New errors on Freud. What does the expression "Freudian clause" mean?

Surely you heard the expression “Freudian reservation”, maybe someone used it to you, or you just became curious about the history and meaning of this expression. Why is this phenomenon so interesting, and what does the name of the popular Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud have to do with it? Learn from the article.

Sigmund Freud - Austrian psychoanalyst, author of the theory of psychoanalysis. He devoted his research activities to the study of the conscious and subconscious person.

Initially, his theories were negatively perceived by society, they found true recognition and reflection in our time. However, Freud's psychoanalysis is still a leading focus in psychotherapy.

Sigmund Freud was the first to use the method of conversation and. Today it is one of the most popular means of psychotherapy. According to Freud, free associations open a portal between the conscious and unconscious of a person, which helps to find hidden causes of behavior, internal anxieties and fears.

Freud believed that any psychosis is a consequence of memories that cannot be eliminated due to lack of awareness. Because of this, the internal tension becomes even stronger. Associative conversation during psychotherapy helps bring memories, experiences, emotions to the level of the conscious.

What is a Freudian clause

Freud’s reservations are based on the free association method described above. Only this happens not in the office of the psychoanalyst, where the participants are united by a code of ethics and non-disclosure of the content of the conversation, but in any situation, at any time. And, as a rule, this is not the right time and place.

Freud's reservation is the common name for all manifestations of the subconscious. This is not necessarily a word or sound, although more often this is what is meant by a reservation. But hidden, suppressed desires can manifest themselves through typos, facial expressions, gestures.

With a reservation, something important breaks out, but concealed by man. And sometimes he himself does not understand true, desires, thoughts, and therefore the reservation surprises, frightens the author himself.

Reservations are normal. This is the same field for the reflection of the subconscious, like dreams, fantasies, creativity. Do not be alarmed or surprised if you yourself say something strange. Take it into service, analyze. Reservations not only give a lie, but also send signals of internal problems. With the help of mistakes you can understand your true motives, notice a spiritual contradiction, solve it.

Freud believed that any mistake in spoken or written language is the result of the work of the subconscious. But there is still no consensus on this. Some scientists believe that reservations do not always reflect the games of the subconscious. The other part admits that there are Freudian reservations, but all errors cannot be considered so.

However, several modern experiments have confirmed the theory. Here's how one of the experiments went:

Scored two groups of male volunteers.
A very attractive and openly dressed girl was launched into the audience of one of the groups.
Participants from both groups were invited to read phrases-sponerism, in which the first letters of the words are easy to swap: a sweet cake, wash your hair.
That group, in front of which the girl spoke, more often made mistakes in words. Participants read "sweet sex", "grow naked."
In the group where the girl was not, reservations arose less frequently, but they also were. Therefore, it is impossible to unequivocally judge the result.

Later, another experiment was conducted. Fake electrodes were fastened to the participants, which allegedly could shock at any moment. For reading, the phrases “Volin Colt”, “Coca Tolka” were given. As a result, most participants read “Kolka Current” and “Colin Volt”. Again, it is not clear to the end whether this is caused by the fear of a possible electric shock.

Reservations often occur in stressful situations, a state of tension, agitation, fatigue, intoxication. Absent-mindedness, fear, quick speech, and the execution of several tasks at the same time also increase the likelihood of reservations.

Types of reservations

Reservations are just one form of error. In total, Freud identified 4 forms of output of subconscious reactions:

Actions. For example, a person says “take it,” and he puts the item away. Or he says “nice to meet you,” and he hides his hands in his pockets, steps back a couple of steps.
Losing or unconsciously hiding things. Have you ever been able to find the right notebook, folder for a long time? They could not remember where they themselves had put her.
Forgetting, including one's own intentions and motives of already committed actions. They came to the kitchen, but do not remember why. They wanted to say something, but immediately forgot.
Errors in reading, listening, writing, speech. Sometimes we hear our problems in someone else’s speech. “What did you say break?” BUT! Let’s go! ”Whom a person subconsciously wants to tear up - one can only guess.

In the event of errors in reading or listening, not only hidden motives, desires, but also disagreement with the information can influence. In a broad sense, all errors according to Freud reflect the disagreement of the individual with himself or other people, conditions, situation.

