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The Psychopathology of Everyday Life

Sigmund Freud,

A.A. Brill (Translator)

3.86 · Rating details · 3,858 ratings · 156 reviews

In "The Psychopathology of Everyday Life" Freud examines the psychological basis for the forgetting of names and words, the misuse of words in speech and in writing, and other similiar errors. Freud's examination of the subject is extensively discussed through the use of anecdotes and examples. "The Psychopathology of Everyday Life" makes for one of Freud's more readable w ...more

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Paperback, 116 pages

Published January 1st 2005 by Digireads.com (first published 1901)

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Sep 07, 2019 Jan-Maat added it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, 20th-century, psychology

I felt reading that perhaps the best review would be to simply refer to this picture.

This because Freud in this book is pointing towards a range of everyday phenomena: forgetfulness, slips of the tongue or pen, mis-printings, misreadings, inadvertent actions, and asserting that they are not what they appear. For social reasons we class these things as forgetfulness or accidents, but in some cases, such as the ones Freud describes and explains in this book, there is purpose and meaning.

It was a f I felt reading that perhaps the best review would be to simply refer to this picture.

This because Freud in this book is pointing towards a range of everyday phenomena: forgetfulness, slips of the tongue or pen, mis-printings, misreadings, inadvertent actions, and asserting that they are not what they appear. For social reasons we class these things as forgetfulness or accidents, but in some cases, such as the ones Freud describes and explains in this book, there is purpose and meaning.

It was a fun book to read, partly because many of the stories and examples of Freudian slips were funny, and partly because it sparked off reminiscences, many of which like putting the keys to the fire proof safe in my pocket and taking them home over the weekend rather than back in the key cabinet where they belonged would amuse no one other than myself.

One theme of Freud's psychology is how it emerges from his reading of literature in general, but from culture more generally, he is in his writings making explicit what we already subconsciously understand - some of the points he makes are literally proverbial. On the other hand one can see in this grounds for the rejection of Freud, generally because we rely on fictions and lies to get through our daily lives, and professionally one can hear some people shouting beyond the pages that one can't learn about human psychology by reading Shakespeare and Goethe! No! To learn about human psychology one has to put rats in a cage and see if they prefer to drink a morphine solution or sugar water once you give them electric shocks, or take a monkey baby away from its mother and see if it prefers a wire replacement mother from which they get food, or a wire replacement mother covered in towelling when you frighten it!

I felt the text was in many ways a mirror to Freud and perhaps more autobiographical than he (consciously) wanted. It is like other Freud books I have read relentlessly convivial full of friends, colleagues and conversation, this I imagine was the life that Freud wanted to live but as a Jew who had come to the big city as a child from the provinces, who found himself in his development of psychoanalysis outside the mainstream of Viennese professional society, he must have had many lonely years. And since many of the anecdotes are drawn from his own experiences he shares with us evidence of his frustrations, of feeling under valued, slighted, and ignored. There's a sense that he wanted to talk about sex, anti-semitism, money - but that all those topics (and no doubt many others too) were socially unacceptable, and so pop up, corks in water, in curious ways - in Freudian slips.

"Those symptomatic actions that can be observed in almost inexhaustible profusion in both the healthy and the sick deserve our interest for several reasons. They often give the doctor valuable help in finding his way in new or unfamiliar circumstances, and they are extremely revealing to the observer of human nature, sometimes uncovering even more than he wanted to know. Anyone with a good understanding of them must sometimes feel like King Solomon, said in oriental legend to know the language of animals." (p.191) Could it be that Freud describes his own feelings in this passage and those of his circle - we, as students of human nature, can now read a person sometimes before they say a word. This legendary sill of cold reading would have allowed the august Freud to have become a great palm reader or clairvoyant, his words also put me in mind of someone else with remarkably similar skills - Sherlock Holmes. His skills were derived by Conan Doyle from one of his instructors at medical school. Doctors at the turn of the nineteenth century, lacking the tools and technologies that we are used to, had to be far more alert to their patients it seems.

This was a new translation by the late Anthea Bell (famous to me for translations of various Asterix stories) that aimed to avoid the terminology developed for and by English speaking Freudian psychoanalysts, I think this helped to produce a more approachable text. ...more

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Jun 01, 2008 Rick rated it really liked it

I learned why I have lost so many umbrellas in my life. Why I try to open my office door with my house key. Now, why should my hats and caps have half-lives of less than a year? Where is that mosquito control association cap I got from the World's Leading Authority? Freud pretty much convinced me that what my grandma told me - "Lost objects go to the Moon" - is not true. Venus, maybe.

