection of the lungs reported to me the following case of
misleading the doctor, which can only be explained by the
theory of such forgetting. “As my poor wife’s pleuritis had
not disappeared after many weeks, Dr. P. was called in consul-
tation. While taking the history he asked among others the
customary questions whether there were any cases of lung
trouble in my wife’s family. My wife denied any such cases,
and even I myself could not remember any. While Dr. P. was
taking leave the conversation accidentally turned to excursions,
and my wife said: ‘Yes, even to Landgersdorf, where my poor
brother lies buried, is a long journey.’ This brother died about
fifteen years ago, after having suffered for years from tuberculo-
sis. My wife was very fond of him, and often spoke about him.
Indeed, I recall that when her malady was diagnosed as pleurisy
she was very worried and sadly remarked: ‘My brother also died
of lung trouble.’ But the memory was so very repressed that
even after the above-cited conversation about the trip to L. she
found no occasion to correct her information concerning the
diseases in her family. I myself was struck by this forgetting at
the very moment she began to talk about Landgersdorf.” A
perfectly analogous experience is related by Ernest Jones in his
work. A physician whose wife suffered from some obscure

106

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

A mother telling me of the childhood of her nervous-
son, now in his puberty, made the statement that, like his
brothers and sisters, he was subject to bed-wetting
throughout his childhood, a symptom which certainly
has some significance in a history of a neurotic patient.
Some weeks later, while seeking information regarding,
the treatment, I had occasion to call her attention to signs
of a constitutional morbid predisposition in the young
man, and at the same time referred to the bed-wetting
recounted in the anamnesis. To my surprise she contested
this fact concerning him, denying it as well for the-other
children, and asked me how I could possibly know this.
Finally I let her know that she herself had told me a short
time before what she had thus forgotten.¹⁾

abdominal malady remarked to her: “It is comforting to think
that there has been no tuberculosis in your family.” She turned
to him very astonished and said, “Have you forgotten that my
mother died of tuberculosis, and that my sister recovered from
it only after having been given up by the doctors?”

¹⁾During the days when I was first writing these pages the
following almost incredible case of forgetting happened to
me. On the 1st of January I examined my notes so that I could
send out my bills. In the month of June I came across the name
M––l, and could not recall the person to whom it belonged.
My surprise increased when I observed from my books that I
treated the case in a sanatorium, and that for weeks I had called
on the patient daily. A patient treated under such conditions is
rarely forgotten by a physician in six months. I asked myself if
it could have been a man–a paretic–a case without interest?
Finally, the note about the fee received brought to my memory
all the knowledge which strove to elude it. M––l was a
fourteen-year-old girl, the most remarkable case of my latter

107

One also finds abundant indications which show that
even in healthy, not neurotic, persons resistanc-
ces are found against the memory of disagreeable impressions
and the idea of painful thoughts.¹⁾ But the full significance
of this fact can be estimated only when we enter into the
psychology of neurotic persons. One is forced to make
such elementa-
ry defensi-
ve striving against ideas which
can awaken painful feelings, a striving which can be
put side by side only with the flight-
reflex in painful
stimuli, as the main pillar of the mechan-
ism which carries
the hysterical symptoms. One need not offer any objection
to the objection-
to the acceptance of such defensive tendency-
tendency on the
ground that we frequent-
ly find it impossib-
le to rid
ourselves of painful memories which cling to us, or to
banish such painful emotions as remorse and reproach-
es

years, a case which taught me a lesson I am not likely ever to
forget, a case whose upshot gave me many painful hours. The
child became afflicted with an unmistak-
able hysteria, which
quickly and thorough-
ly improved under my care. After this
improvement the child was taken away from me by the parents.
She still complain-
ed of abdominal pains which had played the
part in the hysteri-
cal symptoms. Two months later she died of
sarcoma of the abdominal-
abdominal glands. The hysteria, to which she
was greatly predispos-
ed, took the tumour-
formation as a provoca-
tive agent, and I, fascinated by the tumultu-
ous but harmless
manifesta-
tions of hysteria, perhaps overlook-
ed the first sign of
the insidious and incur-
able disease.

