DETERMINISM—CHANCE—AND
SUPERSTITIOUS BELIEFS

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XII

DETERMINISM—CHANCE—AND SUPER-
STITIOUS BELIEFS

POINTS OF VIEW.

As the general result of the preceding separate
discussions we must put down the following
principle: Certain inadequacies of our psychic
capacities—whose common character will soon be
more definitely determined—and certain perform-
ances which are apparently unintentional prove
to be well motivated when subjected to the
psychoanalytic investigation, and are determined
through the consciousness of unknown motives.

In order to belong to this class of phenomena
thus explained a faulty psychic action must
satisfy the following conditions:—
(a) It must not exceed a certain measure,
which is firmly established through our estima-
tion, and is designated by the expression “within
normal limits.”
(b) It must evince the character of the
momentary and temporary disturbance. The
same action must have been previously performed
more correctly or we must always rely on our-
selves.

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selves to perform it more correctly; if we are
corrected by others we must immediately recog-
nize the truth of the correction and the
incorrectness of our psychic action.

(c) If we at all perceive a faulty action, we
must not perceive in ourselves any motivation
of the same, but must attempt to explain it
through “inattention” or attribute it to an
“accident.”

Thus there remain in this group the cases of
forgetting and the errors, despite better know-
ledge, the lapses in speaking, reading, writing,
the erroneously carried-out actions, and the so-
called chance actions. The explanations of these
so definite psychic processes are connected with
a series of observations which may in part arouse
further interest.

I. By abandoning a part of our psychic
capacity as unexplainable through purposive
ideas we ignore the realms of determinism in
our mental life. Here, as in still other spheres,
determinism reaches farther than we suppose.
In the year 1900 I read an essay published in
the Zeit written by the literary historian R. M.
Meyer, in which he maintains, and illustrates
by examples, that it is impossible to compose
nonsense intentionally and arbitrarily. For some
time I have been aware that it is impossible to
think of a number, or even of a name, of one’s
own free will. If one investigates this seeming

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Determinism

voluntary formation, let us say, of a number of
many digits uttered in unrestrained mirth, it
always proves to be so strictly determined that
the determination seems impossible. I will now
briefly discuss an example of an “arbitrarily
chosen” first name, and then exhaustively analyse
an analogous example of a “thoughtlessly
uttered” number.

While preparing the history of one of my
patients for publication I considered what first
name I should give her in the article. There
seemed to be a wide choice; of course, certain
names were at once excluded by me, in the first
place the real name, then the names of members
of my family to which I would have objected,
also some female names having an especially
peculiar pronunciation. But, excluding these,
there should have been no need of being puzzled
about such a name. It would be thought, and
I myself supposed, that a whole multitude of
feminine names would be placed at my disposal.
Instead of this only one sprang up, no other
besides it; it was the name Dora.

I inquired as to its determination: “Who else
is called Dora?” I wished to reject the next
idea as incredulous; it occurred to me that the
nurse of my sister’s children was named Dora.
But I possess so much self-control, or practice
in analysis, if you like, that I held firmly to
the idea and proceeded. Then a slight incident

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

of the previous evening soon flashed through my
mind which brought the looked-
tion. On my sister’s dining-room table I noticed
a letter bearing the address, “Miss Rosa W.”
Astonished, I asked whose name this was, and
was informed that the right name of the sup-
posed Dora was really Rosa, and that on accept-
ing the position she had to lay aside her name,
because Rosa would also refer to my sister. I
said pityingly, “Poor people! They cannot even
retain their own names!” I now recall that
on hearing this I became quiet for a moment
and began to think of all sorts of serious matters
which merged into the obscure, but which I could
now easily bring into my consciousness. Thus
when I sought a name for a person who could
not retain her own name no other except “Dora”
occurred to me. The exclusiveness here is based,
moreover, on firmer internal associations, for in
the history of my patient it was a stranger in
the house, the governess, who exerted a decisive
influence on the course of the treatment.

This slight incident found its unexpected con-
tinuation many years later. While discussing
in a lecture the long-since published history of
the girl called Dora it occurred to me that one
of my two women pupils had the very name
Dora which I was obliged to utter so often in
the different associations of the case. I turned
to the young student, whom I knew personally,

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Determinism

with the apology that I had really not thought
that she bore the same name, and that I was
ready to substitute it in my lecture by another
name.

I was now confronted with the task of rapidly
choosing another name, and reflected that I must
not now choose the first name of the other woman
student, and so set a poor example to the class,
who were already quite conversant with psycho-
analysis. I was therefore well pleased when the
name “Erna” occurred to me as the substitute
for Dora, and Erna I used in the discourse.
After the lecture I asked myself whence the name
“Erna” could possibly have originated, and had
to laugh as I observed that the feared possibility
in the choice of the substitutive name had come
to pass, in part at least. The other lady’s family
name was Lucerna, of which Erna was a part.

In a letter to a friend I informed him that
I had finished reading the proof-sheets of The
Interpretation of Dreams, and that I did not
intend to make any further changes in it, “even
if it contained 2,467 mistakes.” I immediately
attempted to explain to myself the number, and
added this little analysis as a postscript to the
letter. It will be best to quote it now as I wrote
it when I caught myself in this transaction:—
“I will add hastily another contribution to
the Psychopathology of Everyday Life. You will
find in the letter the number 2,467 as a jocose

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

and arbitrary estimation of the number of errors
that may be found in the dream-book. I meant
to write: no matter how large the number might
be, and this one presented itself. But there is
nothing arbitrary or undetermined in the psychic
life. You will therefore rightly suppose that the
unconscious hastened to determine the number
which was liberated by consciousness. Just pre-
vious to this I had read in the paper that General
E. M. had been retired as Inspector-
General of
Ordnance. You must know that I am interested
in this man. While I was serving as military
medical student he, then a colonel, once came into
the hospital and said to the physician: ‘You
must make me well in eight days, as I have some
work to do for which the Emperor is waiting.’
“At that time I decided to follow this man’s
career, and just think, to-
day (1899) he is at
the end of it—Inspector-
General of Ordnance
and already retired. I wished to figure out in
what time he had covered this road, and assumed
that I had seen him in the hospital in 1882.
That would make 17 years. I related this to
my wife, and she remarked, ‘Then you, too,
should be retired.’ And I protested, ‘The
Lord forbid!’ After this conversation I seated
myself at the table to write to you. The previous
train of thought continued, and for good reason.
The figuring was incorrect; I had a definite
recollection of the circumstances in my mind.

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Determinism

I had celebrated my coming of age, my 24th
birthday, in the military prison (for being absent
without permission). Therefore I must have seen
him in 1880, which makes it 19 years ago. You
then have the number 24 in 2,467 ! Now take
the number that represents my age, 43, and add
24 years to it and you get 67 ! That is, to the
question whether I wished to retire I had
expressed the wish to work 24 years more.
Obviously I am annoyed that in the interval during
which I followed Colonel M. I have not accom-
plished much myself, and still there is a sort
of triumph in the fact that he is already finished,
while I still have all before me. Thus we may
justly say that not even the unintentionally
thrown-out number 2,467 lacks its determination
from the unconscious.”

Since this first example of the interpreta-
tion of an apparently arbitrary choice of a
number I have repeated a similar test with the
same result ; but most cases are of such intimate
content that they do not lend themselves to
report.

It is for this reason that I shall not hesitate to
add here a very interesting analysis of a “chance
number” which Dr. Alfred Adler (Vienna) re-
ceived from a “perfectly healthy” man.¹ A.

¹ Alfred Adler, “Drei Psychoanalysen von Zahlen einfallen
und obsedierenden Zahlen,” Psych. Neur. Wochenschr., No. 28,
1905.

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

wrote to me: “Last night I devoted myself to
the Psychopathology of Everyday Life, and I
would have read it all through had I not been
hindered by a remarkable coincidence. When
I read that every number that we apparently
conjure up quite arbitrarily in our consciousness
has a definite meaning, I decided to test it.
The number 1,734 occurred to my mind.
The following associations then came up :
1,734 ÷ 17 = 102 ; 102 ÷ 17 = 6. I then
separated the number into 17 and 34. I
am 34 years old. I believe that I once told
you that I consider 34 the last year of youth,
and for this reason I felt miserable on my last
birthday. The end of my 17th year was the
beginning of a very nice and interesting period
of my development. I divide my life into periods
of 17 years. What do the divisions signify?
The number 102 recalls the fact that volume
102 of the Reclam Universal Library is Kotze-
bue’s play Menschenhass und Reue (Human
Hatred and Repentance).

“My present psychic state is ‘human hatred
and repentance.’ No. 6 of the U. L. (I know
a great many numbers by heart) is Mullner’s
‘Schuld’ (Fault). I am constantly annoyed at
the thought that it is through my own fault that
I have not become what I could have been with
my abilities.

