Psychopathology of Everyday Life by Sigmund Freud - Chapter 8 - Erroneously Carried-out Actions

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section eight of Psychopathology of every day life, translated by
a A brill erroneously carried out actions. I shall give
another passage from the above mentioned work of Meringer and Meyer. Quote.
Lapses in speech do not stand entirely alone. They resemble

(00:22):
the errors which often occur in our other activities, and
are quite foolishly termed forgetfulness end quote. I am therefore,
in no way the first to presume that there is
their sense and purpose behind the slight functional disturbances of
the daily life of healthy people. If the lapse in speech,

(00:42):
which is without doubt a motor function, admits of such
a conception, it is quite natural to transfer to the
lapses of our other motor functions the same expectation. I
have here formed two groups of cases, all of these
cases in which the faulty effect seems to be the
essential element, that is, the deviation from the intention I

(01:04):
denote as erroneously carried out actions, the others in which
the entire action appears rather inexpedient I call symptomatic and
chance actions. But no distinct line of demarcation can be formed. Indeed,
we are forced to conclude that all divisions used in
this treatise are of only descriptive significance and contradict the

(01:28):
inner unity of the sphere of manifestation. The psychologic understanding
of erroneous actions apparently gains little in clearness when we
place it under the head of ataxia, and especially under
cortical ataxia. Let us rather try to trace the individual
examples to their proper determinants. To do this, I shall

(01:51):
again resort to personal observations, the opportunities for which I
could not very frequently find in myself. In former years,
when I made more calls at the homes of patients
than I do at present, it often happened when I
stood before a door where I should have knocked or
rung the bell, that I would pull the key of

(02:12):
my own house from my pocket, only to replace it,
quite abashed. When I investigated in what patience homes that occurred,
I had to admit that the faulty action taking out
my key instead of ringing the bell signified paying a
certain tribute to the house where the air occurred. It
was equivalent to the thought here I feel at home,

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as it happened only where I possessed the patient's regard. Naturally,
I never rang my own doorbell. The faulty action was
therefore a symbolic representation of a definite thought which was
not accepted consciously as serious. For in reality, the neurologist
is well aware that the patient seeks him only so

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long as he expects to be benefited by him, and
that his own sensively warm interest for his patient is
evinced only as a means of psychic treatment. An almost
identical repetition of my experience is described by a mad
several lines in French follow Jones speaks as follows about

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the use of keys. The use of keys is a
fertile source of occurrences of this kind, of which two
examples may be given. If I am disturbed in the
midst of some engrossing work at home by having to
go to the hospital to carry out some routine work,
I am very apt to find myself trying to open
the door of my laboratory there with the key of

(03:40):
my desk at home. Although the two keys are quite
unlike each other, the mistake unconsciously demonstrates where I would
rather be at the moment. Some years ago, I was
acting in a subordinate position at a certain institution, the
front door of which was kept locked, so that it
was necessary to ring for admision. On several occasions I

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found myself making serious attempts to open the door with
my house key. Each one of the permanent visiting staff
of which I aspired to be a member was provided
with a key to avoid the trouble of having to
wait at the door. My mistake thus expressed the desire
to be on a similar footing and to be quite
at home there. A similar experience is reported by doctor

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Hans Socks of Vienna. I always carry two keys with me,
one for the door of my office and one for
my residence. They are not, by any means easily interchanged,
as the office key is at least three times as
big as my house key. Besides, I carried the first
in my trouser pocket and the other in my vest pocket.

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Yet it often happened that I noticed, in reaching the
door that while ascending the stairs I had taken out
the wrong key. I decided to undertake a statistical examination.
As I was daily in about the same emotional state
when I stood before both doors, I thought that the
interchanging of the two keys must show a regular tendency

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if they were differently determined physically. Observation of later occurrences
showed that I regularly took out my house key before
the office door. Only on one occasion was this reversed.
I came home tired, knowing that I would find there
a guest, I made an attempt to unlock the door
with the naturally too big office key b at a

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certain time. Twice a day. For six years, I was
accustomed to wait for admission before a door in the
second story of the same house, and during this long
period of time it happened twice within a short interval
that I climbed a story higher. On the first of
these occasions, I was in an ambitious day dream which

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allowed me to mount always higher and higher. In fact,
at that time, I heard the door in question open
as I put my foot on the first step of
the third floor. On the other occasion, I again went
too far, engrossed in thought. As soon as I became
aware of it, I turned back and sought to snatch
the dominating fantasy. I found that I was irritated over