¹⁾A. Pick (”Zur Psychologie des Verbesserens bei Geistesund
Nervenkranken,” Archiv. f. Kriminal-Anthropologie u. Kriminal-
istik, von H. Gross) has recently collected a number of authors
who realize the value of the influence of the affective factors on
memory, and who more or less clearly recognize that a defensive
striving against pain can lead to forgetting. But none of us has
been able to represent this phenomen-
on and its psycholog-
ic
determina-
tion as exhausti-
vely, and at the same time as effec-
tively, as Nietzsche in one of his aphorisms (Jenseits von Gut
und Bosen, ii., Hauptstuck 68): “I have done that,’ says my
Memory. ‘I could not have done that,’ says my Pride, and
remains inexorab-
le. Finally, my Memory yields.”

108

of conscience. No one maintains that this defensive
tendency invariably gains the upper hand, that in the
play of psychic forces it may not strike against factors
which stir up the contrary feeling for other purposes and
bring it about in spite of it.

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

The views here developed, namely, that painful
memories merge into motivated forgetting with special
ease, merits application in many spheres where as yet it
has found no, or scarcely any, recognition. Thus it seems
to me that it has not yet been strongly enough emphasized
in the estimation of testimony taken in court,¹ where the
putting of a witness under oath obviously leads us to
place too great a trust on the purifying influence of his
psychic play of forces. It is universally admitted that in
the origin of the traditions and folklore of a people care
must be taken to eliminate from memory such a motive
as would be painful to the national feeling. Perhaps on
closer investigation it may be possible to form a perfect
analogy between the manner of development of national

¹ Cf. Hans Gross, Kriminal Psychologie, 1898.

109

traditions and infantile reminiscences of the individual.
The great Darwin has formulated a “golden rule” for
the scientific worker from his insight into this pain-
motive of forgetting.¹⁾

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

While writing the latter chapters of my volume on the
interpretation of dreams, I happened to be in a summer
resort without access to libraries and reference books, so
that I was compelled to introduce into the manuscript all
kinds of references and citations from memory. These I
naturally reserved for future correction. In the chapter
on day-dreams I thought of the distinguished figure of
the poor book-keeper in Alphonse Daudet’s Nabab,

¹⁾Darwin on forgetting. In Darwin’s autobiography one
finds the following passage that does equal credit to his scientific
honesty and his psychologic acumen: “I had during many years
followed a golden rule, namely, that whenever a published fact,
a new observation or thought, came across me which was op-
posed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it with-
out fail and at once; for I had found by experience that such
facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory
than favourable ones” (quoted by Jones, loc. cit., p. 38).

110

through whom the author probably described his own
day-dreams. I imagined that I distinctly remembered
one fantasy of this man, whom I called Mr. Jocelyn,
which he hatched while walking the streets of Paris, and
I began to reproduce it from memory. This fantasy
described how Mr. Jocelyn boldly hurled himself at a
runaway horse and brought it to a standstill; how the
carriage door opened and a great personage stepped from
the coupé, pressed Mr. Jocelyn’s hand and said: “You
are my saviour–I owe my life to you! What can I do
for you?”

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

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

III

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

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

Careful inquiry of the author and comparison of all
dates showed conclusively that my patient was trying to
recall the impossible. No notice of this work had appeared
anywhere before its publication, certainly not a year and a
quarter before, it went to print. However, I neglected to
seek a solution for this false recollection until the same
man brought about an equally valuable renewal of it. He

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thought that he had recently noticed a work on “agora-
phobia” in the show window of a bookshop, and as he
was now looking for it in all available catalogues I was
able to explain to him why his effort must remain fruitless.
The work on agoraphobia existed only in his fantasy as an
unconscious resolution to write such a book himself. His
ambition to emulate that young man, and through such a
scientific work to become one of my pupils, had led him
to the first as well as to the second false recollection. He
also recalled later that the bookseller’s announcement
which had occasioned his false reminiscence dealt with a
work entitled Genesis, Das Gesetz der Zeugung (“Genesis,
The Law of Generation”). But the change in the title
as mentioned by him was really instigated by me; I
recalled that I myself have penetrated the same inaccuracy
in the repetition of the title by saying “Ansätze” in place
of “Versuch.”

B. FORGETTING OF INTENTIONS

No other group of phenomena is better qualified to
demonstrate the thesis that lack of attention does not in
itself suffice to explain faulty acts as the forgetting of
intentions. An intention is an impulse for an action which
has already found approbation, but whose execution is
postponed for a suitable occasion. Now, in the interval
thus created sufficient change may take place in the motive
to prevent the intention from coming to execution. It is
not, however, forgotten, it is simply revised and omitted.
We are naturally not in the habit of explaining the
forgetting of intentions which we daily experience in
every possible situation as being due to a recent change
in the adjustment of motives. We generally leave it
unexplained, or we seek a psychologic explanation in the

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assumption that at the time of execution the required
attention for the action, which was an indispensable
condition for the occurrence of the intention, and was
then at the disposal of the same action, no longer exists.
Observation of our normal behaviour towards intentions
urges us to reject this tentative explanation as arbitrary.