“I then asked myself, ‘What is No. 17 of

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Determinism

the U. L.?’ But I could not recall it. But
as I positively knew it before, I assumed that
I wished to forget this number. All reflection
was in vain. I wished to continue with my
reading, but I read only mechanically without
understanding a word, for I was annoyed by
the number 17. I extinguished the light and
continued my search. It finally came to me
that number 17 must be a play by Shakespeare.
But which one? I thought of Hero and Leander.
Apparently a stupid attempt of my will to dis-
tract me. I finally arose and consulted the
catalogue of the U. L. Number 17 was
Macbeth! To my surprise I had to discover
that I knew nothing of the play, despite the
fact that it did not interest me any less than
any other Shakespearean drama. I only thought
of : murder, Lady Macbeth, witches, ‘nice is
ugly,’ and that I found Schiller’s version of
Macbeth very nice. Undoubtedly I also wished
to forget the play. Then it occurred to me that
17 and 34 may be divided by 17 and result in
1 and 2. Numbers 1 and 2 of the U. L. is
Goethe’s Faust. Formerly I found much of
Faust in me.”

We must regret that the discretion of the
physician did not allow us to see the significance
of ideas. Adler remarked that the man did not
succeed in the synthesis of his analysis. His
association would hardly be worth reporting un-
til.

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

less their continuation would bring out something
that would give us the key to the understanding
of the number 1,734 and the whole series of
ideas.

To quote further: “To be sure this morning
I had an experience which speaks much for the
correctness of the Freudian conception. My
wife, whom I awakened through my getting up
at night, asked me what I wanted with the
catalogue of the U. L. I told her the story.
She found it all pettifogging but—very interest-
ing. Macbeth, which caused me so much trouble,
she simply passed over. She said that nothing
came to her mind when she thought of a number.
I answered, ‘Let us try it.’ She named the
number 117. To this I immediately replied:
‘17 refers to what I just told you; furthermore,
I told you yesterday that if a wife is in the
82nd year and the husband is in the 35th year
it must be a gross misunderstanding.’ For the
last few days I have been teasing my wife by
maintaining that she was a little old mother of
82 years. 82 + 35 = 117.”

The man who did not know how to determine
his own number at once found the solution when
his wife named a number which was apparently
arbitrarily chosen. As a matter of fact, the
woman understood very well from which complex
the number of her husband originated, and chose
her own number from the same complex, which

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Determinism

was surely common to both, as it dealt in his
case with their relative ages. Now, we find it
easy to interpret the number that occurred to
the man. As Dr. Adler indicates, it expressed
a repressed wish of the husband which, fully
developed, would read: “For a man of 34 years
as I am, only a woman of 17 would be suitable.”

Lest one should think too lightly of such
“playing,” I will add that I was recently
informed by Dr. Adler that a year after the
publication of this analysis the man was divorced
from his wife.¹

Adler gives a similar explanation for the origin
of obsessive numbers. Also the choice of so-
called “favourite numbers” is not without rela-
tion to the life of the person concerned, and
does not lack a certain psychologic interest.
A gentleman who evinced a particular partiality
for the numbers 17 and 19 could specify, after
brief reflection, that at the age of 17 he attained
the greatly longed-for academic freedom by
having been admitted to the university, that at
19 he made his first long journey, and shortly
thereafter made his first scientific discovery. But
the fixation of this preference followed later, after

¹As an explanation of Macbeth, No. 17 of the U. L., I was
informed by Dr. Adler that in his seventeenth year this man
had joined an anarchistic society whose aim was regicide.
Probably this is why he forgot the content of the play
Macbeth. The same person invented at that time a secret
code in which numbers substituted letters.

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

two questionable affairs, when the same numbers
were invested with importance in his “love-
life.”

Indeed, even those numbers which we use in
a particular connection extremely often and with
apparent arbitrariness can be traced by analysis
to an unexpected meaning. Thus, one day it
struck one of my patients that he was particularly
fond of saying, “I have already told you this from
17 to 36 times.” And he asked himself whether
there was any motive for it.

It soon occurred
to him that he was born on the 27th day of the
month, and that his younger brother was born
on the 26th day of another month, and he had
grounds for complaint that Fate had robbed him
of so many of the benefits of life only to bestow
them on his younger brother. Thus he repre-
sented this partiality of Fate by deducting 10
from the date of his birth and adding it to the
date of his brother’s birthday. I am the elder
and yet am so “cut short.”

I shall tarry a little longer at the analysis of
chance numbers, for I know of no other indi-
vidual observation which would so readily demon-
strate the existence of highly organized thinking
processes of which consciousness has no know-
ledge. Moreover, there is no better example
of analysis in which the suggestion of the
position, a frequent accusation, is so distinctly out
of consideration. I shall therefore report the
analysis of a chance number of one of my

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Determinism

patients (with his consent), to which I will only
add that he is the youngest of many children
and that he lost his beloved father in his young
years.

While in a particularly happy mood he let
the number 426,718 come to his mind, and put
to himself the question, “Well, what does it bring
to your mind?” First came a joke he had
heard: “If your catarrh of the nose is treated
by a doctor it lasts 42 days, if it is not treated it
lasts–6 weeks.” This corresponds to the first
digit of the number (42 = 6 × 7). During the
obstruction that followed this first solution I
called his attention to the fact that the number
of six digits selected by him contains all the
first numbers except 3 and 5. He at once found
the continuation of this solution :—
“We were altogether 7 children, I was the
youngest. Number 3 in the order of the children
corresponds to my sister A., and 5 to my brother
L.; both of them were my enemies. As a child
I used to pray to the Lord every night that He
should take out of my life these two tormenting
spirits. It seems to me that I have fulfilled
for myself this wish: ‘3’ and ‘5,’ the evil
brother and the hated sister, are omitted.”
“If the number stands for your sisters and
brothers, what significance is there to 18 at the
end? You were altogether only 7.”
“I often thought if my father had lived longer

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

I should not have been the youngest child. If
one more would have come, we should have been
8, and there would have been a younger child,
toward whom I could have played the rôle of
the older one.”

With this the number was explained, but we
still wished to find the connection between the
first part of the interpretation and the part follow-
ing it. This came very readily from the con-
dition required for the last digits—if the father
had lived longer. 42 = 6 × 7 signifies the
ridicule directed against the doctors who could
not help the father, and in this way expresses
the wish for the continued existence of the father.
The whole number really corresponds to the ful-
filment of his two wishes in reference to his
family circle—namely, that both the evil brother
and sister should die and that another little child
should follow him. Or, briefly expressed: If
only these two had died in place of my father!¹
Another analysis of numbers I take from
Jones.² A gentleman of his acquaintance let
the number 986 come to his mind, and defied
him to connect it to anything of special interest
in his mind. “Six years ago, on the hottest
day he could remember, he had seen a joke in
an evening newspaper, which stated that the

¹For the sake of simplicity I have omitted some of the
not less suitable thoughts of the patients.

²Loc. cit., p. 36.

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Determinism

thermometer had stood at 98·6° F., evidently an
exaggeration of 98·6° F. We were at the time
seated in front of a very hot fire, from which he
had just drawn back, and he remarked, probably
quite correctly, that the heat had aroused his
dormant memory. However, I was curious to
know why this memory had persisted with such
vividness as to be so readily brought out, for with
most people it surely would have been forgotten
beyond recall, unless it had become associated
with some other mental experience of more
significance.

“He told me that on reading the joke he had
laughed uproariously, and that on many subse
quent occasions he had recalled it with great
relish. As the joke was obviously of an exceed
ingly tenuous nature, this strengthened my expec
tation that more lay behind. His next thought
was the general reflection that the conception
of heat had always greatly impressed him, that
heat was the most important thing in the universe,
the source of all life, and so on. This remark
able attitude of a quite prosaic young man
certainly needed some explanation, so I asked
him to continue his free associations. The next
thought was of a factory stack which he could
see from his bedroom window. He often stood
of an evening watching the flame and smoke
issuing out of it, and reflecting on this deplorable
waste of energy. Heat, flame, the source of

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

life, the waste of vital energy issuing from an
upright, hollow tube—it was not hard to divine
from such associations that the ideas of heat
and fire were unconsciously linked in his mind
with the idea of love, as is so frequent in symbolic
thinking, and that there was a strong masturba-
tion complex present, a conclusion that he
presently confirmed.”

