Introduction to Psychoanalysis

Chapter 6 Psychology of Negligence (5)
Folks, we have previously demonstrated that negligence is meaningful and used this as the basis for further research.But I want to stress again: for our purposes we never claim, and need not claim - that all negligence counts, though I believe it is not impossible.It is enough if we prove that there is a more general presence of meaning in various faults.In this regard, the various forms of negligence are somewhat different.Some slips of the tongue and clerical errors are purely physiological, and the same is true of forgetting mistakes such as "forgotten proper names" or "forgotten plans" and lost property.In some instances, lost property was also deemed to be of little interest.On the whole, our theory is only applicable to account for a part of the faults in everyday life.You must remember that this theory does not apply if the fault is due to a mental activity caused by two "dispositions" interfering with each other.

This is the first theoretical achievement of psychoanalysis.Previously, psychologists had overlooked this phenomenon of mutual interference, and of course they were still less aware that such interference could lead to error.We have greatly expanded the range of psychic phenomena so that psychology includes phenomena that were never recognized.

First of all, we want to discuss the viewpoint of "negligence is a psychological activity". Is it more connotative than the sentence "negligence is meaningful"?I think on the contrary, the former is more ambiguous than the latter, and thus more likely to be misunderstood.The so-called psychological phenomenon refers to all the manifestations that can be observed in mental activities.At the same time, it is also necessary to clarify whether it is a special psychological phenomenon, such as being directly caused by a certain organ of the body, or just a material change, these are not within the scope of psychological research; or it is another type of phenomenon , it comes directly from other psychological processes, but at a certain node in this psychological process, it triggers a series of changes in the body.This latter kind is what we call mental processes.Therefore, it is more convenient for us that "the fault is meaningful"; the "meaning" here is one of importance, intention, tendency, and a series of mental activities.

Another group of phenomena is closely related to negligence, and it is not appropriate to call it negligence.These are "occasional" or symptomatic movements.These actions appear to be unmotivated, meaningless, useless, and clearly redundant.They have no secondary inclinations that can be resisted or interfered with, unlike faults; and they are no different from what we call gestures and movements that express emotions.Such occasional actions, as well as obviously purposeless actions, such as shaking clothes or a certain part of the body, or other objects within reach;I think this kind of action is meaningful, can be explained, and can be regarded as real mental activity, which constitutes the expression of other important mental processes.However, I cannot dwell on these phenomena any further, and will now return to negligence.Discussion of faults can bring clarity to many important issues in the study of psychoanalysis.

The unresolved and most interesting issues in discussing negligence are, of course, the following questions: We believe that negligence arises from the interference of two different intentions, one may be called the intention to be interfered with, the other the intention to intervene.Of course, the interfered intention will no longer cause problems; but as far as the interfering intention is concerned, we must first understand which intentions are interfering with other intentions.Second, what kind of relationship exists between the intention to interfere and the intention to be interfered with.

Using the example of a slip of the tongue again, we first answer the second question and then explain the first.

In a slip of the tongue, the interfering intention and the interfered intention may be related in meaning, in which case the interfering intention is the opposite, variant, or complement of the interfered intention.In other vague but interesting cases, the intervening intention and the intervened intention may not be related in any sense.

In the examples already discussed, it is not difficult to find evidence of the first relation.For all slips of the tongue that reverse what is to be said, the interfering intention almost always has the opposite meaning to the interfered intention, so this type of error is caused by the conflict between the two opposite intentions.The meaning of the speaker's slip of the tongue: "I declare the meeting open, but I would prefer to adjourn it." A politically inclined newspaper was accused of corruption, so it wrote a defense, trying to say at the end: "As readers know, this paper strives to serve society. The attitude that seeks happiness is the least selfish." However, unexpectedly, the commissioned editor mistakenly wrote "disinterested" (disinterested) as "in the most interested manner" (in the most interested manner). ).His intention was to say: "I wrote this article as a last resort, and I know the inside story very well." Another example is that a representative of public opinion wants to speak out against the emperor because of something, but he feels fear deep in his heart, so There was a slip of the tongue, and blunt words became euphemisms.

The examples listed above have the meaning of condensing and omitting, as well as correcting, supplementing or extending. The two tendencies are closely related.For example, "the incident was exposed, but it is better to say that the incident is dirty, so - the incident is now dirty." "There are only a handful of people who know this problem, but it is not the case. Well—it’s one of the few.” Another example, “Of course my husband can eat and drink what he likes, but I can’t make him like this or that, so—he can only eat and drink what I like Drinks and food." Judging from these examples, the content of the interfered intention is directly related to this intention and is the source of the fault.