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a criticism of my works in which the reproach was
made that I always went too far, which I replaced
by the less respectful expression climbed too high c For
many years, a reflex hammer and a tuning fork lay
side by side on my desk. One day, I hurried
off at the close of my office hours as I

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wished to catch a certain train, and despite broad daylight,
put the tuning fork in my coat pocket in place
of the reflex hammer. My attention was called to the
mistake through the weight of the object drawing down my pocket.
Any One accustomed to reflect on such slight occurrences would,
without hesitation, explain the faulty action by the hurry of

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the moment and excuse it. In spite of that, I
preferred to ask myself why I took the tuning fork
instead of the hammer. The haste could just as well
have been a motive for carrying out the action properly,
in order not to waste time over the correction. Who
last grasped the tuning fork was the question which immediately

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flashed through my mind. It happened that, only a few
days ago, an idiotic child whose attention to sensory impressions
I was testing, had been so fascinated by the tuning
fork that I found it difficult to tear it away.
From him. Could it mean therefore, that I was an idiot?
To be sure, so it would seem as the next thought,

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which associated itself with the hammer was calmer Hebrew for
ass But what was the meaning of this abusive language?
We must here inquire into the situation. I hurried to
a consultation at a place on the Western railroad to
see a patient who, according to the anemnesis which I
received by letter, had fallen from a balcony some months before,

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and since then had been unable to walk. The physician
who invited me wrote that he was still unable to
say whether he was dealing with a spinal injury or
traumatic neurosis hysteria. That was what I was to decide.
This could therefore be a reason to be particularly careful
in this delicate differential diagnosis. As it is my colleagues

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think that hysteria is diagnosed far too carelessly where more
serious matters are concerned, but the abuse is not yet justified. Yes.
The next association was that the small railroad station is
the same place in which some years previous I saw
a young man who, after a certain emotional experience, could

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not walk properly. At that time, I diagnosed his malady
as hysteria, and later put him under psychic treatment. But
it afterward turned out that my diagnosis was neither incorrect
nor correct. A large number of the patient's symptoms were hysterical,
and they promptly disappeared in the course of treatment. But

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back of these there was a visible remnant that could
not be reached by therapy and could be referred only
to multiple sclerosis. Those who saw the patient after me
had no difficulty in recognizing the organic affliction. I could
scarcely have acted or judged differently. Still, the impression was

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that of a serious mistake. The promise of a cure
which I had given him could naturally not be kept.
The mistake in grasping the tuning fork instead of the
hammer could therefore be translated into the following words, you fool,
you ass get yourself together this time, and be careful
not to diagnose again a case of hysteria where there

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is an incurable disease, as you did in this place
years ago in the case of the poor man. And
fortunately for this little analysis, even if unfortunately for my mood,
this same man, now having a very nastic gait, had
been to my office a few days before one day
after the examination of the idiotic child, we observe that

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this time it is the voice of self criticism which
makes itself perceptible through the mistake in grasping. The erroneously
carried out action is specially suited to express self reproach.
The present mistake attempts to represent the mistake which was
committed elsewhere d It is quite obvious that grasping the

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wrong thing may also serve a whole series of other
obscure purposes. Here is a first example. It is very
seldom that I break anything. I am not particularly dexterous,
but by virtue of the anatomic integrity of my nervous
and muscular apparatus, there are apparently no grounds in me

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for such awkward movements with undesirable results. I can recall
no object in my home the counterpart of which I
have ever broken. Owing to the narrowness of my study,
it has often been necessary for me to work in
the most uncomfortable position among my numerous antique clay and
stone objects, of which I have a small collection. So

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much is this true that onlookers have expressed fear lest
I topple down something and shatter it, but it never happened.
Then why did I brush to the floor the cover
of my simple inkwell so that it broke into pieces?
My ink stand is made of a flat piece of marble,
which is hollowed out for the reception of the glass inkwell.