Those who wish to get a good impression of
the way the material of numbers becomes elabo-
rated in the unconscious thinking, I refer to two
papers by Jung ¹⁾ and Jones.²⁾

In personal analysis of this kind two things
were especially striking. First, the absolute som-
nambulistic certainty with which I attacked the
unknown objective point, merging into a mathe-
matical train of thought, which later suddenly
extended to the looked-for number, and the
rapidity with which the entire subsequent work
was performed. Secondly, the fact that the
numbers were always at the disposal of my un-
conscious mind, when as a matter of fact I am
a poor mathematician and find it very difficult to
consciously recall years, house numbers, and the
like. Moreover, in these unconscious mental
operations with figures I found a tendency to

¹⁾ “Ein Beitrag zur Kenntnis des Zahlentraumes,” Zentralb.
f. Psychoanalyse, i. 12.

²⁾ “Unconscious Manipulation of Numbers” (ibid., ii. 5,
1912).

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Determinism

superstition, the origin of which had long
remained unknown to me.

It will not surprise us to find that not only
numbers but also mental occurrences of different
kinds of words regularly prove on analytic
investigation to be well determined.

Brill relates: “While working on the English
edition of this book I was obsessed one morning
with the strange word ‘Cardillac.’ Busily intent
on my work, I refused at first to pay attention
to it, but, as is usually the case, I simply could
not do anything else. ‘Cardillac’ was constantly
in my mind. Realizing that my refusal to recog-
nize it was only a resistance, I decided to analyse
it. The following associations occurred to me:
Cardillac, cardiac, carrefour, Cadillac.

“Cardiac recalled cardalgia–heartache–
a medical friend who had recently told me
confidentially that he feared that he had some
cardiac affection because he had suffered some
attacks of pain in the region of his heart. Know-
ing him so well, I at once rejected his theory,
and told him that his attacks were of a neurotic
character, and that his other apparent physical
ailments were also only the expression of his
neurosis.

“I might add that just before telling me of
his heart trouble he spoke of a business matter
of vital interest to him which had suddenly come
to naught. Being a man of unbounded ambitions,

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

he was very depressed because of late he had
suffered many similar reverses. His neurotic
conflicts, however, had become manifest a few
months before this misfortune. Soon after his
father’s death had left a big business on his
hands. As the business could be continued only
under my friend’s management, he was unable
to decide whether to enter into commercial life
or continue his chosen career. His great
ambition was to become a successful medical
practitioner, and although he had practised
medicine successfully for many years, he was
not altogether satisfied with the financial fluctua-
tions of his professional income. On the other
hand, his father’s business promised him an
assured, though limited, return. In brief, he
was ‘at a crossing and did not know which way
to turn.’

“ ‘I then recalled the word carrefour, which is
the French for ‘crossing,’ and it occurred to me
that while working in a hospital in Paris I lived
near the ‘Carrefour St. Lazarre.’ And now I
could understand what relation all these associa-
tions had for me.

“ ‘When I resolved to leave the State Hospital
I made the decision, first, because I desired to
get married, and, secondly, because I wished
to enter private practice. This brought up a
new problem. Although my State hospital ser-
vice was an absolute success, judging by promo-

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Determinism

tions and so on, I felt like a great many others
in the same situation, namely, that my training
was ill suited for private practice. To specialize
in mental work was a daring undertaking for one
without money and social connections. I also
felt that the best I could do for patients should
they ever come my way would be to commit them
to one of the hospitals, as I had little confidence
in the home treatment in vogue. In spite of
the enormous advances made in recent years in
mental work, the specialist is almost helpless
when he is confronted with the average case of
insanity. This may be partially attributed to
the fact that such cases are brought to him after
they have fully developed the psychosis when
hospital treatment is imperative. Of the great
army of milder mental disturbances, the so-called
border-line cases, which make up the bulk of
clinic and private work and which rightfully
belong to the mental specialist, I knew very
little, as those patients rarely, or never, came to
the State hospital, and what I did know con
cerning the treatment of neurasthenia and
psychasthenia was not conducive to make me
more hopeful of success in private practice.

“It was in this state of mind that I came to
Paris, where I hoped to learn enough about the
psychoneuroses to enable me to continue my
specialty in private practice, and yet feel that I
could do something for my patients. What I

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

saw in Paris did not, however, help to change
my state of mind. There, too, most of the work
was directed to dead tissues. The mental aspects,
as such, received but scant attention. I was,
therefore, seriously thinking of giving up my
mental work for some other specialty. As can
be seen, I was confronted with a situation similar
to the one of my medical friend. I, too, was
at a crossing and did not know which way to turn.
My suspense was soon ended. One day I re-
ceived a letter from my friend Professor Peter-
son, who, by the way, was responsible for my
entering the State hospital service. In this letter
he advised me not to give up my work, and
suggested the psychiatric clinic of Zurich, where
he thought I could find what I desired.

“ But what does Cadillac mean? Cadillac is
the name of a hotel and of an automobile. A
few days before in a country place my medical
friend and I had been trying to hire an auto-
mobile, but there was none to be had. We both
expressed the wish to own an automobile—again
an unrealized ambition. I also recalled that the
‘ Carrefour St. Lazarre ’ always impressed me
as being one of the busiest thoroughfares in
Paris. It was always congested with auto-
mobiles. Cadillac also recalled that only a few
days ago on the way to my clinic I noticed a
large sign over a building which announced that
on a certain day ‘ this building was to be occupied

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Determinism

by the Cadillac,’ etc. This at first made me
think of the Cadillac Hotel, but on second sight
I noticed that it referred to the Cadillac motor-
car. There was a sudden obstruction here for
a few moments. The word Cadillac reappeared
and by sound association the word catalogue
occurred to me. This word brought back a very
mortifying occurrence of recent origin, the motive
of which is again blighted ambition.

“When one wishes to report any auto-
analysis he must be prepared to lay bare many intimate
affairs of his own life. Any one reading carefully
Professor Freud’s works cannot fail to become
intimately acquainted with him and his family.
I have often been asked by persons who claim
to have read and studied Freud’s works such
questions as: ‘How old is Freud?’ ‘Is Freud
married?’ ‘How many children has he?’ etc.
Whenever I hear these or similar questions I
know that the questioner has either lied when
he made these assertions, or, to be more charit-
able, that he is a very careless and superficial
reader. All these questions and many more are
answered in Freud’s works. Auto-analyses are
autobiographies par excellence; but whereas the
autobiographer may for definite reasons con-
sciously and unconsciously hide many facts of
his life, the auto-analyst not only tells the truth
consciously, but perforce brings to light his whole
intimate personality. It is for these reasons that

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

one finds it very unpleasant to report his own
auto-analyses. However, as we often report our
patients’ unconscious productions, it is but fair
that we should sacrifice ourselves on the altar
of publicity when occasion demands. This is
my apology for having thrust some of my per-
sonal affairs on the reader, and for being
obliged to continue a little longer in the same
strain.

“ Before digressing with the last remarks I
mentioned that the word Cadillac brought the
sound association catalogue. This association
brought back another important epoch in my
life with which Professor Peterson is connected.
Last May I was informed by the secretary of
the faculty that I was appointed chief of clinic
of the department of psychiatry. I need hardly
say that I was exceedingly pleased to be so
honoured–in the first place because it was the
realization of an ambition which I dared enter-
tain only under special euphoric states; and,
secondly, it was a compensation for the many
unmerited criticisms from those who are blindly
and unreasonably opposing some of my work.
Soon thereafter I called on the stenographer of
the faculty and spoke to her about a correction
to be made in my name as it was printed in the
catalogue. For some unknown reason (perhaps
racial prejudice) this stenographer, a maiden
lady, must have taken a dislike to me. For

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Determinism

about three years I repeatedly requested her
to have this correction made, but she had paid
no attention to me. To be sure she always
promised to attend to it, but the mistake remained
uncorrected.

“When I saw her last May I again reminded
her of this correction, and also called her atten-
tion to the fact that as I had been appointed chief
of clinic I was especially anxious to have my
name correctly printed in the catalogue. She
apologized for her remissness and assured me
that everything should be as I requested.
Imagine my surprise and chagrin when on
receiving the new catalogue I found that while
the correction had been made in my name I
was not listed as chief of clinic. When I asked
her about this she was quite puzzled; she said
she had no idea that I had been appointed
chief of clinic. She had to consult the minutes
of the faculty, written by herself, before she was
convinced of it. It should be noted that as
recorder to the faculty it was her duty to know
all these things as soon as they transpired.¹⁾
When she finally ascertained that I was right
she was very apologetic and informed me that
she would at once write to the superintendent of
the clinic to inform him of my appointment,

¹⁾This is another excellent example showing how a
conscious intention was powerless to counteract an uncon-
scious resistance.