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

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

In two positions of life even the layman is cognizant
of the fact that forgetting referring to intended purposes

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

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can in no wise claim consideration as an elementary
phenomenon no further reducible, but realizes that it
ultimately depends on unadmitted motives. I refer to
affairs of love and military service. A lover who is late
at the appointed place will vainly tell his sweetheart that
unfortunately he has entirely forgotten their rendezvous.
She will not hesitate to answer him: “A year ago your
would not have forgotten. Evidently you no longer care
for me.” Even if he should grasp the above cited psychol-
ogic explanation, and should wish to excuse his forgetting
on the plea of important business, he would only elicit the
answer from the woman, who has become as keen-sighted
as the physician in the psychoanalytic treatment, “How
remarkable that such business disturbances did not occur
before!” Of course the woman does not wish to deny the
possibility of forgetting; but she believes, and not without
reason, that practically the same inference of a certain
unwillingness may be drawn from the unintentional
forgetting as from a conscious subterfuge.

Similarly, in military service no distinction is recog-
nized between an omission resulting from forgetting and
one in consequence of intentional neglect. And rightly
so. The soldier dares forget nothing that military service
demands of him. If he forgets in spite of this, even when
he is acquainted with the demands, then it is due to the
fact that the motives which urge the fulfilment of the
military exactions are opposed by contrary motives. Thus
the one year’s volunteer¹ who at inspection pleads
forgetting as an excuse for not having polished his buttons
is sure to be punished. But this punishment is small in

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

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comparison to the one he courts if he admits to his
superiors that the motive for his negligence is because
“this miserable menial service is altogether disgusting to
me.” Owing to this saying of punishment for economic
reasons, as it were, he makes use of forgetting as an
excuse, or it comes about as a compromise.

The service of women (as well as the military service of
the State) demands that nothing relating to that service
be subject to forgetting. Thus it but suggests that for
getting is permissible in unimportant matters, but in
weighty matters its occurrence is an indication that one
wishes to treat, weighty matters as unimportant: that is,
that their importance is disputed.¹⁾ The view-point of
psychic validity is in fact not to be contested here. No
person forgets to carry out actions that seem important
to himself without exposing himself to the suspicion of
being a sufferer from mental weakness. Our investigations
therefore can extend only to the forgetting of more or
less secondary intentions, for no intention do we deem
absolutely indifferent, otherwise it would certainly never
have been formed.

As in the preceding functional disturbances, I have
collected the cases of neglect through forgetting which I
have observed in myself, and endeavoured to explain
them. I have found that they could invariably be traced
to some interference of unknown and unadmitted motives
–or, as may be said, they are due to a counter-will. In a

¹⁾In Bernard Shaw’s Cæsar and Cleopatra, Cæsar’s indiffer-
ence to Cleopatra is depicted by his being vexed on leaving
Egypt at having forgotten to do something. He finally recol-
lected what he had forgotten–to take leave of Cleopatra–this,
to be sure, is in full accord with historical truth. How little
Cæsar thought of the little Egyptian princess! Cited from
Jones, loc. cit., p. 50.

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number of these cases I found myself in a position similar
to that of being in some distasteful service: I was under a
constraint to which I had not entirely resigned myself,
so that I showed my protest in the form of forgetting.
This accounts for the fact that I am particularly prone to
forget to send congratulations on such occasions as birth-
days, jubilees, wedding celebrations, and promotions to
higher rank. I continually make new resolutions, but I
am more than ever convinced that I shall not succeed. I
am now on the point of giving it up altogether, and to
admit consciously the striving motives. In a period of
transition, I told a friend who asked me to send a con-
gratulatory telegram for him, at a certain time when I was
to send one myself, that I would probably forget both. It
was not surprising that the prophecy came true. It is
undoubtedly due to painful experiences in life that I am
unable to manifest sympathy where this manifestation
must necessarily appear exaggerated, for the small
amount of my feeling does not admit the corresponding
expression. Since I have learned that I often mistook the
pretended sympathy of others for real, I am in rebellion
against the conventions of expressing sympathy, the social
expediency of which I naturally acknowledge. Condol-
ences in cases of death are excepted from this double
treatment; once I determine to send them I do not
neglect them. Where my emotional participation has
nothing more to do with social duty, its expression is
never inhibited by forgetting.
Cases in which we forget to carry out actions which we
have promised to do as a favour for others can similarly
be explained as antagonism to conventional duty and as
an unfavourable inward opinion. Here it regularly proves
correct. inasmuch as the only person appealed to believes

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in the excusing power of forgetfulness, while the one
requesting the favour has no doubt about the right
answer: he has no interest in this matter, otherwise he
would not have forgotten it.