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The inkwell has a marble cover with a knob of
the same stone. A circle of bronze statuettes with small
terra cotta figures is set behind this inkstand. I seated
myself at the desk to wright, I made a remarkably
awkward outward movement with the hand holding the pen holder,
and so swept the cover of the inkstand, which already

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lay on the desk, to the floor. It is not
difficult to find the explanation. Some hours before, my sister
had been in the room to look at some of
my new acquisitions. She found them very pretty, and then remarked,
now the desk really looks very well, only the inkstand
does not match. You must get a prettier one. I

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accompanied my sister out and did not return for several hours.
But then, as it seems, I performed the execution of
the condemned inkstand. Did I perhaps conclude from my sister's
words that she intended to present me with a prettier
inkstand on the next festive occasion, and did I shatter
the unsightly old one in order to force her to

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carry out her signified intention. If that be so, then
my swinging motion was only apparently awkward. In reality it
was most skillful and designed, as it understood how to
avoid all the valuable objects located near it. I actually
believe that we must accept this explanation for a whole

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series of seemingly accidental awkward movements. It is true that
on the surface these seem to show something violent and irregular,
similar to spastic taxic movements, But on examination they seem
to be dominated by some intention, and they accomplish their
aim with a certainty that cannot be generally credited to

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conscious arbitrary motions. In both characteristics, the force as well
as the sure aim they show besides a resemblance to
the motor manifestations of the hysterical neurosis, and in part
also to the motor accomplishments of somnambulism, which here as
well as there point to the same unfamiliar modification of

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the functions of innervation. In latter years, since I have
been collecting such observations, it has happened several times that
I have shattered and broken objects of some value. But
the examination of these cases convinced me that it was
never the result of accident or of my unintentional awkwardness. Thus,

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one morning, while in my bath robe and straw slippers,
I followed a sudden impulse as I passed a room
and hurled a slipper from my foot against the wall,
so that it brought down a beautiful little marble venus
from its bracket. As it fell to pieces, I recited,
quite unmoved, the following verse from bush Ac Devinus is

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perdue clicker Huttums von Medici. This crazy action in my
calmness at the sight of the damage is explained in
the then existing situation. We had a very sick person
in the family of whose recovery I had personally despaired.
That morning. I had been informed the that there was
a great improvement. I know that I had said to myself,

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after all, she will live. My attack of destructive madness
served therefore as the expression of a grateful feeling toward fate,
and afforded me the opportunity of performing an active sacrifice,
just as if I had vowed, if she gets well,
I will give this or that as a sacrifice. That
I chose the venus of medici as this sacrifice was

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only gallant homage to the convalescent. But even to day,
it is still incomprehensible to me that I decided so quickly,
aimed so accurately, and struck no other object in close proximity.
Another bregging, in which I utilized a pen holder falling
from my hand, also signified a sacrifice, but this time

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it was a pious offering to avert some evil. I
had once allowed myself to reproach a true and worthy
friend for no other reason than certain manifes, the stations
which I interpreted from his unconscious activity. He took it
amiss and wrote me a letter in which he bade
me not to treat my friends by psychoanalysis. I had

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to admit that he was right, and appeased him with
my answer. While writing this letter, I had before me
my latest acquisition, a small, handsome, glazed Egyptian figure. I
broke it in the manner mentioned, and then immediately knew
that I had caused this mischief to avert a greater one. Luckily,
both the friendship and the figure could be so cemented

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that the break would not be noticed. A third case
of breaking had a less serious connection. It was only
a disguised execution to use an expression from Vischer's Aucheiner
of an object that no longer suited my taste. For
quite a while I had carried a cane with a
silver handle. Through no fault of mine, the silver plate

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was once damaged and poorly repaired. Soon after, after the
cane was returned, I mirthfully used the handle to angle
for the leg of one of my children. In that way,
it naturally broke, and I got rid of it. The
indifference with which we accept the resulting damage in all
these cases may certainly be taken as evidence for the

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existence of an unconscious purpose in their execution, e as
can sometimes be demonstrated by analysis. The dropping of objects
or the overturning and breaking of the same are very
frequently utilized as the expression of unconscious streams of thought,
but more often they serve to represent the superstitious or

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odd significances connected therewith In popular sayings, the meanings attached
to the spilling of salt, the overturning of a wine glass,
the sticking of a knife dropped to the floor, and
so on are well known. I shall discuss later the
right to investigate such superstitious interpretations. Here, I shall simply

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observe that the individual awkward acts do not, by any
means always have the same meaning, but, depending on the circumstances,
they serve to represent now this or that purpose. Recently,
we passed through a period in my house during which
an unusual number of glass and china dishes were broken.