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

something which she should have done months
before. Of course I gained nothing by her
regrets and apologies. The catalogue was pub-
lished and those who read it did not find my
name in the desired place. I am chief of clinic
in fact but not in name. Moreover, as the
appointments are made only for one year, it
is quite likely that my great ambition will never
be actually realized.

“Thus the obsessive neologism cardillac, which
is a condensation of cardiac, Cadillac, and cata-
logue, contains some of the most important efforts
of my medical experience. When I was almost
at the end of this analysis I suddenly recalled
a dream containing this neologism cardillac in
which my wish was realized. My name ap-
peared in its rightful place in the catalogue. The
person who showed it to me in the dream was
Professor Peterson. It was when I was at the
first ‘crossing’ after I had graduated from the
medical college that Professor Peterson urged
me to enter the hospital service. About five
years later while I was in the state of indecision
which I have described, it was Professor Peter-
son who advised me to go to the clinic of
psychiatry at Zurich where through Bleuler and
Jung I first became acquainted with Professor
Freud and his works, and it was also through
the kind recommendation of Dr. Peterson that
I was elevated to my present position.”

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Determinism

I am indebted to Dr. Hitschman for the
solution of another case in which a line of
poetry repeatedly obtruded itself on the mind
in a certain place without showing any trace
of its origin and relation.

Related by Dr. E.: “Six years ago I travelled
from Biarritz to San Sebastian. The railroad
crosses over the Bidassao—a river which here
forms the boundary between France and Spain.
On the bridge one has a splendid view, on the
one side of the broad valley and the Pyrenees
and on the other of the sea. It was a beautiful,
bright summer day; everything was filled with
sun and light. I was on a vacation and pleased
with my trip to Spain. Suddenly the following
words came to me: ‘But the soul is already
free, floating on a sea of light.’

“At that time I was trying to remember where
these lines came from, but I could not remember;
judging by the rhythm, the words must be a part
of some poem, which, however, entirely escaped
my memory. Later when the verse repeatedly
came to my mind, I asked many people about
it without receiving any information.

“Last year I crossed the same bridge on my
return journey from Spain. It was a very dark
night and it rained. I looked through the win-
dow to ascertain whether we had already reached
the frontier station and noticed that we were on
the Bidassao bridge. Immediately the above-
 

Psychopathology of Everyday Life

cited verse returned to my memory and again
I could not recall its origin.

“ At home many months later I found Uhland’s
poems. I opened the volume and my glance
fell upon the verse : ‘ But the soul is already
free, floating on a sea of light,’ which were the
concluding lines of the poem entitled ‘ The
Pilgrim.’ I read the poem and dimly recalled
that I had known it many years ago. The scene
of action is in Spain, and this seemed to me to
be the only relation between the quoted verse
and the place on the railroad journey described
by me. I was only half satisfied with my dis-
covery and mechanically continued to turn the
pages of the book. On turning the next page
I found a poem the title of which was ‘ Bidassao
Bridge.’

“ I may add that the contents of this poem
seemed even stranger to me than that of the
first, and that its first verse read:
“ ‘ On the Bidassao bridge stands a saint grey
with age, he blesses to the right the Spanish
mountain, to the left he blesses the French
land.’ ”

II. This understanding of the determination of
apparently arbitrarily selected names, numbers,
and words may perhaps contribute to the solution
of another problem. As is known, many persons
argue against the assumption of an absolute
psychic determinism by referring to an intense

302

303

Determinism

feeling of conviction that there is a free will.
This feeling of conviction exists, but is not in-
compatible with the belief in determinism. Like
all normal feelings, it must be justified by some-
thing. But, so far as I can observe, it does
not manifest itself in weighty and important
decisions; on these occasions one has much
more the feeling of a psychic compulsion and
gladly falls back upon it. (Compare Luther’s
“Here I stand, I cannot do anything else.”)

On the other hand, it is in trivial and in-
different decisions that one feels sure that he
could just as easily have acted differently, that
he acted of his own free will, and without any
motives. From our analyses we therefore need
not contest the right of the feeling of conviction
that there is a free will. If we distinguish con-
scious from unconscious motivation, we are then
informed by the feeling of conviction that the
conscious motivation does not extend over all our
motor resolutions. Minima non curat prætor.
What is thus left free from the one side receives
its motive from the other side, from the uncon-
scious, and the determinism in the psychic realm
is thus carried out uninterruptedly.¹

¹These conceptions of strict determinism in seemingly
arbitrary actions have already borne rich fruit for psychology
—perhaps also for the administration of justice. Bleuler and
Jung have in this way made intelligible the reaction in the
so-
called association experiments, wherein the test person

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

III.

Although conscious thought must be
altogether ignorant of the motivation of the
faulty actions described above, yet it would be
desirable to discover a psycholo-
logic proof of
its existence; indeed, reasons obtained through
a deeper knowledge of the unconscious make it
probable that such proofs are to be discovered
somewhere. As a matter of fact phenomena can
be demonstrated in two spheres which seem to
correspond to an unconscious and hence to a
displaced knowledge of these motives.

(a) It is a striking and generally to be recog-
nized feature in the behaviour of paranoiacs, that
they attach the greatest significance to the trivial
details in the behaviour of others. Details
which are usually overlooked by others they
interpret and utilize as the basis of far-reaching
conclusions. For example, the last paranoiac
seen by me concluded that there was a general
understanding among people of his environment,
because at his departure from the railway-
station

answers to a given word with one occurring to him (stimulus-
word reaction), while the time elapsing between the stimulus
word and answer is measured (reaction-time). Jung has
shown in his Diagnostische Asso-
ziationsstudien, 1906, what fine
reagents for psychic occurrences we possess in this asso-
ciation-experiment. Three students of criminolo-
gy, H. Gross,
of Prague, and Wertheimer and Klein, have developed from
these experiments a technique for the diagnosis of facts
(Tatbestands-Dia-
gnostik) in criminal cases, the examination
of which is now tested by psychologists and jurists.

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Determinism

they made a certain motion with one hand.
Another noticed how people walked on the street,
how they brandished their walking-
sticks, and
the like.¹

The category of the accidental, requiring no
motivation, which the normal person lets pass
as a part of his own psychic activities and faulty
actions, is thus rejected by the paranoiac in the
application to the psychic manifestations to
others. All that he observes in others is full of
meaning, all is explainable. But how does he
come to look at it in this manner? Probably
here as in so many other cases, he projects into
the mental life of others what exists in his own
unconscious activity. Many things obtrude
themselves on consciousness in paranoia which
in normal and neurotic persons can only be
demonstrated through psychoanalysis as exist-
ing in their unconscious.² In a certain sense
the paranoiac is here justified, he perceives some-
thing that escapes the normal person, he sees
clearer than one of normal intellectual capacity,

¹Proceeding from other points of view, this interpretation
of the trivial and accidental by the patient has been desig-
nated as “delusions of reference.”

²For example, the fantasies of the hysterical regarding
sexual and cruel abuse which are made conscious by analysis
often correspond in every detail with the complaints of
persecuted paranoiacs. It is remarkable but not altogether
unexpected that we also meet the identical content as reality
in the contrivances of perverts for the gratification of their
desires.

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

but his knowledge becomes worthless when he
imputes to others the state of affairs he thus
recognizes. I hope that I shall not be expected
to justify every paranoic interpretation. But the
point which we grant to paranoia in this con-
ception of chance actions will facilitate for us
the psychologic understanding of the conviction
which the paranoiac attaches to all these inter-
pretations. There is certainly some truth to it;
even our errors of judgment, which are not
designated as morbid, acquire their feeling of
conviction in the same way. This feeling is
justified for a certain part of the erroneous train
of thought or for the source of its origin, and
we shall later extend to it the remaining relation-
ships.

(b) The phenomena of superstition furnish
another indication of the unconscious motivation
in chance and faulty actions. I will make myself
clear through the discussion of a simple experi-
ence which gave me the starting-point to these
reflections.

Having returned from vacation, my thoughts
immediately turned to the patients with whom I
was to occupy myself in the beginning of my
year’s work. My first visit was to a very old
woman (see above) for whom I had twice daily
performed the same professional services for
many years. Owing to this monotony uncon-
scious thoughts have often found expression on

307

Determinism

the way to the patient and during my occupa-
tion with her. She was over ninety years old;
it was therefore pertinent to ask oneself at the
beginning of each year how much longer she
was likely to live.

On the day of which I speak I was in a
hurry and took a carriage to her house. Every
coachman at the cabstand near my house knew
the old woman’s address, as each of them had
often driven me there. This day it happened
that the driver did not stop in front of her
house, but before one of the same number in a
near-by and really similar-looking parallel street.
I noticed the mistake and reproached the coach-
man, who apologized for it.