Examples of Freudian reservations

Examples we see every day in life. Here are just a few of the possible reservations:

“Good house” instead of “good day” says a person who is tired or preoccupied with household chores.
“Hello, Masha,” the man addresses the girl with a different name. And what kind of Masha? Maybe a lover, or maybe a problem employee at work, or Masha, with whom a dialogue has just taken place, and the person has not yet had time to switch to a new opponent.
“You look disgusting,” one girl compliments another. I wanted to lie and say “otpadno”, but subconscious anger and envy won. Or maybe the girl really doesn’t look very good, then just the truth burst out.
“The fight for honesty is our main enemy,” the false leader blurted out unexpectedly. I wanted to say beautifully "our main friend."

You yourself can name many more examples of Freudian reservations. Perhaps this happened to you. The clause looks different: one letter, a phrase, a phrase, a term completely inappropriate in the context. Suppressed emotions and thoughts erupt unexpectedly.

Be careful in communication, and you will learn much more about the people around you. But do not forget that your secrets can be put on public display.

Psychoanalysis fundamentally changed the worldview of the human soul. For the first time, the sphere of the unconscious was investigated in detail. One of the possible manifestations of the latter is the so-called “Freudian reservation”. What does this mean and what is the opinion of modern psychologists? Find out the answers to these questions.

The structure of the psyche in psychoanalysis

One of the pillars of world psychological thought, Sigmund Freud made most of his discoveries as a result of observation of hysterical patients. He drew attention to the fact that hypnosis and other methods make it possible to discover and then heal the human soul.

As a result, he came to the conclusion that the motives of human actions not only and not so much can be explained solely by logic. This conclusion was contrary to the ideas of science of the XIX - early XX centuries, which elevated faith in the human mind and rational thinking to absolute.

According to Freud, the human psyche has the following essential elements:

I am the realm of the conscious;
Super-I - pressure from social prejudices and stereotypes;
It is an uncontrollable mental sphere. In simple words, they are the basis of human thinking.

In life, each person using his I AM" He is trying to find a common denominator between the moral ideas that exist in society and his deep hidden feelings. As the founder of psychoanalysis believed, the goal for each individual is to be able to tame his unconscious instincts and subordinate them to his mind.

Unconscious by Freud

As Freud believed, the part of thinking that is not sufficiently detected by the mind is unconscious. The filling of this area is made up of various desires and motivations that cannot go outside due to the prevailing ideas in society.

As a result, desires do not disappear anywhere, but continue to dwell somewhere in the corner of consciousness. They determine a significant part of a person’s actions. However, the personality itself is not able to determine the source of some of its actions. In psychoanalysis, it is believed that the correlation of the conscious and the unconscious is clearly in favor of the latter.

This situation can hardly be called healthy, since it leads to unpredictable antics and neuroses. Freud organized their treatment using the mechanism of uncontrolled associations: the patient lies on the couch and gives the doctor everything that only comes to mind.

Currently, the concept is somewhat rethought, and today there are several types of unconscious motives.

We list them briefly:

Having a natural genesis;
Consequence of experience;
The result of sublimation;
The impact of faith;
Unconscious group of people.

Freudian reservation: what is it?

In psychoanalysis, automatic actions, which are a minor error, are called reservations.

Freud himself used two terms: the Greek "parapraxis" ("other action") and the German "felaystungen", which means "violation of the original function." As the psychologist believed, with reservations, the unconscious comes out, which is available for analysis by a specialist.

Among the types of this phenomenon, there are:

Incorrect pronunciation, spelling, recognition of words, characters or images;
The loss of memory of any events, personalities or phenomena;
Loss, loss of sight of something substantial;
Acts of erroneous nature.

Such actions should not be misleading with the initial impression of absurdity. In fact, in a psychoanalytic context, they carry considerable weight. It is the omissions and typos that indicate the presence of desires that have no way out.

A qualified psychoanalyst can find the origins of reservations and various dysfunctional actions.

Types of Slips

In psycholinguistics, the following types of speech errors are distinguished:

Bringing your thoughts into the source language material (for example, “you and me” instead of “you”);
Rearrangement of parts of the sentence and reordering of words (“book for reading” - “reading for a book”)
Replacing syllables in a word;
Removing important parts of a word and whole words;
Errors of lexical selection (use of a word inappropriate to the context);
Rearrangement of morphemes;
Incorrect pronunciation of sounds;
A pun (also called a pun).