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I myself largely contributed to this damage. This little endemic
was readily explained by the fact that it preceded the
public betrothal of my eldest daughter. On such festivities, it
is customary to break some dishes and utter at the
same time some felicitating expression. This custom may signify a sacrifice,

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or express any other symbolic sense. When servants destroy fragile
objects through dropping them, we certainly do not think in
the first place of a psychologic motive for it. Still,
some obscure motives are not improbable. Even here. Nothing lies
farther far from the uneducated than the appreciation of art

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and works of art. Our servants are dominated by a
foolish hostility against these productions, especially when the objects whose
worth they do not realize become a source of a
great deal of work for them. On the other hand,
persons of the same education and origin employed in scientific
institutions often distinguish themselves by great dexterity and reliability in

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the handling of delicate objects, as soon as they begin
to identify themselves with their masters and consider themselves an
essential part of the staff. I shall here add the
report of a young mechanical engineer, which gives some insight
into the mechanism of damaging things. Some time ago I

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worked with many others in the laboratory of the High
school on a series of complicated experiments on the subject
of elasticity. It was a work that we undertook of
our own volition, but it turned out out that it
took up more of our time than we expected. One day,
while going to the laboratory with f he complained of
losing so much time, especially on this day when he

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had so many other things to do at home. I
could only agree with him, and he added, half jokingly,
alluding to an incident in the previous week. Let us
hope that the machine will refuse to work, so that
we can interrupt the experiment and go home. Earlier in
arranging the work, it happened that F was assigned to
the regulation of the pressure valve. That is, it was

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his duty to carefully open the valve and let the
fluid under pressure flow from the accumulator into the cylinder
of the hydraulic press. The leader of the experiment stood
at the manometer and called a loud stop when the
maximum pressure was reached. At this command, F grasped the
valve and turned it with all his force to the left.

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All valves, without any exception, are closed to the right.
Caused a sudden full pressure in the accumulator of the press,
and as there was no outlet, the connecting pipe burst.
This was quite a trifling accident to the machine, but
enough to force us to stop our work for the
day and go home. It is characteristic moreover, that some

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time later, on discussing this occurrence, my friend F could
not recall the remark that I positively remember his having made.
Similarly to fall, to make a misstep, or to slip
need not always be interpreted as an entirely accidental miscarriage
of a motor action. The linguistic double meaning of these

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expressions points to diverse hidden fantasies which may present themselves
through the giving up of bodily equilibrium. I recall a
number of lighter nervous ailments in women and girls which
made their appearance after falling without injury, and which were
conceived as traumatic hysteria as a result of the shock

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of the fall. At that time, I already entertained the
impression that these conditions had a different connection, that the
fall was already a preparation of the neurosis and an
expression of the same unconscious fantities of sexual content, which
may be taken as the moving forces behind the symptoms.
Was not this very thing meant in the proverb which

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says when a maiden falls, she falls on her back.
We can also add to these mistakes the case of
one who gives a beggar a gold piece in place
of a copper or a silver coin. The solution of
such mishandling is simple. It is an active sacrifice designed
to mollify fate to avert evil. And so on. If

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we hear a tender mother or aunt express concern regarding
the health of a child directly before taking a walk
during which she displays her charity contrary to her usual habit.
We can no longer doubt the sense of this apparently
undesirable action. In this manner, our faulty acts make possible
the practice of all those pious and superstitious customs which

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must shun the light of consciousness because of the strivings
against them. In our unbelieving reason, f that accidental actions
are really intentional will find no greater credence in any
other sphere than in sexual activity, where the border between
the intention and the accident hardly seems discernible. That an

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apparently clumsy movement may be utilized in a most refined
way for sexual purposes. I can verify by a nice
example from my own experience. In a friend's house, I
met a young girl visitor who excited in me a
feeling of fondness which I had long believed extinct, thus
putting me in a jovial, loquacious, and complacent mood. At

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that time. I endeavored to find out how this came about,
as a year before, this same girl made no impression
on me. As the girl's uncle a very old man
entered the room. We both jumped to our feet to
bring him a chair, which stood in the corner. She
was more agile than I and also nearer the object,
so that she was the first to take possession of

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the chair. She carried it with its back to her,
holding both hands on the edge of the seat. As
I got there later and did not give up the
claim to carrying the chair, I suddenly stood directly back
of her, and with both my arms was embracing her
from behind, and for a moment my hands touched her lap.