Is it of any significance when I am taken
to a house where the old woman is not to be
found? Certainly not to me; but were I super-
stitious, I should see an omen in this incident,
a hint of fate that this would be the last year for
the old woman. A great many omens which have
been preserved by history have been founded on
no better symbolism. Of course, I explain the
incident as an accident without further meaning.

The case would have been entirely different
had I come on foot and, “absorbed in thought ”
or “ through distraction,” I had gone to the house
in the parallel street instead of the correct one.
I would not explain that as an accident, but as
an action with unconscious intent requiring inter-
pretation.

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

pretation. My explanation of this “lapse in
walking” would probably be that I expected
that the time would soon come when I should
not meet the old woman any longer.

I therefore differ from a superstitious person
in the following manner :–

I do not believe that an occurrence in which
my mental life takes no part can teach me any-
thing hidden concerning the future shaping of
reality ; but I do believe that an unintentional
manifestation of my own mental activity surely
contains something concealed which belongs only
to my mental life–that is, I believe in outer
(real) chance, but not in inner (psychic)
accidents. With the superstitious person the case
is reversed : he knows nothing of the motive
of his chance and faulty actions, he believes in
the existence of psychic contingencies ; he is
therefore inclined to attribute meaning to ex-
ternal chance, which manifests itself in actual
occurrence, and to see in the accident a means
of expression for something hidden outside of
him. There are two differences between me
and the superstitious person : first, he projects
the motive to the outside, while I look for it in
myself ; second, he explains the accident by an
event which I trace to a thought. What he con-
siders hidden corresponds to the unconscious with
me, and the compulsion not to let chance pass as
chance, but to explain it as common to both of us.

309

Determinism

Thus I admit that this conscious ignorance
and unconscious knowledge of the motivation of
psychic accidentalness is one of the psychic roots
of superstition. Because the superstitious person
knows nothing of the motivation of his own
accidental actions, and because the fact of this
motivation strives for a place in his recognition,
he is compelled to dispose of them by displacing
them into the outer world. If such a connection
exists it can hardly be limited to this single
case. As a matter of fact, I believe that a
large portion of the mythological conception of
the world which reaches far into the most modern
religions is nothing but psychology projected
into the outer world. The dim perception (the
endo-psychic perception, as it were) of psychic
factors and relations¹⁾ of the unconscious was
taken as a model in the construction of a trans-
cendental reality, which is destined to be
changed again by science into psychology of
the unconscious.

It is difficult to express it in other terms; the
analogy to paranoia must here come to our aid.
We venture to explain in this way the myths
of paradise and the fall of man, of God, of good
and evil, of immortality, and the like—that is, to
transform metaphysics into meta-psychology.
The gap between the paranoiac’s displacement

¹⁾Which naturally has nothing of the character of per-
ception.

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

and that of superstition is narrower than appears
at first sight. When human beings began to
think, they were obviously compelled to explain
the outer world in an anthropomorphic sense
by a multitude of personalities in their own
image; the accidents which they explained super-
stitiously were thus actions and expressions
of persons. In that regard they behaved just
like paranoiacs, who draw conclusions from in-
significant signs which others give them, and
like all normal persons who justly take the un-
intentional actions of their fellow-beings as a
basis for the estimation of their characters. Only
in our modern philosophical, but by no means
finished, views of life does superstition seem so
much out of place: in the view of life of pre-
scientific times and nations it was justified and
consistent.

The Roman who gave up an important under-
taking because he sighted an ill-omened flock
of birds was relatively right; his action was
consistent with his principles. But if he with-
drew from an undertaking because he had
stumbled on his threshold (un Romain retour-
nerait), he was absolutely superior even to
us unbelievers. He was a better psychologist
than we are striving to become. For his
stumbling could demonstrate to him the exist-
ence of a doubt, an internal counter-current the
force of which could weaken the power of his

311

Determinism

intention at the moment of its execution. For
only by concentrating all psychic forces on the
desired aim can one be assured of perfect
success. How does Schiller’s Tell, who
hesitated so long to shoot the apple from his
son’s head, answer the bailiff’s question why he
had provided himself with a second arrow?

“With the second arrow I would have pierced
you had I struck my dear child—and truly, I
should not have failed to reach you.”

IV. Whoever has had the opportunity of study-
ing the concealed psychic feelings of persons by
means of psychoanalysis can also tell something
new concerning the quality of unconscious
motives, which express themselves in superstition.
Nervous persons afflicted with compulsive think-
ing and compulsive states, who are often very
intelligent, show very plainly that superstition
originates from repressed hostile and cruel
impulses. The greater part of superstition
signifies fear of impending evil, and he who
has frequently wished evil to others, but because
of a good bringing-up has repressed the same
into the unconscious, will be particularly apt to
expect punishment for such unconscious evil in
the form of a misfortune threatening him from
without.

If we concede that we have by no means
exhausted the psychology of superstition in these
remarks, we must, on the other hand, at least

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

touch upon the question whether real roots of
superstition should be altogether denied, whether
there are really no omens, prophetic dreams,
telepathic experiences, manifestations of super-
natural forces, and the like. I am now far from
willing to repudiate without anything further all
these phenomena, concerning which we possess
so many minute observations even from men
of intellectual prominence, and which should cer-
tainly form a basis for further investigation. We
may even hope that some of these observations
will be explained by our present knowledge of
the unconscious psychic processes without neces-
sitating radical changes in our present aspect.
If still other phenomena, as, for example, those
maintained by the spiritualists, should be proven,
we should then consider the modification of our
“laws” as demanded by the new experience,
without becoming confused in regard to the
relation of things of this world.

In the sphere of these analyses I can only
answer the questions here proposed subjectively
—that is, in accordance with my personal ex-
perience. I am sorry to confess that I belong
to that class of unworthy individuals before whom
the spirits cease their activities and the super-
natural disappears, so that I have never been
in position to experience anything personally that
would stimulate belief in the miraculous. Like
everybody else, I have had forebodings and ex-
 

313

Determinism

perienced misfortunes; but the two evaded each
other, so that nothing followed the foreboding,
and the misfortune struck me unannounced.
When as a young man I lived alone in a strange
city I frequently heard my name suddenly pro-
nounced by an unmistakable, dear voice, and
I then made a note of the exact moment of
the hallucination in order to inquire carefully
of those at home what had occurred at that time.
There was nothing to it. On the other hand,
I later worked among my patients calmly and
without foreboding while my child almost bled
to death. Nor have I ever been able to recognize
as unreal phenomena any of the forebodings
reported to me by my patients.

The belief in prophetic dreams numbers many
adherents, because it can be supported by the
fact that some things really so happen in
the future as they were previously foretold by the
wish of the dream. But in this there is little
to be wondered at, as many far-reaching devia-
tions may be regularly demonstrated between
a dream and the fulfilment which the credulity
of the dreamer prefers to neglect.

A nice example, one which may be justly
called prophetic, was once brought to me for
exhaustive analysis by an intelligent and truth-
loving patient. She related that she once
dreamed that she had met a former friend and
family physician in front of a certain store in

314

Psychopathology of Everyday Life

a certain street, and next morning when she
went down town she actually met him at the place
named in the dream. I may observe that the
significance of this wonderful coincidence was
not proven to be due to any subsequent event—
that is, it could not be justified through future
occurrences.

Careful examination definitely established the
fact that there was no proof that the woman
recalled the dream in the morning following the
night of the dream—that is, before the walk and
before the meeting. She could offer no objec-
tion when this state of affairs was presented in
a manner that robbed this episode of everything
miraculous, leaving only an interesting psycho-
logic problem. One morning she had walked
through this very street, had met her old family
physician before that certain store, and on seeing
him received the conviction that during the
preceding night she had dreamed of this meeting
at this place.

The analysis then showed with great prob-
ability how she came to this conviction, to which,
in accordance with the general rule, we cannot
deny a certain right to credence. A meeting
at a definite place following a previous expec-
tation really describes the fact of a rendezvous.
The old family physician awakened her memory
of old times, when meetings with a third person,
also a friend of the physician, were of marked

315

Determinism

significance to her. Since that time she had
continued her relations with this gentleman, and
the day before the mentioned dream she had
waited for him in vain. If I could report in
greater detail the circumstances here before us,
I could easily show that the illusion of the pro-
phetic dream at the sight of the friend of former
times is perchance equivalent to the following
speech: “Ah, doctor, you now remind me of
bygone times, when I never had to wait in vain
for N. when we had arranged a meeting.”