Some types of slips are difficult to classify in any particular category. The vast majority of them fall into several groups at once. In linguistics and psychology, there are other classification options.

Freudian reservation: what does it mean, examples

According to the American publication Psychology Today, the average resident of developed countries makes about a couple of mistakes for every thousand words. On average, every day, everyone makes 10 to 20 reservations. Emotional and mental stress seriously increases the likelihood of error.

In 2014, one prominent church hierarch of the Catholic Church, in the presence of a multimillion-dollar audience, uttered obscenities in Italian. An apology immediately followed, but the moment of the reservation circled the entire Internet.
One of the Vesti channel reporters, Maria Morgun, called the Russian legislature the State Duma instead of the State Duma. The word very quickly gained meme status in the Russian-language segment of the World Wide Web.
Another Russian TV journalist in the title “Grand Slam Tournament” replaced the letter “ w" on " h”, Because of which there were associations with the male genital organ.
US Secretary of State C. Rice once mistakenly called the then president of this country, George W. Bush, her husband.
US Senator Edward Kennedy at one of the speeches about the best people in the country began the passage about the female breast.

Alternative explanations

Not all modern psychologists adhere to a common opinion with Sigmund Freud. According to most of the scientific community, linguistic mistakes can be caused by a whole group of reasons that have nothing to do with the unconscious sphere:

Inattention;
Relaxedness;
Lack of knowledge: it is entirely possible that the author of the error is simply not literate enough.
Crash when using speech templates;
The consequences of emotional experiences;
The problem on the part of the listener: it is quite possible that he himself was the victim of a mistake, only a mistake in perception;
Deliberate distortion of speech in order to achieve the attention of the audience. This is a move especially liked by politicians. For example, in the 1930s, one of the US presidential candidates invented the term normalcy, which until then had not existed in the language.

When a speaker makes an absurd speech mistake - swaps words, sounds, letters or even uses the wrong terms - they say that this is a Freudian clause. What does this mean in psychoanalysis? Explanation the true intentions of the interlocutor. However, not all psychologists share this point of view.

Video: Freud Reservations

In this video, a selection of the most original reservations on Freud TV presenters, "bloopers" live:

In his writings, Freud examined the human psyche. He argued that it consists of conscious and unconscious parts that are constantly in conflict with each other. Due to this constant confrontation, a person begins to develop neurosis. The desire to enjoy struggling with self-preservation.

After deep psychological research, Freud identified several groups of unconscious human behavior.

Reservations are when a person, wanting to say something, uses one word instead of another. The same thing can happen. It happens when they read the wrong text that is written or hear not what they say. Of course, hearing impairment in this case does not play any role.

Freud believed that these erroneous actions indicate what really bothers the person at the moment on a subconscious level.

It turns out that any erroneous action is an attempt to break out to the subconscious. Sometimes even the person himself does not realize what he really wants. The subconscious with the help of random reservations or descriptions helps to clarify the situation.

Sigmund Freud believed that any reservation carries a hidden meaning. This was the reason for the appearance of the term “Freudian reservation.” It should be remembered that each such mistake means a desire that is closed in the depths of the subconscious.

Freud believed that primitive instincts were embedded in people. It so happened that a person was constantly forced to suppress his primitive impulses. Society dictated its own rules, which had to be followed. From time immemorial, thoughts and desires have been hidden in the depths of consciousness, but with the slightest weakening of the defensive forces, they strive to break out.

The most striking reservations on Freud

The most famous were some phrases of politicians and television presenters. For example, George W. Bush, when he was president of the United States, regularly pleased the world community with numerous Freudian reservations. So, about the situation in Iraq, he said: “It takes a lot of time to restore chaos.”

Former Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Kudrin, speaking at an international forum, said: “The fight against corruption is the most important evil for Russia.”

Another popular mistake is forgetting or confusing names. It often happens when a man calls his spouse the name of another woman. According to Freud’s theory, this behavior indicates that he thinks of another, without even realizing it.

No matter how much his opponents scolded or admired Sigmund Freud, over and over again I am convinced that the grandfather of psychoanalysis saw and knew a lot. His theories have a place to be. His theory of reservations has been of considerable interest over many decades. After all, what is a Freudian clause?