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I naturally solved the situation as quickly as it came about,
nor did it occur to anybody, how dexterously I had
taken advantage of this awkward movement. Occasionally I have had
to admit to myself that the annoying awkward stepping aside
on the street, whereby for some seconds one steps here
and there, yet always in the same direction as the

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other person, until finally both stop facing each other, that
is barring one's way, repeats in ill mannered provoking conduct
of earlier times and conceals erotic purposes under the mask
of awkwardness. From my psychoanalysis of neurotics. I know that
the so called naivete of young people and children is

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frequently only such a mask employed in order that the
subject may say or do the indecent without restraint. W.
Steckel has reported similar observations in regard to himself. I
entered a house and offered my right hand to the
hostess in a most remarkable way. I thereby loosened the

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bow which held together her loose morning gown. I was
conscious of no dishonorable intent. Still, I executed this awkward
movement with the agility of a juggler g The effects
which result from mistakes of normal persons are, as a rule,
of a most harmless nature. Just for this reason, it

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would be particularly interesting to find out whether mistakes of
considerable importance which could be followed by serious results, as
for example, those of physicians or druggists, fall within the
range of our point of view. As I am seldom
in a position to deal with active medical matters, I

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can only report one mistake from my own experience. I
treated a very old woman whom I visited twice daily
for several years. My medical activities were limited to two
acts which I performed during my morning visits, I dropped
a few drops of an eye lotion into her eyes
and gave her a hypodermic injection of morphine. I prepared

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regularly two bottles, a blue wine containing the eye lotion
and a white wind containing the morphine solution. While performing
these duties, my thoughts were mostly occupied with something else,
for they had been repeated so often that the attention
acted as if free. One morning I noticed that the
automaton worked wrong. I had put the dropper into the

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white instead of into the blue bottle, and had dropped
into the eyes the morphine instead of the lotion. I
was greatly frightened, but then calmed myself through the reflection
that a few drops of a two percent solution of
morphine would not likely do any harm, even if left
in the conjunctival sack. The cause of the fright manifestly

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belonged elsewhere. In attempting to analyze the slight mistake, I
first thought of the phrase to seize the old woman
by mistake, which pointed out the short way to the solution.
I had been impressed by a dream which a young
man had told me the previous evening, the contents of
which could be explained only on the basis of sexual

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intercourse with his own mother. The strangeness of the fact
that the Oedipus legend takes no offense at the age
of Queen Jocasta seemed to me to agree with the
assumption that in being in love with one's mother, we
never deal with the present personality, but with her youthful
memory picture carried over from our childhood. Such incongruities always

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show themselves where one fantasy fluctuating between two periods is
made conscious and is then bound to one definite period.
Deep in thoughts of this kind, I came to my
patient of over ninety I must have been well on
the way to grasp the universal character of the Oedipus
fable as the correlation of the fate which the oracle pronounces.

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For I made a blunder in reference to or on
the old woman. Here again, the mistake was harmless. Of
the two possible errors, taking the morphine solution for the
eye or the eye lotion for the injection, I chose
the one, by far the least harmful. The question still
remains open whether in mistakes in handling things which may

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cause serious harm, we can assume an unconscious intention, as
in the cases here discussed. The following case from Beryl's
experience corroborates the assumption that even serious mistakes are determined
by unconscious intentions. A physician received a telegram informing him
that his aged uncle was very sick. In spite of

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important family affairs at home. He at once repaired to
that distant town because his uncle was really his father,
who had cared for him since he was one and
a half years old when his own father had died.
On reaching there, he found his uncle suffering from pneumonia,
and as the old man was an octogenarian, the doctors

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held out no hope for his recovery. It was simply
a question of a day or two, was the local
doctor's verdict. Although a prominent physician in a big city,
he refused to go operate in the treatment as he
found that the case was properly managed by the local
doctor and he could not suggest anything to improve matters.
Since death was daily expected, he decided to remain to

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the end. He waited a few days, but the sick
man struggled hard, and although there was no question of
any recovery because of the many new complications, which had arisen,
death seemed to be deferred for a while. One night
before retiring, he went into the sick room and took
his uncle's pulse. As it was quite weak, he decided

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not to wait for the doctor and administered a hypodermic injection.
The patient were rapidly worse and died within a few hours.
There was something strange in the last symptoms, and on
later attempting to replace the tube of hypodermic tablets into
the case, he found to his consternation that he had
taken out the wrong tube, and instead of a small

(30:53):
dose of digitalis, he had given a large dose of hiocene.
This case was reat related to me by the doctor
after he read my paper on the Oedipus complex. We
agreed that this mistake was determined not only by his
impatience to get home to his sick child, but also
by an old resentment and unconscious hostility toward his uncle father.