I have observed in myself a simple and easily
explained example, which is probably a good
model for similar occurrences of those familiar
“remarkable coincidences” wherein we meet a
person of whom we were just thinking. During
a walk through the inner city a few days after
the title of “Professor” was bestowed on me,
which carries with it a great deal of prestige even
in monarchical cities, my thoughts suddenly
merged into a childish revenge-fantasy against
a certain married couple. Some months previous
they had called me to see their little daughter
who suffered from an interesting compulsive
mani-
festation following the appearance of a
dream. I took a great interest in the case, the
genesis of which I believed I could surmise, but
the parents were unfavourable to my treat-
ment,
and gave me to understand that they thought of
applying to a foreign authority who cured by

316

Psychopathology of Everyday Life

means of hypnotism. I now fancied that after
the failure of this attempt, the parents begged
me to resume my treatment, that they now had
full confidence in me, etc. But I answered:
“Now that I have become a professor, you have
confidence in me. The title has made no change
in my ability; if you could not use me when I
was instructor you can get along without me
now that I am a professor.” At this point my
fantasy was interrupted by a loud “Good
evening, Professor !”” and as I looked up there
passed me the same couple on whom I had just
taken this imaginary vengeance.

The next reflection destroyed the semblance
of the miraculous. I was walking towards this
couple on a straight, almost deserted street;
glancing up hastily at a distance of perhaps
twenty steps from me, I had spied and realized
their stately personalities; but this perception,
following the model of a negative hallucination,
was set aside by certain emotionally accentuated
motives and then asserted itself in the apparently
spontaneous emerging fantasy.

A similar experience is related by Brill,
which also throws some light on the nature
of telepathy.

“While engrossed in conversation during our
customary Sunday evening dinner at one of the
large New York restaurants, I suddenly stopped
and irrelevantly remarked to my wife, ‘I wonder

317

Determinism

how Dr. R. is doing in Pittsburg.’ She looked
at me much astonished and said : ‘ Why, that is
exactly what I have been thinking for the last
few seconds ! Either you have transferred this
thought to me or I have transferred it to you.
How can you otherwise explain this strange
phenomenon?’ I had to admit that I could offer
no solution. Our conversation throughout the
dinner showed not the remotest association to
Dr. R., nor, so far as our memories went, had
we heard or spoken of him for some time. Being
a sceptic, I refused to admit that there was
anything mysterious about it, although inwardly
I felt quite uncertain. To be frank, I was
somewhat mystified.

“ But we did not remain very long in this state
of mind, for on looking toward the cloak-
room we were surprised to see Dr. R. Though closer in-
spection showed our mistake, we were both struck
by the remarkable resemblance of this stranger
to Dr. R. From the position of the cloak-
room we were forced to conclude that this stranger
had passed our table. Absorbed in our con-
versation, we had not noticed him consciously,
but the visual image had stirred up the associa-
tion of his double, Dr. R. That we should both
have experienced the same thought is also quite
natural. The last word from our friend was to
the effect that he had taken up private practice
in Pittsburg, and, being aware of the vicissi-

318

Psychopathology of Everyday Life

tudes that beset the beginner, it was quite natural
to wonder how fortune smiled upon him.

“ What promised to be a supernatural mani-
festation was thus easily explained on a normal
basis ; but had we not noticed the stranger before
he left the restaurant, it would have been im-
possible to exclude the mysterious. I venture
to say that such simple mechanisms are at the
bottom of the most complicated telepathic mani-
festations ; at least, such has been my experience
in all cases accessible to investigation.”

Another “ solution of an apparent foreboding ”
was reported by Otto Rank ¹⁾:—

“ Some time ago I had experienced a remark-
able variation of that ‘ peculiar coincidence ’
wherein one meets a person who has just been
occupying one’s thoughts. Shortly before Christ-
mas I went to the Austro-Hungarian Bank in
order to obtain ten new silver crown-
pieces destined for Christmas gifts. Absorbed in
ambitious fantasies which dealt with the con-
trast of my meagre means to the enormous sums
in the banking-house, I turned into the narrow
street to the bank. In front of the door I saw
an automobile and many people going in and
out. I thought to myself : ‘ The officials will
have plenty of time for my new crowns ; naturally
I shall be quick about it ; I shall put down the
paper notes to be exchanged, and say, “ Please

¹⁾ Zentralb. f. Psychoanalyse, ii. 5.

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Determinism

give me gold.”
–I was to have asked for silver–and awoke from
my fantasies.

“I was now only a few steps from the
entrance, and noticed a young man coming
toward me who looked familiar, but whom I
could not definitely identify on account of my
short-sightedness. As he came nearer I recog-
nized him as a classmate of my brother whose
name was Gold and from whose brother, a well-
known journalist, I had great expectations in
the beginning of my literary career. But these
expectations had not materialized, and with them
had vanished the hoped-for material success with
which my fantasies were occupying themselves
on my way to the bank. Thus engrossed I
must have unconsciously perceived the approach
of Mr. Gold, who impressed himself on my con-
science while I was dreaming of material success,
and thereby caused me to ask the cashier for
gold instead of the inferior silver. But, on the
other hand, the paradoxical fact that my uncon-
scious was able to perceive an object long
before it was recognized by the eye might in
part be explained by the complex readiness
(Komplexbereitschaft) of Bleuler. For my mind
was attuned to the material, and, contrary to
my better knowledge, it guided my steps from
the very beginning to buildings where gold and
paper money were exchanged.”

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

To the category of the wonderful and uncanny
we may also add that strange feeling we perceive
in certain moments and situations when it seems
as if we had already had exactly the same experi-
ence, or had previously found ourselves in the
same situation. Yet we are never successful in
our efforts to recall clearly those former experi
ences and situations. I know that I follow only
the loose colloquial expression when I designate
that which stimulates us in such moments as a
“feeling.” We undoubtedly deal with a judg-
ment, and, indeed, with a judgment of cognition;
but these cases, nevertheless, have a character
peculiar to themselves, and besides, we must not
ignore the fact that we never recall what we are
seeking.

I do not know whether this phenomenon of
Déjà vu was ever seriously offered as a proof
of a former psychic existence of the individual;
but it is certain that psychologists have taken
an interest in it, and have attempted to solve the
riddle in a multitude of speculative ways. None
of the proposed tentative explanations seems right
to me, because none takes account of anything
but the accompanying manifestations and the
favouring conditions of the phenomenon. Those
psychic processes which, according to my
observation, are alone responsible for the ex-
planation of the Déjà vu—namely, the uncon-
scious fantasies—are generally neglected by the
psychologists even to-day.

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Determinism

I believe that it is wrong to designate the
feeling of having experienced something before
as an illusion. On the contrary, in such moments
something is really touched that we have already
experienced, only we cannot consciously recall
the latter because it never was conscious. In
short, the feeling of Déjà vu corresponds to
the memory of an unconscious fantasy. There
are unconscious fantasies (or day dreams)
just as there are similar conscious creations,
which every one knows from personal experi-
ence.

I realize that the object is worthy of most
minute study, but I will here give the analysis
of only one case of Déjà vu in which the feeling
was characterized by particular intensity and
persistence. A woman of thirty-seven years
asserted that she most distinctly remembered that
at the age of twelve and a half she paid her first
visit to some school friends in the country, and
as she entered the garden she immediately had
the feeling of having been there before. This
feeling was repeated as she went through the
living-rooms, so that she believed she knew
beforehand how big the next room was, what
views one could have on looking out of it, etc.
But the belief that this feeling of recognition
might have its source in a previous visit to the
house and garden, perhaps a visit paid in earliest
childhood, was absolutely excluded and disproved

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

by statements from her parents. The woman who
related this sought no psychologic explanation,
but saw in the appearance of this feeling a pro-
phetic reference to the importance which these
friends later assumed in her emotional life. On
taking into consideration, however, the circum-
stance under which this phenomenon presented
itself to her, we found the way to another
conception.

When she decided upon this visit she knew
that these girls had an only brother, who was
seriously ill. In the course of the visit she
actually saw him. She found him looking very
badly, and thought to herself that he would soon
die. But it happened that her own only brother
had had a serious attack of diphtheria some
months before, and during his illness she had
lived for weeks with relatives far from her
parental home. She believed that her brother
was taking part in this visit to the country,
imagined even that this was his first long journey
since his illness; still, her memory was remark-
ably indistinct in regard to these points, whereas
all other details, and particularly the dress which
she wore that day, remained most clearly before
her eyes.

To the initiated it will not be difficult to con-
clude from these suggestions that the expectation
of her brother’s death had played a great part in
the girl’s mind at that time, and that either it never

323

Determinism

became conscious or it was more energetically
repressed after the favourable issue of the illness.
Under other circumstances she would have been
compelled to wear another dress—namely, mourn-
ing clothes. She found the analogous situation in
her friends’ home; their only brother was in
danger of an early death, an event that really
came to pass a short time after. She might
have consciously remembered that she had lived
through a similar situation a few months previous,
but instead of recalling what was inhibited
through repression she transferred the memory
feeling to the locality, to the garden, and the
house, and merged it into the fausse reconnais-
sance that she had already seen everything
exactly as it was.

