Introduction to Psychoanalysis

Chapter 2 Psychology of Negligence (1)
Now, let's put aside those pre-made settings and start with factual observations.We have to select common and easily overlooked phenomena to achieve our goals.Those phenomena have nothing to do with diseases, and they can also be found in normal healthy people.What I'm referring to is the mistakes that people often make.For example, someone uses the wrong word when describing a thing (that is, "slip of the tongue"); Mistakes (that is, "misreading"); what's more, mishearing other people's conversations is not a disease of the auditory organs.There are even some faults caused by short-term, non-permanent forgetting, such as seeing an acquaintance, but can't remember his name; suddenly forgetting what you want to do, and remembering it later, but it is only temporary forget.In addition, there are also some mistakes that are not caused by temporary forgetting, such as putting something in the wrong place and not being able to find it later; Will at some point believe it to be true.There are many similar phenomena of various kinds.

In German, the nouns for these mistakes are all capitalized with "ver", highlighting the intrinsic relationship between them.The words starting with this mostly express short, ordinary, not very important actions, and have little meaning in life.Just as losing something is no big deal, these facts are ignored and of course less interesting.

These phenomena are exactly what I want you to study, and you may object irritably: "In the vast world, there are so many mysteries to be solved from the macro to the micro, and there are many unknowns in the field of mental disorders that are worth explaining. Studying these insignificant mistakes, Waste of effort and terribly boring. Unless you make us believe that during the day a man with eyes and ears sees or hears things that are not there; If, on the other hand, psychoanalysis can only explain such trivial things as why a speaker misses a word, why a housewife loses her keys, etc. We might as well spend our time and energy on researching more meaningful things.”

What I want to answer is: Don't be restless, everyone!Your criticism is biased and misses the point.Of course, psychoanalysis can’t say that it doesn’t involve ordinary things. On the contrary, other disciplines often ridicule it for always observing those trivial, ordinary and meaningless little things, some of which can be called “waste”.What you are saying seems to be that big events must have a vigorous appearance. However, under certain conditions and at a certain moment, big events are often manifested through trivial and small things.Examples of this are easy to find.For example, young people listening here, how do you know you've won a girl's heart?Does she have to give you an affectionate confession or a big hug?In fact, as long as you see her flirting with you, giving you a gesture, or holding your hand tightly, you will understand when others don't feel it.For another example, as a detective, you are investigating a murder case. Don't expect to find the murderer's name, address, and photo at the crime scene. You will be excited to find some clues.Therefore, the value of an inconspicuous phenomenon may not be small, so we dare not underestimate it, and we can know the whole leopard after seeing it.I certainly agree with you that the major events in the human world and science can arouse our interest first, but if you want to study those major events for a lifetime, you may not always get definite results.When it comes to the second step, where to start, it is inevitable to be at a loss.For scientific research, if there is a way to go, it must go forward.Putting aside prejudices or preconceived ideas, and moving forward, relying on the inevitable connection between various things or the connection between big and small things, even in less important work, you can also embark on the road of studying big problems.

As this point of view requires, I hope that you will be interested in conducting research on the pettiness of normal people.Now, I would like to ask, if we do not understand psychoanalysis, how can we explain these phenomena?

He would certainly be the first to answer: "It's not worth explaining such little things." What did he mean?Does he think that small things have no causal connection with other things?Can small things be different?No matter who, no matter where, if he denies the law of causality of natural phenomena, the scientific view of the universe will inevitably be thrown into the sky.Even religious views are not so absurd. According to religious teachings, unless God wills, "not a bird will fall to the ground without a reason."This first answer, I think our friend will not insist on it; he will compromise, he will say that if he condescends to study these phenomena, he will immediately get a considerable explanation.This is of course a slight disorder, or an error caused by a nervous disorder, which is known.If a person speaks well, but now makes a mistake, it must be because of: first, fatigue or discomfort, second, excitement, and third, lack of attention.It is easy to prove this.Fatigue, headaches, or recurrent migraines are common in misspoken words.In this case, it is also easy to forget the proper nouns, and many people will not remember the proper nouns, which indicates that migraine attacks are about to occur.When a person is excited, it is also easy to use typos or do wrong things; when he is inattentive or focused on other things, it is easy to forget what he has to do and what he has planned.For example, the professor in Blatter's play.As he was preoccupied with the contents of the second book, he forgot his own umbrella and picked up someone else's hat.According to experience, if a person concentrates on other things, it is easy to forget the plan or invitation.

