Forgetfulness linked to desireĪnother type of memory slip can happen when you do or don’t want to do something. You remember “Carl” just fine but consistently draw a blank on what comes next.Ī psychoanalytic interpretation might suggest your mind avoids the memory of his name since it could trigger buried memories of the dog Nottingham and the traumatic experience of being bitten. Yet when a new coworker, Carl Nottingham, joins your team, you find it embarrassingly difficult to remember his last name. You needed several stitches, but other than a slight mistrust of large dogs, you have no memory of the incident or the dog’s name, which was Nottingham. This dog had a fairly gentle nature, but one day you poked and prodded him, ignoring warning growls, until he bit your arm. If you happen to encounter something later in life that’s similar to that event, you might find yourself forgetting that, too. Forgetfulness linked to repressionĬertain Freudian slips involve a slip of memory rather than the tongue.Īccording to psychoanalytic theory, when you experience something that causes shame, fear, or pain, your mind may respond by pushing away memories of that event. In his book “Freud’s Theory and Its Use in Literary and Cultural Studies,” professor Henk de Berg separates Freudian slips into the following categories. A stressed parent who calls one child by the name of another child (or the family dog) is often simply busy and tired. These errors don’t always have a psychoanalytic interpretation.įor example, a child who accidentally calls their teacher “Mom” is simply transitioning from spending most of day with their mother to spending most of the day with their teacher. Today a so-called Freudian slip might describe any kind of misspeak.

These memory lapses and errors happen when thoughts or desires you’ve either suppressed (consciously pushed away) or repressed (buried without thinking) resurface. Research does, however, note examples that predate Freud, such as in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”Īccording to Freud, bits of the unconscious mind leak out into conscious behaviors, and this prompts you to say something other than what you had intended. He discussed what he referred to in German as “Fehlleistungen,” or faulty actions, at length in his 1901 book, “The Psychopathology of Everyday Life.” Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis, was one of the first to talk about Freudian slips, though he didn’t use his own name to describe them.

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