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Jul 11, 2019 Michael A. rated it it was amazing

Brilliant and accessible, demonstrating a wide variety of examples and phenomena that are posited by Freud as essentially repressed/unconscious associations coming to the forefront (i.e. the first number that pops into your head isn't really "random", the classic "Freudian slip" [translated as speech-blunder here], when you forget the name of something but "know you'll recognize it when you see it", etc.)

Fundamentally changed my outlook on the psyche and got me into the world of psychoanalysis.. ...more

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Oct 02, 2007 Curt Bozif rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Anyone who read his Interpretation of Dreams

Shelves: psychoanalysis

How to make people really self-conscious when they drop, slip, miss-spell, forget, are late, or bump into something.

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May 12, 2013 Maureen rated it really liked it

Surprisingly good.

Now that we live in a post-Fruedian universe - it is very interesting to go back and see how it all came about - this book was very readable, the stories he tells, he tells well. It's not always easy to catch everything he is getting at - but in general a very good thesis.

i don't go all the way with his ideas, and he was pedantic, a little Victorian demigod, but all the same fun to read.

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Sep 21, 2019 Shya̋m rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: freud

Once I had corrected his mistake, I asked him to explain it, and received the usual rather surprised answers: surely everyone had a right to make a slip of the tongue now and then, it was only a coincidence, there was nothing behind it, etc. I replied that every slip of the tongue was made for some reason . . . He added that a man like me, meticulously studying every tiny detail, was positively dangerous, and then he suddenly recollected another appointment and left us.
__________
If one of my fa

Once I had corrected his mistake, I asked him to explain it, and received the usual rather surprised answers: surely everyone had a right to make a slip of the tongue now and then, it was only a coincidence, there was nothing behind it, etc. I replied that every slip of the tongue was made for some reason . . . He added that a man like me, meticulously studying every tiny detail, was positively dangerous, and then he suddenly recollected another appointment and left us.
__________
If one of my family complains of having bitten his or her tongue, pinched a finger, or so on, I am inclined to ask: ‘What did you do that for?’ Instead of offering the sympathy expected of me.

__________
Forgetting, Slips, Inadvertant Actions, Mistakes; these do not just happen by chance, Freud explains, but there are reasons (repression, anxiety, etc.) for most, if not each instance of them.

In each chapter, Freud gives numerous accounts, both first- and second-hand, of how different types of psychopathologies of everyday life can be explained by examining the subject's state of mind at the time of each incident.

See a more extensive example below:

Last summer—again while I was away on holiday—I renewed my acquaintance with a young man who had an academic education and, as I soon realised, was familiar with several of my psychological publications. I no longer remember how we broached the subject but we were talking about the social standing of the race to which we both belong, and he, being an ambitious man, was deploring the fact that his generation, as he put it, was condemned to waste away unable to develop its talents or satisfy its needs. He concluded his passionately felt remarks with that famous line of Virgil in which the unfortunate Dido urges posterity to avenge her on Aeneas: Exoriare . . . or rather that was how he meant to conclude, for he could not finish the quotation, and sought to conceal an obvious gap in his memory by rearranging the words: Exoriar(e) ex nostris ossisbus ultor! At last he said, in some annoyance:

—Please don’t smile in that ironic way as if you were relishing my difficulty—you might help me instead. There’s something the matter with the line. How does the whole thing really go?
—I’ll be happy to tell you, I replied, and quoted the line as it really runs: Exoriar(e) aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor! [May someone rise, as avenger, from my bones!]
—How stupid of me to forget a word like that. But you’re always saying that people don’t forget things for no reason at all. Can you tell me how I came to forget the impersonal pronoun aliquis?
I readily accepted the challenge, hoping for a contribution to my collection, so I said
—We can get to the root of it at once if you’ll tell me everything that occurs to you when you concentrate on the word you forgot, without any definite intention in mind but honestly and exercising no critical judgement.
—All right, I think of the ridiculous idea of dividing the word into two parts, like this: a and liquis.
—What does that suggest to you?
—I’ve no idea.
—So what else occurs to you?
—Well it goes on like this: relics—liquidation—liquidity—fluid. Does that tell you any more?
—No, not by a long way. But go on.
—Well, he continued with a sarcastic laugh, I think of Simone of Trento, whose relics I saw a couple of years ago in a church in that city. I think of the accusations of ritual sacrifice once again being levelled against the Jews these days, and I think of the work by Kleinpaul, who sees all the alleged victims as incarnations of the Saviour, new editions of him, so to speak.
—That idea isn’t entirely unconnected with the subject we were discussing before you forgot the Latin word.
—You’re right. And then I think of a piece I read recently in an Italian newspaper. I think the headline was: The Opinions of Saint Augustine on Women. What do you make of that?
—I’m still waiting to see.
—Well, now I come to something that quite certainly has no connection with our subject.
—I did ask you to abstain from any critical judgement.
—All right, I know. Well, I remember a fine-looking old gentleman whom I met on my travels last week. A real original who looks like a great bird of prey. His name is Benedikt, in case that’s of any interest.
—At least we now have a whole series of saints and church fathers:St Simon, St Augustine, St Benedikt. And I believe one of the church fathers was called Origen. What’s more, three of those names are first names, like Paul, part of the surname Kleinpaul.
—Next I think of St Januarius and the miracle of his blood—but I imagine all this is just mechanical association.
—Never mind that; St Januarius and St Augustine are both connected with the calendar. Can you remind me of the miracle of the saint’s blood?
—Oh, surely you know that! There’s a phial of the blood of St Januarius which is kept in a Neapolitan church and miraculously liquifies on a certain east-day. The people think highly of this miracle and get very upset if it is late to occur, as it once was under French occupation. At the time the commanding general—or am I wrong there? Was it Garibaldi?—well, he took the print aside and let him know, indicating the soldiers posted outside in a very meaningful manner, that he very much hoped the miracle would soon take place. And sure enough, so it did . . .
—Well go on. Why do you hesitate?
—I’ve just thought of something . . . but it’s too private to tell you . . . anyway, I can’t see any connection, so there’s no need to mention it.
—Leave me to make the connections. I can’t force you to tell me something if you’d rather not, but in that case you can’t ask me to tell you how you came to forget the word aliquis either.
—Really? You think not? Very well, I suddenly thought of a lady who might soon be giving me news that would be very unwelcome to both of us.
—You mean she’s missed her period?
—How on earth did you guess that?
—It’s not so difficult. You gave me plenty of background information. Remember the calendar saints, the liquefaction of the blood on a certain day, the agitation when it failed to occur, the overt threat to the effect that the miracle must happen, or else . . . The fact is that you reworked the miracle of St Januarius to make it an ingenious reference to the lady’s period.
—I had no idea. Do you really think I couldn’t come up with that little word aliquis just because I’m waiting anxiously for news?
—I’m sure of it. Remember the way you separated it into a-liquis, and then the associations with relics, liquidation, fluid. And need I point out how St Simon the child martyr, of whom the relics reminded you, fits into this context?
—I’d rather you didn’t;t. I hope you won’t take these ideas of mine seriously—that is, if I ever really had them. In return I’ll confess that the lady is Italian, and I went to Naples with her. But couldn’t it all be coincidence?
—I must leave you to your own judgement to decide whether you can explain away all these connections by assuming confidence. But I can tell you that any similar case, if you care to offer it for analysis, will lead you to equally remarkable “coincidences”.

Joyce and Proust were two authors who were in my mind throughout reading: the former with his one- or few-word sentences, where each word bears degrees of association to the next, replicating more concisely what Freud in many of his examples attempts to squeeze out of his patients in the form of free-association; the latter in his many oceanic tangents (of a much deeper, extensive, and more meaningful nature) into associations via memories.

Maybe our everyday psychopathologies have no explanation at all; but what if they do? What if every single instance can be explained?
__________
I will add that the lady had sufficient real reasons to wish her children dead. They gave her no joy, only sorrow, they severely limited her freedom of action, and she had given up any idea of happiness in love for their sake.

Anyone watching his fellow men eating will notice some very interesting and instructive symptomatic actions.

Girls who are proud of their beautiful hair arrange their combs and hairpins so skilfully that their hair is bound to come down in the middle of a conversation. ...more

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Sep 18, 2010 Alex Csicsek rated it really liked it

Yeah yeah yeah, Frued has been discredited by over half a century of physiological study, and his theories are filled with holes and contradictions even when taken on their own terms, but come on... this stuff is fun.