Freudian slipnothing more than the “saying out loud” of our unconscious. Freud believed that various unconscious desires often cause mental problems about which a person is not able to tell in any way, sometimes these problems are not even realized by a person at a conscious level.

So the term "Freudian reservation" is nothing more than this: it is the exit of latent desire out. A person does not always realize that he wants something, and the subconscious mind, as a true guardian of a person’s mental health, brings hidden thoughts out through random reservations or descriptions. A Freudian reservation is not just a trivial, insignificant mistake, it is an exit of hidden desires, and sometimes a request for help from an unconscious person.

The trouble is that sometimes it’s hard to understand the nature of their appearance. However: nothing is impossible. If you wish, you can try to find it out.

Sigmund Freud created the theory of reservations.
According to this theory, all errors of human speech can be divided into:
1 - all reservations, stonecrops, first names, and clerical errors;
2 - all memory problems: forgetting names, plans, impressions, words, hiding things and other erroneous actions;
3 - gestures and facial expressions that do not match the purpose.

If these problems have a place to be, then they must have a reason. There is no chance in the world, there are only patterns. Another thing is that not all of them are subject to understanding. The further a person tries to push back his desires and needs, the more clearly they come out, expressed in words, actions, actions.

It often seems to us that they can occur during periods of fatigue, depression, or vice versa mental overexcitation, that they mean absolutely nothing. However: “Accidents are not accidental,” the Chinese sages echo Sigmund Freud.

If you look at the question of why a person made such a mistake, you can see that it did not happen by chance and that every action has a certain hidden meaning.

To understand the whole point of Freud’s reservations, try to listen carefully and, most importantly, to see speeches by politicians of any rank. You will be surprised to see that words, gestures, and how phrases are constructed are often completely different. Of course, many of the politicians know about this and control themselves, but not all can be controlled.

During the televised address, Senator Ted Kennedy wanted to say that "The national interest should be to promote the best (" best ") and the brightest people." Instead, Kennedy blurted out a “breast,” even with his cup clasped. He also quickly recovered and continued his speech, but this incident affected his reputation.

Observing ordinary people further confirms Freud's theory. For example, if you tell guests who you didn’t really want to see on your doorstep that you are “not happy about their visit” instead of “we are happy about your visit”, then you should not be surprised at their fleeting stay in your house.

Another variation of the popular mistake is forgetting names. We often forget the names of those who are not interesting to us. We forget and cannot remember the words that our unconscious would not want to repeat. Here it’s why, the plot of the film “We met somewhere,” where the hero of Vasily Merkuryev, the director of the theater, forgot the word for “s”, is conscience.

Grandfather Freud believed that all these "accidents" arose in human society precisely because of its development. Civilization was built in such a way that all natural, read animals, impulses needed to be suppressed. Suppressed, they hid deep in the subconscious and periodically begin to "rebel", breaking out.

And if your subconscious mind began to “express” unflatteringly for one reason or another. Your internal censor has let out your long-hidden desires.

If you began to notice frequent reservations, clerical errors, errors, please contact. I will always be glad to help you understand what they are telling you.

Everyone knows the expression: "Freud's reservation." But not everyone knows what Freud himself said about this, and why reservations, as well as clerical errors, stonecrops and other “erroneous actions” can sometimes tell us something that another person would like to hide even from himself.

As in the days of the founder of psychoanalysis, even now, reservations are often considered only a linguistic phenomenon, a kind of “brain failure”. This position, for example, is advocated by Meringer and Mayer in their work “Slips and Stonecrops”. According to the authors, the slip is due to the different intensity of the elements of the word. It would seem that everything is logical. But not for Freud. The “great paranoid” of all times and peoples, and in such innocent things as a reservation, sees a “secret meaning”. Parrying the above authors, he, first of all, indicates that the most intense element of the word (and this is always the initial or stressed syllable) is not necessarily restored to consciousness first.

When you observe yourself in search of a forgotten name, quite often there is confidence that this name begins with such a letter. This confidence turns out to be erroneous as often as it has reason. I would even dare to say that in most cases the letter is indicated incorrectly.