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It is known that in the more serious cases of psychoneuroses,
one sometimes finds self mutilations as symptoms of the disease.
That the psychic conflict may end in suicide can never
be excluded in these cases. Thus, I know from experience,
which some day I shall support with convincing examples that

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many apparently accidental injuries happening to such persons are really
self inflicted. This is brought about by the fact that
there is a constantly lurking tendency to self punishment, usually
expressing itself in self reproach or contributing to the formation
of a symptom which skillfully makes use of an external situation.

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The required external situation may accidentally present itself, or the
punishment tendency may assist it until the way is open
for the desired injurious effect. Such occurrences are by no
means rare, even in cases of moderate severity, and they
betray the portion of unconscious intention through a series of

(32:24):
special features, for example, through the striking presence of mind
which the patients show in the pretended accidents. I will
report exhaustively one in place of many such examples from
my professional experience. A young woman broke her leg below
the knee in a carriage accident, so that she was

(32:44):
bedridden for weeks. The striking part of it was the
lack of any manifestation of pain, and the calmness with
which she bore her misfortune. This calamity ushered in a
long and serious neurotic illness, from which she was finally
cured by psychotherapy. During the treatment, I discovered the circumstances
surrounding the accident, as well as certain impressions which preceded it.

(33:08):
The young woman, with her jealous husband, spent some time
on the farm of her married sister, in company with
her numerous other brothers and sisters, and with their wives
and husbands. One evening, she gave an exhibition of one
of her talents. Before this intimate circle, she danced artistically,
the can can, to the great delight of her relatives,

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but to the great annoyance of her husband, who afterward
whispered to her, again, you have behaved like a prostitute.
The words took effect. We will leave it undecided whether
it was just on account of the dance. That night,
she was restless in her sleep, and the next forenoon
she decided to go out driving. She chose the horses herself,

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refusing one team and demanding another. Her youngest sister wished
to have her baby with its nurse accompany her, but
she opposed this vehemently. During the drive, she was nervous
she reminded the coachman that the horses were getting skittish,
and as the fidgety animals really produced a momentary difficulty,

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she jumped from the carriage in fright and broke her leg,
while those remaining in the carriage were uninjured. Although after
the disclosure of these details we can hardly doubt that
this accident was really contrived, we cannot fail to admire
the skill which forced the accident to meet out a
punishment so suitable to the crime. For as it happened,

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cancn dancing with her became impossible for a long time.
Concerning self inflicted injuries of my own experience, I cannot
report anything in calm times, but under extraordinary conditions I
do not believe myself incapable of such acts. When a
member of my family complains that he or she has

(34:55):
bitten his tongue, bruised her finger, and so on, instead
of the expect sympathy, I put the question why did
you do that? But I have most painfully squeezed my
thumb after a youthful patient acquainted me during the treatment
with his intention naturally not to be taken seriously of
marrying my eldest daughter, while I knew that she was

(35:18):
then in a private hospital in extreme danger of losing
her life. One of my boys, whose vivacious temperament was
wont to put difficulties in the management of nursing him
in his illness, had a fit of anger one morning
because he was ordered to remain in bed during the forenoon,
and threatened to kill himself a way out suggested to

(35:39):
him by the newspapers. In the evening, he showed me
a swelling on the side of his chest, which was
the result of bumping against the door knob. To my
ironical question why he did it and what he meant
by it, the eleven year old child explained, that was
my attempt at suicide, which I threatened this morning. However,
I did not believe that my views on self inflicted

(36:02):
wounds were accessible to my children at that time. Whoever
believes in the occurrence of semi intentional self inflicted injury,
if this awkward expression be permitted, will become prepared to
accept through it the fact that, aside from conscious intentional suicide,
there also exists semi intentional annihilation with unconscious intentions, which

(36:27):
is capable of aptly utilizing a threat against life and
masking it as a casual mishap. Such mechanism is by
no means rare, for the tendency to self destruction exists
to a certain degree in many more persons than in
those who bring it to completion. Self inflicted injuries are,
as a rule, a compromise between this impulse and the

(36:50):
forces working against it. And even where it really comes
to suicide, the inclination has existed for a long time
with less strength, or as an an unconscious and repressed tendency.
Even suicide consciously committed chooses its time means an opportunity.
It is quite natural that unconscious suicide should wait for

(37:13):
a motive to take upon itself one part of the causation,
and thus free it from its oppression by taking up
the defensive forces of the person. These are in no
way idle discussions which I here bring up. More than
one case of apparently accidental misfortune on a horse or
out of a carriage has become known to me whose