The Psychopathology of Everyday Life is an interesting, accessible book demonstrating the existence of the psyche in the most mundane of circumstances, such as when having a conversation or trying to recall a name. Each chapter deals with the different manifestations of the psyche t ...more

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Sep 11, 2017 BellaGBear rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

Interesting book with a lot of theories that make you think about little memory quirks in day to day life. I did not agree with everything, but that is also not really the point with books like that. The fact that theories are explained well is more important. Also he uses a lot of examples to explain his points, which was very functional in my opinion.

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Jan 18, 2013 Anna rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: in-hungarian, psychology

Finished it finally. Jung's next.
I don't think I'll read Freud again. Why? Because I've had the impression that Freud's full of himself, the quantity of the examples are too damn much and the theories... I have to admit, some of them were interesting and made me think, but most of them are just annoying. The whole book is annoying and doesn't make any sense. I cannot believe most of psychology is based on this guy's thoughts.

And I have another thing I have to mention, but it's not Freud's fault. ...more

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May 28, 2018 Jack rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: europe, 20th-century, philosophy-theory-psychoanalysis

I have a confused perception of Freud, something this book exacerbated rather than demystified. I'm not a psychologist, but I am someone that's been alive, interested and at least semi-observant of human behaviour for over twenty years. To that end, I feel as though I should be able to come to some conclusions about what people are like, their individuality, what drives them, innermost emotions etc. One has to, to a degree, understand people just to get on with living.

That 'degree' is what's so I have a confused perception of Freud, something this book exacerbated rather than demystified. I'm not a psychologist, but I am someone that's been alive, interested and at least semi-observant of human behaviour for over twenty years. To that end, I feel as though I should be able to come to some conclusions about what people are like, their individuality, what drives them, innermost emotions etc. One has to, to a degree, understand people just to get on with living.

That 'degree' is what's so puzzling. If psychology is (if only partially) understood to be a science, then psychologists must have some authoritative knowledge of human behaviours. One has to trust in authorities in some sense, if not to wallow in absurdity. Gravity has an effect on me even if I don't believe in it. I understand that electricity is involved in powering my laptop, even if I don't know how any of it works.
My perception of scientific knowledge is incongruent with my perceptions of psychology. I understand that capital P Psychologists today hold Freud to little regard, that many of his theories are debunked. If I read a book like this, and find it compelling and decent at offering explanations for minor mishaps and oddities of everyday life, am I convincing myself of a falsehood? Yet significant ideas from Freud are tossed about and influence various aspects of pop culture, aren't they? To say nothing of the more explicit Freudian inspiration found in modernist literature while he was alive.
It feels wrong to be mistrustful of perceived authorities deriding Freud, but for the moment, I'm reading Freud and not his detractors, so I can only understand his works as being interesting and potentially helpful in interpreting aspects of my consciousness and that of others.

This book (to finally mention it specifically) focuses on psychological minutia - the Freudian slip, forgetting names, etc. so I didn't find it the most helpful authoritative guide to What Freudianism Is so I can follow that up with What Freudianism Isn't, but it does seem to say many things that I feel are taken for granted by me or by others I meet. He uses lots of examples from his own experience and that of others - probably more than is necessary to explain his ideas; I certainly skimmed through a few. It's quite an accessible book, if a little clumsy in translation, it being a book about mistaken words - one would not need to look at so many footnotes in German.

It isn't accessible in the sense that one, like me, sceptical about Freudian theory yet sceptical also about that inherent, learned scepticism, will come to any ready conclusions. The more I try to articulate my apprehensions of guiding narratives of human behaviour, sanity and madness the more immediately I feel I must conclude by saying 'I believe in nothing, I know nothing, it's all relative,' but I don't believe that at all. Who would? If I can't come to any decent conclusion myself, my inclination is to say 'maybe it is impossible to make conclusions', but that thought is both lazy and discouraging. I have a lot more reading and thinking to do. ...more

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Jun 18, 2014 Shahine Ardeshir rated it did not like it

Since Psychology was my undergraduate major, I am no stranger to Sigmund Freud. So you could argue that I had some idea of what I would be getting into when I picked this book up.

Unfortunately, that didn't help make it any more enjoyable.

I was reminded repeatedly of a line I read in one of our Psychology text books, which pointed out while some of Freud's ideas did in fact shape the way we see therapy, a lot of his work did more to propel dissension (and hence encourage more people to join the ...more

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Oct 08, 2018 Andrei rated it really liked it

This book is a clear shock if you're used to read peer-review studies with graphs and statistics.

