[1901] The Psychopathology of Everyday Life by Sigmund Freud

Author:Sigmund Freud [Freud, Sigmund]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The Psychopathology of Everyday Life
Published: 1901-02-23T16:00:00+00:00

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

2 Brill, loc. cit., p. 197.

3 If we inquire of a person whether he suffered from leutic 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 consultation. While taking the history, he asked among others the customary question 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 tuberculosis. 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 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?”

4 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.

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