(37:34):
surrounding circumstances justified the suspicion of suicide. For example, during
an officer's horse race, one of the riders fell from
his horse and was so seriously injured that a few
days later he succumbed to his injuries. His behavior after
regaining consciousness was remarkable in more than one way, and

(37:56):
his conduct previous to the accident was still more remarkable.
He had been greatly depressed by the death of his
beloved mother, had crying spells in the society of his comrades,
and to his trusted friends, had spoken of the tedium vitae.
He had wished to quit the service in order to
take part in a war in Africa, which had no

(38:17):
interest for him. Formerly a keen rider, he had later
evaded riding whenever possible. Finally, before the horse race from
which he could not withdraw, he expressed a sad foreboding which,
most expectedly, in the light of our conception, came true.
It may be contended that it is quite comprehensible, without

(38:38):
any further cause, that a person in such a state
of nervous depression cannot manage a horse as well as
on normal days. I quite agree with that, only I
should think to look for the mechanism of this motor
inhibition through nervousness in the intention of self destruction. Here emphasized,
doctor Phrenzi has left to me for publication the analysis

(39:01):
of an apparently accidental injury by shooting, which he explained
as an unconscious attempt at suicide. I can only agree
with his deduction. Ja twenty two years old Carpenter visited
me on the eighteenth of January nineteen o eight. He
wished to know whether the bullet which pierced his left

(39:22):
temple March twentieth, nineteen o seven could or should be
removed by operation. Aside from occasional not very severe headaches,
he felt quite well. Also, the objective examination showed nothing
besides the characteristic powder wound on the left temple, so
that I advised against an operation. When questioned concerning the

(39:45):
circumstances of the case, he asserted that he injured himself accidentally.
He was playing with his brother's revolver, and believing that
it was not loaded, he pressed it with his left
hand against the left temple. He has not left hand,
put his finger on the trigger, and the shot went off.
There were three bullets in the sixth shooter. I asked

(40:07):
him how he came to carry the revolver, and he
answered that it was at the time of his army
conscription that he took it to the inn the evening
before because he feared fights. At the army examination, he
was considered unfit for service on account of Verko's veins,
which caused him much mortification. He went home and played

(40:28):
with the revolver. He had no intention of hurting himself,
but the accident occurred. On further questioning whether he was
otherwise satisfied with his fortune, He answered with a side
and related a love affair with a girl who loved
him in return, but nevertheless left him. She emigrated to
America out of sheer avariciousness. He wanted to follow her,

(40:51):
but his parents prevented him. His lady love left on
the twentieth of January nineteen o seven, just two months
before the accident. Despite all these suspicious elements, the patience
insisted that the shot was an accident. I was firmly convinced, however,
that the neglect to find out whether the revolver was

(41:11):
loaded before he began to play with it, as well
as the self inflicted wound, were physically determined. He was
still under the depressing effects of the unhappy love affair
and apparently wanted to forget everything in the army. When
this hope too, was taken away from him, he resorted
to playing with the weapon, that is, to an unconscious

(41:33):
attempt at suicide. The fact that he did not hold
the revolver in the right but in the left hand
speaks conclusively in favor of the fact that he was
really only playing, that is, he did not wish consciously
to commit suicide. Another analysis of an apparently accidental self
inflicted wound, detailed to me by an observer recalls the saying,

(41:57):
he who digs a pit for others falls in himself.
Missus X, belonging to a good middle class family, is
married and has three children. She is somewhat nervous, but
never needed any strenuous treatment, as she could sufficiently adapt
herself to life. One day, she sustained a rather striking,

(42:18):
though transitory, disfigurement of her face in the following manner,
she stumbled in a street that was in process of
repair and struck her face against the house wall. The
whole face was bruised, the eyelids blue and edematus, and
as she feared that something might happen to her eyes,
she sent for the doctor. After she was calmed, I

(42:40):
asked her, but why did you fall in such a manner.
She answered that just before the accident, she warned her husband,
who had been suffering for some months from a joint affliction,
to be very careful in the street, and she often
had the experience that, in some remarkable way, those things
occurred to her against which she warned others. I was

(43:02):
not satisfied with this as the determination of her accident,
and asked her whether she had not something else to
tell me. Yes, just before the accident she noticed a
nice picture in a shop on the other side of
the street, which she suddenly desired as an ornament for
her nursery, and wished to buy it at once. She
thereupon walked across to the shop without looking at the street,