I probably should've picked someone easier to get myself introduced into psychoanalysis but Freud really gives you a literal crash course into it, where you kinda get the feeling of it from the sheer frustration you get by his lack of classical science-y methods and achieving a somewhat undebatable conclusion with his "find the meaning in the hay stack" way of doing things.

Besides the total ignoranc ...more

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Jan 07, 2019 Marty Kausas rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Reason for reading:
I desired to learn about why we are forgetful.

Result:
Freud proposed that we forget due to negative subconscious associations or because the word is not beneficial to our sexual reproduction.

This is all fine; however, his evidence for this not exhaustive and far-fetched. He draws only from personal conversations he has with people in passing and the associations he finds seem artificial.

This is a fairly negative review as I did not feel I got what I wanted out of the book, b ...more

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May 12, 2007 Brandon rated it it was ok

Shelves: psychology

I read this as a required reading in one of my classes in graduate school (which may have something to do with how I rated it). At the end of the book I was left wondering if anyone would ever suggest this book if the authors name wasn't Freud.

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Aug 08, 2018 Gytis Dovydaitis rated it liked it

Shelves: academic

A couple of peculiar things happened a couple of days ago: during one of conversations I forgot Yves Klein's name, then I unintentionally postponed replying an important email by going to read a book, finally biting my tongue while eating a piece of commercially prepared bread. Seems that I should see a psychoanalyst... Freud argues that every action of ours has a subconscious motivation, thus non of them are random.

This book induces an unique increase in awareness: by observing yourself and you ...more

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Jul 27, 2016 Ganesh Sanal rated it did not like it

Recommends it for: No one

Shelves: non-sense, comics, not-any-more, non-fiction, classics

A word to everyone that's about to read this: This is not Psychiatry 101. The author's subconscious repressed the fact that there are non-psychiatric people like us exist.

The most excruciating read ever. Sigmund Freud is the most terrible author that I have ever came across. He may be a great psychiatrist but he is the kind of author that make you quit reading altogether. Phew...

description

Okay. Calm down...

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This is something that lies between a research paper and a generic book. It's too technical to be c ...more

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Sep 16, 2018 Xander rated it did not like it · review of another edition

After showing how cases of hysteria (1895, with Joseph Breuer) and dreams (1899) are results of the interplay between the unconsciousness - which houses all our true wishes and urges - and the consciousness - which manifests only the morally accepted wishes and urges -, Sigmund Freud faced the difficult task to make his new revolutionary psychological science acceptable to both academic and popular circles. The problem? He used (1) non-representative data (mentally sick people; dreams) and (2) h ...more

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Jan 28, 2008 Jana rated it really liked it

Shelves: psychology, theory

Freud's work is foundational for understanding theory. Without reading his work, we can't possibly get all the references of the other theorists who followed. So... as part of my MFA program, we read the entire body of Freud's work.

I had a lot of resistance to Freud... mostly feminist critique. But to be fair, even the feminist theorists are grounded in at least an understanding of Freud (if not Freudian themselves). But about this book...

I guess I took issue with Freud's assumption of perfecti ...more

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Dec 01, 2014 Ioana Fotache rated it liked it

While I appreciate its place in history, the easily comprehensible language, and the general encouragement to self-discovery via analysing ourselves and our everyday life, *damn* does Freud have a way of stretching things.

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Jul 13, 2012 Kausik R rated it really liked it

i was flabbergasted when i read this book ... forgetting names and slip of tongue is not a simple science...

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Jan 23, 2017 Joanne Gordon rated it it was amazing

Loved his take on jokes, and his explanation of Freudian slips

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Nov 15, 2009 Kazi rated it did not like it

Shelves: pop-science, 2011

Quaint misogynistic ramblings of an old fuddy duddy.