It might seem strange that there should be no correlation between the two interfering tendencies.Assuming that the interfering disposition has nothing to do with the interfered disposition, how does the interfering disposition arise?And how did it happen to show up at this time?To find out the answer to this question, we must start with observation, and find out the root of the tendency to interfere through the results of observation—all the previous thoughts of this person, and then manifested, formed this result.Whether this thought takes the form of language is irrelevant.Therefore, it can also be regarded as a category of "lien", but it may not be a language "lien".Here, there is also a certain relationship between the interference and the tendency to be interfered, which is not reflected in the content, and can only be regarded as a forced relationship.

I once got such a simple example in observation.In the beautiful Dolomites, I met two Viennese ladies.They were walking, so I walked with them for a while, and we discussed the fun and fatigue of traveling life while walking.There is a lady who thinks that such a life is not comfortable. "Walking in the sun all day until the sweat drenches the coat or other things is really unpleasant." In this sentence, she faintly hesitated.She added: "If we have shirts and pants, we can change them (nach Hose)." In fact, what she meant to say was "in my home" (nach House).Let's discuss this slip of the tongue, the significance of which I think is easy to see.The lady would have liked to list some items of clothing, such as coats, shirts, drawers, and so on.The reason why the word underpants was not mentioned is because of etiquette.However, in the second sentence, when the content is completely independent, the once unspoken sound becomes an approximate sound of "House".

We can now at last discuss the long-delayed question, which is, what are the tendencies that suddenly manifest themselves to interfere with other dispositions?There are many kinds of them, but our purpose is only to discover their common ingredients.If we examine many instances for this purpose, we at once find that they fall into three general classes.In the first category, the speaker is aware of the tendency to interfere and feels it in the error.For example, in the slip of the tongue "fa dirty", the speaker not only admits that the event he condemns is dirty, but also admits a tendency in his mind to say this meaning, only to prevent it later.In the second category, the speaker admits that there is an intention to interfere in his heart, and this tendency has had many activities before he speaks that he is not aware of.He was therefore more or less surprised, though he accepted our explanation.Examples of this attitude are more readily found in other kinds of faults.In the third category, the speaker strongly disagrees with our account of the intention to intervene. He not only refutes that the interfering tendency was active before the slip of the tongue, but also says he has no knowledge of it.Like the example about "hiccups".I pointed out to the speaker the tendency to interfere, but he vehemently refuted it.You understand that, as far as these examples are concerned, my attitude is far from yours.I can't believe the speaker's denial, insist on my own explanation, but you are moved by his enthusiasm, take it for granted that I should abandon my theory, regard these faults as purely psychological activities, and use the point of view before psychoanalysis to understand explain them.The reason why you think so, I think I can guess.Included in my explanation is the assumption that intentions unknown to the speaker can be expressed through him, and I can use various phenomena to determine their nature.This is an important and novel result, and you will inevitably be skeptical.I know that, and I think you're right.But one thing must be clear: this "negligence theory" has been proved by many examples, and if you want to derive a logical theory, your assumptions must be bold, otherwise you have to give up the results you just got.

Now let's pause for a moment and consider the commonalities that all three types of slips of the tongue have in common.Fortunately, this common part is easy to spot.As far as the first two types are concerned, the intention to intervene is detected from the speaker's mouth, and the speaker in the first type is aware of the tendency to interfere before the slip of the tongue occurs.In either category, however, the tendency to interfere is forced back.The speaker is determined not to put the idea into words, he has slipped the tongue, in other words, the forced retraction tendencies will oppose the speaker's will, and change the tendencies he allows to express, or mix with them, or replace them, Thus expressing oneself, which turns out to be a mechanism for slips of the tongue.

I think that the third category of faults can also be perfectly adapted to the mechanism described above.I need only suppose that the difference between the three types of faults consists in the degree to which an intention is repelled.As far as the first type is concerned, the speaker has already felt the existence of the interference intention before speaking, and is repelled when speaking, and compensated in the mistake.In the second category, repulsion occurs earlier, and this interfering tendency is no longer visible before speaking, but it is still the most important cause of slips of the tongue.In this way, the explanation of the third category becomes simple.Even if an intention has been suppressed for a long time, unable to express itself, and denied by the speaker, I would say, however, that the intention can still be felt.If the third category of problems is put aside and the other two categories are considered alone, there must be such a conclusion: suppressing the speaker's original tendency is a necessary condition for causing slips of the tongue.