From the fact of the repression we may con-
clude that the former expectation of the death
of her brother was not far from evincing the
character of a wish-fantasy. She would then
have become the only child. In her later
neurosis she suffered in the most intense manner
from the fear of losing her parents, behind which
the analysis disclosed, as usual, the unconscious
wish of the same content.

My own experience of Déjà vu I can trace in a
similar manner to the emotional constellation of
the moment. It may be expressed as follows:
“That would be another occasion for awakening
certain fantasies (unconscious and unknown)

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

which were formed in me at one time or another
as a wish to improve my situation.¹⁾

V. Recently when I had occasion to recite to
a colleague of a philosophical turn of mind some
examples of name-
forgetting, with their analyses,
he hastened to reply: “That is all very well,
but with me the forgetting of a name proceeds
in a different manner.” Evidently one cannot
dismiss this question as simply as that; I do
not believe that my colleague had ever thought
of an analysis for the forgetting of a name, nor
could he say how the process differed in him.
But his remark, nevertheless, touches upon a
problem which many would be inclined to place
in the foreground. Does the solution given for
faulty and chance actions apply in general or
only in particular cases, and if only in the latter,
what are the conditions under which it may also
be employed in the explanation of the other
phenomena?

¹⁾Thus far this explanation of Déjà
vu has been appre-
ciated by only one observer. Dr. Ferenczi, to whom the
third edition of this book is indebted for so many contribu-
tions, writes to me concerning this: “I have been convinced,
through myself as well as others, that the inexplicable
feeling of familiarity can be referred to unconscious fantasies
of which we are unconsciously reminded in an actual situation.
With one of my patients the process was apparently different,
but in reality it was quite analogous. This feeling returned
to him very often, but showed itself regularly as originating
in a forgotten (repressed) portion of a dream of the preceding
night. Thus it appears that the Déjà vu can originate
not only from day dreams but also from night dreams.”

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Determinism

In answer to this question my experiences
leave me in the lurch. I can only urge against
considering the demonstrated connections as rare,
for as often as I have made the test in myself
and with my patients it was always definitely
demonstrated exactly as in the examples reported,
or there were at least good reasons to assume
this. One should not be surprised, however,
when one does not succeed every time in find-
ing the concealed meaning of the symptomatic
action, as the amount of inner resistances ranging
themselves against the solution must be con-
sidered a deciding factor. Also it is not always
possible to explain every individual dream of
one’s self or of patients. To substantiate the
general validity of the theory, it is enough if
one can penetrate only a certain distance into
the hidden associations. The dream which
proves refractory when the solution is attempted
on the following day can often be robbed of its
secret a week or a month later, when the psychic
factors combating one another have been re-
duced as a consequence of a real change that
has meanwhile taken place. The same applies
to the solution of faulty and symptomatic actions.
It would therefore be wrong to affirm of all cases
which resist analysis that they are caused by
another psychic mechanism than that here re-
vealed; such assumption requires more than
negative proofs; moreover, the readiness to

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

believe in a different explanation of faulty and
symptomatic actions, which probably exists uni-
versally in all normal persons, does not prove
anything; it is obviously an expression of the
same psychic forces which produced the secret,
which therefore strives to protect and struggle
against its elucidation.

On the other hand, we must not overlook the
fact that the repressed thoughts and feelings are
not independent in attaining expression in
symptomatic and faulty actions. The technical
possibility for such an adjustment of the inner-
vations must be furnished independently of them,
and this is then gladly utilized by the intention
of the repressed material to come to conscious
expression. In the case of linguistic faulty
actions an attempt has been made by philosophers
and philologists to verify through minute observa-
tions what structural and functional relations
enter into the service of such intention. If in
the determinations of faulty and symptomatic
actions we separate the unconscious motive from
its co-active physiological and psycho-
physical
relations, the question remains open whether
there are still other factors within normal limits
which, like the unconscious motive, and in its
place can produce faulty and symptomatic actions
on the road of the relations. It is not my task
to answer this question.

VI. Since the discussion of speech blunders

327

Determinism

we have been content to demonstrate that faulty
actions have a concealed motive, and through
the aid of psychoanalysis we have traced our
way to the knowledge of their motivation. The
general nature and the peculiarities of the psychic
factors brought to expression in these faulty
actions we have hitherto left almost without con-
sideration; at any rate, we have not attempted
to define them more accurately or to examine
into their lawfulness. Nor will we now attempt
a thorough elucidation of the subject, as the first
steps have already taught us that it is more
feasible to enter this structure from another side.
Here we can put before ourselves certain ques-
tions which I will cite in their order. (1) What
is the content and the origin of the thoughts and
feelings which show themselves through faulty
and chance actions? (2) What are the conditions
which force a thought or a feeling to make
use of these occurrences as a means of ex-
pression and place it in a position to do
so? (3) Can constant and definite associations
be demonstrated between the manner of the
faulty action and the qualities brought to
expression through it?

I shall begin by bringing together some
material for answering the last question. In
the discussion of the examples of speech blunders
we found it necessary to go beyond the contents
of the intended speech, and we had to seek the

328

Psychopathology of Everyday Life

cause of the speech disturbance outside the inten-
tion. The latter was quite clear in a series of
cases, and was known to the consciousness of
the speaker. In the example that seemed most
simple and transparent it was a similar sounding
but different conception of the same thought,
which disturbed its expression without any one
being able to say why the one succumbed and
the other came to the surface (Meringer and
Mayers’ Contaminations).

In a second group of cases one conception
succumbed to a motive which did not, however,
prove strong enough to cause complete submer-
sion. The conception which was withheld was
clearly presented to consciousness.

Only of the third group can we affirm unre-
servedly that the disturbing thought differed from
the one intended, and it is obvious that it may
establish an essential distinction. The disturb-
ing thought is either connected with the disturbed
one through a thought association (disturbance
through inner contradiction), or it is substantially
strange to it, and just the disturbed word is con-
nected with the disturbing thought through a
surprising outer association, which is frequently
unconscious.

In the examples which I have given from my
psychoanalyses it is found that the entire speech
is either under the influence of thoughts which
have become active simultaneously, or under

329

Determinism

absolutely unconscious thoughts which betray
themselves either through the disturbance itself,
or which evince an indirect influence by making
it possible for the individual parts of the uncon-
sciously intended speech to disturb one another.
The retained or unconscious thoughts from which
the disturbances in speech emanate are of most
varied origin. A general survey does not reveal
any definite direction.

Comparative examinations of examples of mis-
takes in reading and writing lead to the same
conclusions. Isolated cases, as in speech
blunders, seem to owe their origin to an un-
motivated work of condensation (e.g., the Apel).
But we should be pleased to know whether
special conditions must not be fulfilled in order
that such condensation, which is considered
regular in the dream-work and faulty in our
waking thoughts, should take place. No infor-
mation concerning this can be obtained from the
examples themselves. But I merely refuse from
this to draw the conclusion that there are no
such conditions, as, for instance, the relaxation
of conscious attention; for I have learned else-
where that automatic actions are especially
characterized by correctness and reliability. I
would rather emphasize the fact that here, as so
frequently in biology, it is the normal relations,
or those approaching the normal, that are less
favourable objects for investigation than the

330

Psychopathology of Everyday Life

pathological. What remains obscure in the ex-
planation of these most simple disturbances will,
according to my expectation, be made clear
through the explanation of more serious dis-
turbances.

Also mistakes in reading and writing do not
lack examples in which more remote and more
complicated motivation can be recognized.

There is no doubt that the disturbances of the
speech functions occur more easily and make
less demand on the disturbing forces than other
psychic acts.