It seems that these reasons are not difficult to understand and are justifiable, but they may not arouse much interest and fail to meet our expectations.Let us examine this theory of explanatory error more closely.The conditions for negligence, that is, the necessary conditions that these people say are not one category.Lesions and disorders of the circulatory system lead to normal dysfunction, which is the physiological basis; while excitement, fatigue and troubles can be regarded as psychological factors, from which a set of theories can be constructed.Tiredness, annoyance, and excessive excitement lead to distraction and inability to concentrate on an action, which interferes with its proper completion.The same result can also be caused by problems or abnormalities in blood circulation in the nerve center.All in all, all kinds of faults are caused by the disturbance of attention caused by the abnormality of the body's physiology or psychology.

But such an explanation is of little help to the study of psychoanalysis, and we shall cast it aside.Frankly speaking, after studying this issue more deeply, you will know that this "attention theory" is biased against the facts, at least not everything can be deduced from it.It should be noted that there are many people who are all normal and do not feel tired or excited, but there are also such mistakes or forgetfulness; sometimes these mistakes occur, and we attribute it afterwards to a state of excitement, but sometimes Those who are at fault do not admit it.However, this problem is not so simple, because if you increase your attention, things will not necessarily succeed; if you reduce your attention, things will not necessarily fail.Many purely conscious drives can be successful without attention.It's like walking. Although you are not sure where you are going, you can reach your destination without going wrong.At least that's what we often see.A skilled pianist can play without paying attention.Of course, he may also make occasional mistakes, and autoplaying the piano increases the risk of mistakes.The pianist is most at risk of falling into this danger when, through repeated practice, his playing gradually becomes fully automatic.However, there is often the phenomenon of "intentionally planting flowers but not blooming, unintentionally planting willows and willows to make shade". Many behaviors are not particularly focused, but they are very successful. They are eager for achievements and dare not slack off a little, which leads to mistakes.Maybe you say that it is caused by excitement, but why excitement does not focus on the purpose we are pursuing is something we cannot understand.Therefore, sometimes a person reverses his meaning in a very important conversation, and it is difficult to explain it with "physiological and psychological theory" or "attention theory".

There are also secondary features of this fault which cannot be explained by these theories.For example, if a person is annoyed because he has temporarily forgotten someone's name, he will naturally have a hard time remembering the past.However, although he was very annoyed, he couldn't prompt him to think of that name so that it would be ready to be pronounced, and he would think of it with a little reminder, why?Another example says that sometimes many faults are intertwined or replaced.Like forgetting someone on a date, the next time he will try desperately to remember it but forget the date or time of the date.Another example is that someone uses various methods to make a forgotten word be remembered, but completely forgets the word as a clue when thinking.If he struggled to remember the second word, he forgot the third, and so on.The same goes for typographical errors.A certain "Social Democracy" is said to have made such an error.The newspaper published a banquet: "There was also 'His Royal Highness Fool' at the banquet", and apologized and corrected the next day: "The wrong sentence should be changed to 'Your Royal Highness Rooster'".Again, a general is notoriously cowardly.A military reporter interviewed the general, and said in the newsletter that the general was afraid of the battle.He immediately apologized the next day, saying that what he said yesterday should be "a general who is addicted to good wine".Such mistakes are said to be caused by monsters making trouble in typesetting. Of course, the meaning of this metaphor has nothing to do with physiology or psychology.

Some kind of suggestion is also one of the reasons for slips of the tongue. Here I tell a story to illustrate this problem.A new actor has an important role in "The Girl of Orleans."In the play, he should have reported to the king: "The chief of police has sent back the sword." In rehearsals, the protagonist often jokes about this, and repeatedly refers to the script line to the stage-frightened new actor. Bring the horse back."As a result, the hapless new actor was repeatedly warned not to make mistakes, or it was the warnings that caused him to make mistakes in public performances.

This series of characteristics about negligence cannot be explained by the theory of distraction; but we need not conclude that this theory is wrong. If some links are added, it may be complete.But there are many other faults that can be considered from another angle.

We might as well take slips of the tongue as the most suitable representative, of course, we can also give examples of misreading and clerical mistakes.But we must keep in mind that what was discussed was only where and under what circumstances something was said wrong, and the answers are limited to this point.Of course we will also have other questions, such as why is it just this particular error and not others?This will take into account the nature of the fault.You must know that as long as the question remains unanswered, and the consequences of the error cannot be explained, in spite of the physical theories that have been put forward, it remains a purely accidental phenomenon psychologically.For example, if I mispronounce a word, and there are countless ways I can mispronounce it, I can replace the correct one with more than 1000 other words, and there may be many variations of the correct word.Among the various errors, what is the reason for this particular error?Or is it purely accidental?Is there any reasonable explanation for this problem?

(End of this chapter)