? Sigmund Freud, “The Psychopathology of Everyday Life”

What is the reason for the Freud clauses / stonecrops / descriptions? A lover of everything illogical, confident in the "animal" nature of man, Freud sees it in the so-called condensation mechanism? the very thing that makes our dreams so strange, by the way. Let’s explain.

Sigmund Freud

Let's start from afar. Right from the primitive man. Thickening? This is one of the characteristic features of the worldview of our ancestors. The fact is that for primitive thinking it is characteristic to perceive reality as certain separate large pieces, it is not yet able to attach importance to nuances, analyze details and compare them with each other. Chaos reigns in primitive thinking; there is neither logic, nor the ability to analyze or synthesize.

The same processes live and live in our unconscious? the heritage of primitive times. In real life, they do not show much, showing a “nose” only with neurotic and psychotic symptoms, dreams, humor and reservations.

The ball, the so-called primary process, rules in the unconscious (the secondary process in psychology is the name of all the processes for which our consciousness is responsible: this is rational thinking, logic, analysis and synthesis of any information, etc.). The primary process, as well as primitive thinking, in addition to everything else, is literally “thickened” in color, no matter how strange it may seem.

This is easiest to explain in dreams. Have you ever dreamed in a dream of someone about whom it would be impossible to say for certain that he is your father, brother or work colleague? It seems that he has all the features of these people, and at the same time does not look like any of them. If you saw, then you saw "in action" and the work of condensation.

What are the reservations here? The involuntary contamination of words, according to Freud, is also a product of the condensation process, a kind of verbal “vinaigrette”. But where does the "secret meaning" come from?

From there, from where the "treacherous" Freud sees him. Indeed, in his opinion, our “dreams” are most often full of such “meanings”. The thickening process? only a "puppet", a comfortable mask, under which something "secret", that we would like to hide, can be hidden.

The fact is that at any time of the day or night (but mainly the day) the so-called "censorship" is on guard of order in our psyche. Is it a conscience for someone, for someone? shame, for someone? banal fear of retaliation. Her legs grow from childhood when our parents taught us to be “good” children. Any child wants to realize all his whims. But not all of them are convenient for others, therefore a “veto” of indecency, condemnation, etc. is imposed on them. Here we must stop and declare with full responsibility: in many cases, all these “prohibitions” are more than appropriate, both for the person himself and to save society as a whole. However, this does not negate the fact that they are also convenient for society, and often for an individual? no.

So, the child wants to be loved, so he certainly needs to become "good." He becomes, gradually supplanting any memories of his "bad", and explaining it as a child. In fact, as it is clear, no “bad”, unfortunately or fortunately, does not exist at all, this is just a concept that is convenient to scare naughty children. In addition, someone’s “badness” is often not at all a “badness” per se, that is, it does no harm to one’s neighbor (except to those whom she prevents herself from expressing her own desires. For example, a wife who does not take care of herself who reproaches her husband for lack of passion, or for a guy (and, sometimes, an entire nation) with low self-esteem, who considers the integrity of a girl to meet him as the highest virtue).

These are the roots of “censorship”, which is responsible for ensuring that “bad” thoughts (condemned by society or just specific significant people, parents, spouses, etc.) do not leak into our consciousness. But "censorship", again, fortunately or unfortunately, is not as strong as she would have liked. Sometimes it bends under the pressure of internal desires. Such “deflections” include such seemingly nonsense things as reservations.

It is interesting that reservations, stonecrops, clerical errors, any erroneous actions are in no way condemned by society. It is not customary to think about them for a long time, they are considered a game of our mind, an annoying mistake, no more.

It is also interesting that if a wife is “mistaken”, for example, in a dream, will call her husband Vasya Kolya? it threatens her with a divorce. Should a guy be late for an hour? any excuses that he forgot to switch the clock, overslept, accidentally confused the time, etc. "will be used against him." The same applies to an unlearned lesson, being late for work, because I overslept, etc.

However, for someone? reservations will still remain trifles that should not be given importance. Freud would hardly have insisted on his innocence, if for someone his arguments seemed unconvincing, we will not insist. And just suggest you watch a series of funny reservations from famous people.

Video is not directly related to the content of this article, being only an illustration to it.Naked Science does not hint at anything or blame, giving readers the right to draw their own conclusions.

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