The Psychopathology of Everyday Life: Forgetting, Slips of the Tongue, Bungled Actions, Superstitions and Errors by Sigmund Freud

Author:Sigmund Freud [Freud, Sigmund]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-07-25T04:00:00+00:00

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(10) Sachs describes how, by a similar act of mislaying, he once avoided the duty of working: ‘Last Sunday afternoon I hesitated for some time over whether I should work or take a walk and pay a visit at the end of it; but after a bit of a struggle I decided in favour of the former. After about an hour I noticed that my supply of paper was exhausted. I knew that somewhere in a drawer there was a stack of paper that I had had for years, but I looked in vain for it in my writing desk and in other places where I thought I might find it, although I went to a lot of trouble and rummaged round in every possible place - old books, pamphlets, letters and so on. Thus I finally found myself compelled to break off my work and go out after all. When I returned home in the evening, I sat down on the sofa, and, sunk in thought and half absent-mindedly, gazed at the book-case in front of me. A box caught my eye and I remembered that I had not examined its contents for a long time. So I went over and opened it. At the very top was a leather portfolio containing unused paper. But it was only when I had taken it out and was on the point of putting it in the drawer of my desk that it occurred to me that this was the very same paper I had been unsuccessfully looking for in the afternoon. I must add here that although I am not ordinarily thrifty I am very careful with paper and keep any scraps that can be used. It was obviously this practice of mine, which is nourished by an instinct, that enabled my forgetfulness to be corrected as soon as the immediate motive for it had disappeared.’

If a survey is made of cases of mislaying, it in fact becomes hard to believe that anything is ever mislaid except as a result of an unconscious intention.

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