(43:25):
stumbled over a heap of stones, and fell with her
face against the wall, without making the slightest effort to
shield herself with her hands. The intention to buy the
picture was immediately forgotten, and she walked home in haste.
But why were you not more careful, I asked, Oh,
she said, perhaps it was only a punishment for that
episode which I confided to you. Has this episode still

(43:48):
bothered you? Yes, later, I regretted it very much. I
considered myself wicked, criminal and immoral, but at the time
I was almost crazy with nervousness. She referred to an
abortion which was started by a quack and had to
be brought to completion by a gynecologist. This abortion was
initiated with the consent of her husband, as both wished,

(44:10):
on account of their pecuniary circumstances, to be spared from
being additionally blessed with children. She said, I had often
reproached myself with the words, you really had your child killed,
and I feared that such a crime would not remain unpunished.
Now that you have assured me that there is nothing
seriously wrong with my eyes, I am quite assured I

(44:32):
have already been sufficiently punished. This accident, therefore, was, on
the one hand, a retribution for her sin, but on
the other hand, it may have served as an escape
from a more dire punishment which she had feared for
many months. In the moment that she ran to the
shop to buy the picture, the memory of this whole history,

(44:52):
with its fears, already quite active in her unconscious at
the time, she warned her husband, became overwhelming and could
perhaps find expression in words like these, But why do
you want an ornament for the nursery. You who had
your child killed, You are a murderer. The great punishment
is surely approaching. This thought did not become conscious, but

(45:14):
instead of it, she made use of the situation, I
might say, of the psychologic moment, to utilize, in a
commonplace manner, the heap of stones to inflict upon herself
this punishment. It was for this reason that she did
not even attempt to put out her arms while falling,
and was not much frightened. The second, and probably lesser

(45:35):
determinant of her accident was obviously the self punishment for
her unconscious wish to be rid of her husband, who
was an accessory to the crime in this affair. This
was betrayed by her absolutely superfluous warning to be very
careful in the street on account of the stones, for
just because her husband had a weak leg, he was

(45:56):
very careful in walking. If such a rage against one's
own integrity in one's own life can be hidden behind
apparently accidental awkwardness and motor insufficiency, then it is not
a big step forward to grasp the possibility of transferring
the same conception to mistakes which seriously endangered the life

(46:18):
and health of others. What I can put forward as
evidence for the validity of this conception was taken from
my experience with neurotics, and hence does not fully meet
the demands of this situation. I will report a case
in which it was not an erroneously carried out act,
but what may be more aptly termed a symbolic or

(46:40):
chance action that gave me the clue which later made
possible the solution of the patient's conflict. I once undertook
to improve the marriage relations of a very intelligent man,
whose differences with his tenderly attached young wife could surely
be traced to real causes, but he himself admitted could
not be altogether explained through them. He continually occupied himself

(47:04):
with the thought of a separation, which he repeatedly rejected
because he dearly loved his two small children. In spite
of this, he always returned to that resolution and sought
no means to make the situation bearable to himself. Such
an unsettlement of a conflict served to prove to me
that there were unconscious and repressed motives which enforced the

(47:28):
conflicting conscious thoughts. And in such cases I always undertake
to end the conflict by psychic analysis. One day the
man related to me a slight occurrence which had extremely
frightened him. He was sporting with the older child, by
far his favorite. He tossed it high in the air,
and repeated this tossing till finally he thrust it so

(47:49):
high that its head almost struck the massive gas chandelier,
almost but not quite, or say just about. Nothing happened
to the child except that it became dizzy from fright.
The father stood transfixed with the child in his arms,
while the mother merged into an hysterical attack. The particular

(48:09):
facility of this careless movement with the violent reaction in
the parents, suggested to me to look upon this accident
as a symbolic action which gave expression to an evil
intention toward the beloved child. I could remove the contradiction
of the actual tenderness of this father for his child

(48:29):
by referring the impulse to injure it to the time
when it was only one and so small that as
yet the father had no occasion for tender interest in it.
Then it was easy to assume that this man, so
little pleased with his wife at that time, might have
thought if this small being, for whom I have no
regard whatever should die, I would be free and could

(48:51):
separate from my wife. The wish for the death of
this much loved being must therefore have continued unconsciously. From
here it was easy to find the way to the
unconscious fixation of this wish. There was, indeed a powerful
determinant in a memory from the patient's childhood. It referred
to the death of a little brother, which the mother

(49:13):
laid to his father's negligence, and which led to serious
quarrels with threats of separation between the parents. The continued
course of my patient's life, as well as the therapeutic success,
confirmed my analysis. End of Chapter eight