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Feb 10, 2019 Cole Whetstone rated it really liked it

Unity: Repression is the language of the unconscious, and psychoanalysis of forgetting is our Rosetta stone.
3 Prompts:
1. Why do people forget things they clearly have already learned? This is the central research question of this book. Freud is not so much concerned with forgetting during learning as he is with this everyday forgetting (though perhaps his theory can explain problems of forgetting in learning via an affective barrier that is always up). Indeed, when asked, this question is quite Unity: Repression is the language of the unconscious, and psychoanalysis of forgetting is our Rosetta stone.
3 Prompts:
1. Why do people forget things they clearly have already learned? This is the central research question of this book. Freud is not so much concerned with forgetting during learning as he is with this everyday forgetting (though perhaps his theory can explain problems of forgetting in learning via an affective barrier that is always up). Indeed, when asked, this question is quite perplexing, it is something most of us have taken for granted as something that just happens or “a failure of encoding,” but neither of those explains the mechanism of forgetting. it is from this that most of Freud’s theories seem to proceed, and it is a question which, unless satisfactorily answered, no critic of Freud’s may rest easy.
2. How far does the unconscious touch, and how does it express itself? A secondary aim of this book is to lay out the grounds of the unconscious — both the visible and the actual. That is, where can we see the unconscious in action, and how far does it extend beyond our mere sight?
3. What would a lack of free will look like? Freud reveals, late in this book, that his hand is to "turn metaphysics into metapsychology,” and talks frequently about fate — clearly interpreting determinism (for example, in Ancient Greek tragedy) as the expression of repressed drives and unspoken desires. But in order for this story to be compelling, Freud needs a picture of what a mind without free will looks like, and why we so often seem to act freely. Enter the Psychopathology of Everyday Life.
2 Implications:
1. Freud’s focus on Forgetting explains his obsession with dreams: Forgetting words that we ought not prompted Freud’s initial investigations into the motives of the unconscious and the mind (or at the very least, it is the door to the unconscious which is cracked open the furthest, so that we can daily see its otherwise hidden machinations). In other words, forgetting reveals that our brain is repressing information — and highly charged emotional information centered around forbidden desires and primal urges that have not been fully beaten out of us by the slings and arrows of society at that. But everyday forgetting gives us only a glimpse, moreover, patients are defensive about their everyday forgetting, in most cases having already made up alibis. So what experience can we look to in order to fully discover the unconscious? Freud, brilliantly, reframes this question: What do we forget the most when we’ve no reason to? Dreams! We dream 3 to 4 times a night, and,if we’re not careful, forget all of them. Moreover, dreams often express forbidden desires and are quite emotionally charged. This, I think, is what prompts Freud to famously claim “Dreams are the royal road to the unconcscious.”
2. Repression may work similarly to a autocorrect: In particular, we might conceive as the brain’s repressive system (perhaps the default mode network) as an overactive autocorrect, that primarily focuses on highly charged word associations (particularly those associated with societal, rather than merely grammatical norms), something we could model with computers today
3. What is the syntax of association? The major flaw in this work, as I see it, is that there do not appear to be rules as to what constitutes a “good” analysis, and what constitutes a stretch. Freud frequently speaks of “painstaking analyses,” but I’d like to know how, exactly he is going on with them, and how much guess work, exactly, he is using.
Rating: 4.5/5
* Length and redundancy keep this book from a full 5 stars. Freud’s theories are at once interesting and challenging, Traditional criticisms — such as the “unfalsifiability” claim — seem to fall short. Moreover, Freud explains phenomena which most of us have long since given up searching out. It is as if he has brought (or attempted to bring) literary criticism into the realm of science. And that attempt is worth reading, success or no.
...more

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Dec 26, 2017 Siddharth rated it it was amazing

Shelves: psychology, non-fiction

A fitting start to Freud's work. This book is a long list of the things that we often dismiss as inconsequential but can actually be traced back to our thoughts when it happened. Or our disagreeable thoughts about a matter, which can be associated with the present one. Freud makes a dispassionate argument throughout the book, allowing for mistakes and accepting that although it might all seem very circumstantial after the fact, we must try to be as objective as we possibly can.

Some of the quotes A fitting start to Freud's work. This book is a long list of the things that we often dismiss as inconsequential but can actually be traced back to our thoughts when it happened. Or our disagreeable thoughts about a matter, which can be associated with the present one. Freud makes a dispassionate argument throughout the book, allowing for mistakes and accepting that although it might all seem very circumstantial after the fact, we must try to be as objective as we possibly can.

Some of the quotes throughout the book are very insightful into what happens often, but what we never analyze.

As a matter of fact, I believe that a large portion of the mythological conception of the world which reaches far into the most modern religions is nothing but psychology projected into the outer world. The dim perception of psychic factors and relations of the unconscious was taken as a model in the construction of a transcendental reality, which is destined to be changed again by science into psychology of the unconscious.