There are some who are noted as generally forgetful,
and we excuse their lapses in the same manner as we
greet us in the street.¹⁾ Such persons forget all small
promises which they have made; they leave unexecuted all
orders which they have received; they prove themselves
unreliable in little things; and at the same time demand
that we shall not take these slight offences amiss—that is,
they do not want us to attribute these failings to personal
characteristics but to refer them to an organic peculiarity.²⁾
I am not one of these people myself, and have had no
opportunity to analyse the actions of such a person in

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

²⁾Dr. Ferenczi reports that he was a distracted person himself,
and was considered peculiar by his friends on account of the
frequency and strangeness of his failing. But the signs of this
inattention have almost all disappeared since he began to
practise psychoanalysis with patients, and was forced to turn
his attention to the analysis of his own ego. He believes that one
renounces these failings when one learns to extend by so much
one’s own responsibilities. He therefore justly maintains that
distractedness is a state which depends on unconscious com-
plexes, and is curable by psychoanalysis. One day he was
reproaching himself for having committed a technical error in
the psychoanalysis of a patient, and on this day all his former
distractions reappeared. He stumbled while walking in the
street (a representation of that faux pas in the treatment), he
forgot his pocket-book at home, he was a penny short in his car
fare, he did not properly button his clothes, etc.

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order to discover from the selection of forgetting the
motive underlying the same. I cannot forego, however,
the conjecture per analogiam, that-
here the motive is an
unusual large amount of unavowed disregard for others
which exploits the constitutional factor for its purpose.¹⁾

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

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

119

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

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

120

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

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

profit and can be only understood psychologically as the expres-
sion of a counter-will against giving out money. Brill sums it up
with epigrammatic keenness: “We are more apt to mislay
letters containing bills than cheques” (Brill, Psychoanalysis, its
Theories and Practical Application, p. 197).

121

sciously transferred to other letters and caused the inhibi
tion against letter-writing in general.”
Direct counter-will and more remote motivation are
found together in the following example of delaying: I
had written a short treatise on the dream for the series
Grenzfragen des Nerven- und Seelenlebens, in which I gave
an abstract of my book, The Interpretation of Dreams.¹⁾
Bergmann, the publisher, had sent me the proof sheets
and asked for a speedy return of the same as he wished to
issue the pamphlet before Christmas. I corrected the
sheets the same night, and placed them on my desk in
order to take them to the post office the next morning.
In the morning I forgot all about it, and only thought of
it in the afternoon at the sight of the paper cover on my
desk. In the same way I forgot the proofs that evening
and the following morning, and until the afternoon of the
second day, when I quickly took them to a letter-box,
wondering what might be the basis of this pro-
crastination. Obviously I did not want to send them
off, although I could find no explanation for such an
attitude.
After posting the letter I entered the shop of my Vienna
publisher, who put out my Interpretation of Dreams. I
left a few orders; then, as if impelled by a sudden thought,
said, “You undoubtedly know that I have written the
‘Dream’ book a second time?” “Ah!” he exclaimed,
“then I must ask you to––––” “Calm yourself,” I inter-
posed; “it is only a short treatise for the Lowenfeld-
Kurella collection.” But still he was not satisfied; he
feared that the abstract would hurt the sale of the book.
I disagreed with him, and finally asked: “If I had come to

¹⁾Translated by A. A. Brill.

122

you before, would you have objected to the publication?”
“No; under no circumstances,” he answered.

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

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

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

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

Indeed, we sometimes cannot help feeling, that no
matter what may be said about forgetting and faulty
actions, the whole subject is already known to everybody
as something self-evident. It is strange enough that it is
still necessary to push before consciousness such well-
known facts. How often I have heard people remark:

123

“Please do not ask me to do this, I shall surely forget it.”
The coming true of this prophecy later is surely nothing
mysterious in itself. He who speaks thus perceives the
inner resolution not⁹ to carry out the request, and only
hesitates to acknowledge it to himself.

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