We can now say that we have come a long way in the theory of negligence.We know that faults are meaningful and purposeful, that faults are caused by the interference of two intentions, and that if one intention expresses itself by interfering with the other, it must first be borne by itself. Resistance prohibits its activity.In simple terms, one disposition must be disturbed before it can interfere with other dispositions.Of course, this does not give a satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon of negligence.Immediately we will discover new problems. In a nutshell, the more we know, the greater the probability of new problems.For example, you might ask why things can't be made simpler and easier?If there is an intention in the heart that wants to suppress another intention so that it cannot be expressed, if the suppression is successful, this tendency will be completely impossible to express; show.But also the fault is only a mode of mediation; in the fault two conflicting intentions have partial success and partial failure.With rare exceptions, repressed intentions can neither be completely prevented, nor can they be fully expressed for their original purpose.According to imagination, there must be a number of special conditions which contributed to this interference or mediation, but we cannot yet guess what these conditions are, and I do not think that we can necessarily find out what these unknown conditions are by our study of faults. .We must first thoroughly study other, more subtle psychic operations, and then study the conclusions by analogy before we can have the courage to make the necessary assumptions for a further explanation of the fault.Note, however, that there are risks involved in guiding theoretical investigations with small phenomena, as we often do in this respect.If this tiny phenomenon is used beyond its limits, a mental disorder, combinatorial paranoia, results.Of course, absolutely right, I do not claim the results of this study.We must avoid this danger, broaden our horizons of observation, analyze all kinds of mental activities, and collect similar factual experiences.

So now we're going to leave psychoanalysis for a while.You must, however, remember one thing: you must bear in mind the method by which we have studied faults, as an example.From these examples you can see what is the purpose of our study of psychology.That is the classification of psychological phenomena that we want to express, but also to admit that psychological phenomena are the result of the checks and balances of various forces in the mind, expressing a purposeful intention, which may be cooperation or confrontation.We need a dynamic conception of psychological phenomena.Therefore, what we infer from this is more meaningful than what we see.

We shall not, therefore, study fault any longer; but before we take a bird's-eye view of the whole problem, we encounter some things familiar to us, and some things which are strange to us.Regarding the categories, there are still the three types we listed above: slips of the tongue, clerical mistakes, misremembering, and mishearing; forgetting such as forgetting proper names, forgetting foreign characters, forgetting plans and impressions, etc.;Taken together, half of the mistakes we study are forgetting, and half are behavioral mistakes.

We have discussed slips of the tongue at length, and now we need to add some material.Some of the small mistakes with emotion are related to slips of the tongue, very interesting.People are always reluctant to admit that they have said the wrong thing, and they often don't notice it.Once someone says something wrong, they will hold on tight.Slips of the tongue are contagious; it's easy to say the wrong thing when discussing slips of the tongue.For some very cumbersome mistakes, it is not difficult to find out the hidden motives, but it is impossible to find out the nature of the hidden psychological journey.For example, if a person is disturbed by a certain word and mistakenly pronounces a long sound as a short sound, no matter what his motivation is, he will definitely make a new mistake to make up for the mistake just now, and the result is that the subsequent short sound Make a long sound.For another example, diphthongs are mispronounced as monophthongs (ew or oy is mispronounced as i), and similarly, monophthongs are mispronounced as diphthongs (i is mispronounced as ew or oy).These behaviors seem to hide some intentions, that is, they cannot convince the listener that the speaker is negligent about the native language.The mistake of that compensation consists in reminding the hearer of the first mistake, and showing that he already knew it.The most common, simplest, and least important slip of the tongue is the condensation or preposition of language.For example, if you say a long sentence wrong, it must be caused by affecting the pronunciation of the previous word when you want to say the last word.This shows that the speaker is impatient and unwilling to say that.Afterwards we shall pass the point at which the fault theory of psychoanalysis will no longer be distinguished from that of physiology in general.From our hypothesis we know that in these instances the interfering disposition is rebellious against what is being said; but these allow us only to confirm the existence of the interfering disposition, but not to know its purpose.The interference it produces, the influence of speech or the distraction of associations, can be seen as the result of attention being drawn away from what is to be said.But the key to slips of the tongue of this type is not distraction, nor the tendency to associate, but the presence of other intentions that interfere with the original intention.What its nature is, of course, cannot be deduced from this, since such instances are different from the more obvious slips of the tongue.

(End of this chapter)