But one is on different ground when it comes
to the examination of forgetting in the literal
sense—i.e., the forgetting of past experiences.
(To distinguish this forgetting from the others
we designate sensu strictiori the forgetting of
proper names and foreign words, as in Chapters I
and II, as “slips”; and the forgetting of reso-
lutions as “omissions.”) The principal condi-
tions of the normal process in forgetting are
unknown.¹ We are also reminded of the fact

¹ I can perhaps give the following outline concerning the
mechanism of actual forgetting. The memory material
succumbs in general to two influences, condensation and
disfigurement. Disfigurement is the work of the tendencies
dominating the psychic life, and directs itself above all
against the affective remnants of memory traces which main-
tain a more resistive attitude towards condensation. The
traces which have grown indifferent merge into a process
of condensation without opposition; in addition it may be

331

Determinism

that not all is forgotten which we believe to
be. Our explanation here deals only with those
cases in which the forgetting arouses our
astonishment, in so far as it infringes the
rule that the unimportant is forgotten, while
the important matter is guarded by memory.
Analysis of these examples of forgetting which
seem to demand a special explanation shows that
the motive of forgetting is always an unwilling-
ness to recall something which may evoke painful
feelings. We come to the conjecture that this
motive universally strives for expression in
psychic life, but is inhibited through other

observed that tendencies of disfigurement also feed on
the indifferent material, because they have not been gratified
where they wished to manifest themselves. As these pro-
cesses of condensation and disfigurement continue for long
periods during which all fresh experiences act upon the
transformation of the memory content, it is our belief that
it is time that makes memory uncertain and indistinct. It
is quite probable that in forgetting there can really be no
question of a direct function of time. From the repressed
memory traces it can be verified that they suffer no changes
even in the longest periods. The unconscious, at all events,
knows no time limit. The most important as well as the
most peculiar character of psychic fixation consists in the
fact that all impressions are on the one hand retained in
the same form as they were received, and also in the forms
that they have assumed in their further development. This
state of affairs cannot be elucidated by any comparison from
any other sphere. By virtue of this theory every former
state of the memory content may thus be restored, even
though all original relations have long been replaced by
newer ones.

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Psychopathology of Everyday Life

and contrary forces from regularly manifesting
itself. The extent and significance of this dis-
like to recall painful impressions seems worthy
of the most painstaking psychologic investiga-
tion. The question as to what special conditions
render possible the universally resistant forgetting
in individual cases cannot be solved through this
added association.

A different factor steps into the foreground
in the forgetting of resolutions; the supposed
conflict resulting in the repression of the painful
memory becomes tangible, and in the analysis
of the examples one regularly recognizes a
counter-will which opposes but does not put an
end to the resolution. As in previously dis-
cussed faulty acts, we here also recognize two types
of the psychic process: the counter-will either
turns directly against the resolution (in intentions
of some consequence) or it is substantially
foreign to the resolution itself and establishes
its connection with it through an outer association
(in almost indifferent resolutions).

The same conflict governs the phenomena of
erroneously carried-out actions. The impulse
which manifests itself in the disturbances of the
action is frequently a counter-
impulse. Still
oftener it is altogether a strange impulse which
only utilizes the opportunity to express itself
through a disturbance in the execution of the
action. The cases in which the disturbance is

333

Determinism

the result of an inner contradiction are the most
significant ones, and also deal with the more
important activities.

The inner conflict in the chance or sympto-
matic actions then merges into the background.
Those motor expressions which are least thought
of, or are entirely overlooked by consciousness,
serve as the expression of numerous unconscious
or restrained feelings. For the most part they
represent symbolically wishes and phantoms.

The first question (as to the origin of the
thoughts and emotions which find expression in
faulty actions) we can answer by saying that in a
series of cases the origin of the disturbing thoughts
can be readily traced to repressed emotions of
the psychic life. Even in healthy persons
egotistic, jealous and hostile feelings and im-
pulses, burdened by the pressure of moral educa-
tion, often utilize the path of faulty actions to
express in some way their undeniably existing
force which is not recognized by the higher
psychic instances. Allowing these faulty and
chance actions to continue corresponds in great
part to a comfortable toleration of the unmoral.
The manifold sexual currents play no insigni-
ficant part in these repressed feelings. That they
appear so seldom in the thoughts revealed by
the analyses of my examples is simply a matter
of coincidence. As I have undertaken the
analyses of numerous examples from my own

334

Psychopathology of Everyday Life

psychic life, the selection was partial from the
first, and aimed at the exclusion of sexual matters.
At other times it seemed that the disturbing
thoughts originated from the most harmless
objection and consideration.

We have now reached the answer to the second
question–that is, what psychologic conditions
are responsible for the fact that a thought must
seek expression, not in its complete form but,
as it were, in parasitic form, as a modification
and disturbance of another. From the most
striking examples of faulty actions it is quite
obvious that this determinant should be sought
in a relation to conscious capacity, or in the
more or less firmly pronounced character of the
“repressed” material. But an examination of
this series of examples shows that this character
consists of many indistinct elements. The
tendency to overlook something because it is
wearisome, or because the concerned thought
does not really belong to the intended matter
–these feelings seem to play the same rôle
as motives for the suppression of a thought
(which later depends for expression on the
disturbance of another), as the moral con-
demnation of a rebellious emotional feeling, or
as the origin of absolutely unconscious trains
of thought. An insight into the general nature
of the condition of faulty and chance actions
cannot be gained in this way.

335

Determinism

However, this investigation gives us one single
significant fact; the more harmless the motiva-
tion of the faulty act the less obnoxious, and
hence the less incapable of consciousness, the
thought to which it gives expression is; the
easier also becomes the solution of the phenome-
non after we have turned our attention toward
it. The simplest cases of speech blunders are
immediately noticed and spontaneously corrected.
Where one deals with motivation through
actually repressed feelings the solution requires
a painstaking analysis, which may sometimes
strike against difficulties or turn out unsuccessful.

One is therefore justified in taking the result
of this last investigation as an indication of the
fact that the satisfactory explanation of the
psychologic determinations of faulty and chance
actions is to be acquired in another way and
from another source. The indulgent reader can
therefore see in these discussions the demonstra-
tion of the surfaces of fracture in which this
theme was quite artificially evolved from a
broader connection.

VII. Just a few words to indicate the direction
of this broader connection. The mechanism of
the faulty and chance actions, as we have learned
to know it through the application of analysis,
shows in the most essential points an agreement
with the mechanism of dream formation, which
I have discussed in the chapter “The Dream

336

Psychopathology of Everyday Life

Work ” of my book on the interpretation of
dreams. Here, as there, one finds the condensa-
tion and compromise formation (“contamina-
tions ”); in addition the situation is much the
same, since unconscious thoughts find expres-
sion as modifications of other thoughts in unusual
ways and through outer associations. The incon-
gruities, absurdities, and errors in the dream
content by virtue of which the dream is scarcely
recognized as a psychic achievement originate
in the same way—to be sure, through freer usage
of the existing material—as the common error
of our everyday life ; here, as there, the appear-
ance of the incorrect function is explained
through the peculiar interference of two or more
correct actions.

An important conclusion can be drawn from
this combination : the peculiar mode of opera-
tion, whose most striking function we recognize
in the dream content, should not be adjudged
only to the sleeping state of the psychic life when
we possess abundant proof of its activity during
the waking state in the form of faulty actions.
The same connection also forbids us assuming
that these psychic processes which impress us
as abnormal and strange are determined by deep-
seated decay of psychic activity or by morbid
state of function.¹

¹Cf. here The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 483. Macmillan :
New York ; and Allen : London.

337
z

Determinism

The correct under-
standing of this strange
psychic work which allows the faulty actions to
originate like the dream pictures will only be
possible after we have discovered that the
psycho-
neurotic symptoms, particu-
larly the
psychic formations of hysteria and compul-
sion
neurosis, repeat in their mecha-
nisms all the
essential features of this mode of opera-
tion. The
continuation of our investiga-
tion would therefore
have to begin at this point.

There is still another special interest for us
in considering the faulty, chance, and sympto-
matic actions in the light of this last analogy.
If we compare them to the function of the
psycho-
neuroses and the neurotic symptoms, two
frequently-
recurring statements gain in sense and
support—namely, that the border-
line between
the nervous, normal, and abnormal states is in-
distinct, and that we are all slightly nervous.
Regardless of all medical-
experience, one may
construe various types of such barely suggested-
nervousness, the formes frustes of the neuroses.
There may be cases in which only a few
symptoms appear, or they may mani-
fest them-
selves rarely or in mild forms; the extenua-
tion
may be transferred-
to the number, intensity-
, or to
the temporal outbreak of the morbid manifes-
tation. It may also happen that just this type,
which forms the most frequent transi-
tion between
health and disease, may never be discovered.

338

Psychopathology of Everyday Life

The transition type, whose morbid manifestations
come in the form of faulty and symptomatic
actions, is characterized by the fact that the
symptoms are transformed to the least important
psychic activities, while everything that can lay
claim to a higher psychic value remains free
from disturbance. When the symptoms are dis
posed of in a reverse manner—that is, when they
appear in the most important individual and
social activities in a manner to disturb the
functions of nourishment and sexual relations,
professional and social life—such disposition is
found in the severe cases of neuroses, and is
perhaps more characteristic of the latter than the
multiformity or vividness of the morbid mani-
festations.

But the common character of the mildest as
well as the severest cases, to which the faulty
and chance actions contribute, lies in the ability
to refer the phenomena to unwelcome, repressed,
psychic material, which, though pushed away
from consciousness, is nevertheless not robbed
of all capacity to express itself.