Another quote which might very well summarize a large portion of the first part of this book:

We see then that something is forgotten for its own sake, and where this is not possible the defensive tendency misses the target and causes something else to be forgotten -- something less significant, but which has fallen into associative connection with the disagreeable material

And finally, one rather humorous quote towards the end of the book whence he discusses superstitions and how superstitious person differs from one who is not superstitious:

I am sorry to confess that I belong to that class of unworthy individuals before whom the spirits cease their activities and the supernatural disappears, so that I have never been in position to experience anything personally that would stimulate belief in the miraculous. Like everybody else, I have had forebodings and experienced misfortunes; but the two evaded each other, so that nothing followed the foreboding, and the misfortune struck me unannounced. When as a young man I lived alone in a strange city I frequently heard my name suddenly pronounced by an unmistakable, dear voice, and I then made a note of the exact moment of the hallucination in order to inquire carefully of those at home what had occurred at that time. There was nothing to it. On the other hand, I later worked among my patients calmly and without foreboding while my child almost bled to death. Nor have I ever been able to recognize as unreal phenomena any of the forebodings reported to me by my patients

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May 08, 2018 Soko Tomic rated it liked it

The fascinating thing about this book was how it showed the truly unique way of thinking Sigmund Freud had when it came to people, how they think, feel and interact with each other.

Nevertheless, despite the fact that I highly appreciate and respect his observational methodologies, I was not really impressed by the conclusions he came to based on these observations. Also in some points of the book, it seems as if he is just thinking on paper, not even trying to make meaningful and reliable claims ...more

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Jun 04, 2017 Anna Elissa rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2016-2020, medical, psychoanalysis, genre-reference, mental-health, genre-classics, case-studies

I *want* to really like this book. Truly. I want to find it difficult to put down and I want to go recommend it enthusiastically to anyone who would listen to me. I mean come on, it's Freud! And everyday psychopathology! Wow!
But I can't. I don't know whether I should be disappointed in the book or in myself. The topic of this book is fascinating and there are indeed so many gems and funny bits of psychoanalysis in it. But the language (or the translation?) makes it difficult to read. 3 star rati ...more

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Dec 28, 2017 Kirk Johnson rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

As usual, Freud stretches the support for his theories a bit too thin in places, but for an entertaining read and as a tool for investigating oneself, this book is exceptional. In large part a collection of anecdotes with a bit of theoretical musing to fill in the gaps - or the opposite, one could argue - Freud shows that he both knows how to write a story with verve and how to present a theory succinctly and painlessly.

The introduction is a better affair than most. Perhaps its author is a bit o ...more

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Jul 03, 2017 Johnn Escobar rated it it was amazing

Deeper teachings about failed acts and their corresponding interpretation, as well as déjà vu are some of the broad themes that come to be learned.
Sigmund Freud in each of his books succeeds in submerging the reader in a class rich in knowledge, because it allows to understand and analyze the forgetfulness or omission of names, as well as the failed readings, or an analogous case in the writing revealing hidden desires in the unconscious.
In my opinion it is a book that can not be lacking in the ...more

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May 24, 2018 Ahmed Hamad rated it really liked it

While I believe Freud makes a lot of errors in this book, by basing his ideas on anecdotes without providing much evidence (other than "it fits in my opinion"), the thought process is nothing short of utter magnificence. Even with all those errors, it seems like the ideas here, along with those in the interpretation of dreams, opened the door for us to explore and develop all of what we know about psychoanalysis, so thanks Freud..

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Jun 25, 2017 Maha Shangab rated it it was amazing

Shelves: top-10-books

A book's worth is determined by how much it adds to you and how much it enriches your mind.
Freud has succeeded in altering the way I view day to day matters, things that I once thought trivial and overlooked.

Nothing is arbitrary, nothing is unintentional, nothing is a mere mistake, nothing is a mere slip when it comes to people's actions. This shall be the principle I adopt until further study confirm it or contradict it.

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About Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud

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Dr. Sigismund Freud (later changed to Sigmund) was a neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, who created an entirely new approach to the understanding of the human personality. He is regarded as one of the most influential—and controversial—minds of the 20th century.

In 1873, Freud began to study medicine at the University of Vienna. After graduating, he worked at the Vienna General Hospital Dr. Sigismund Freud (later changed to Sigmund) was a neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, who created an entirely new approach to the understanding of the human personality. He is regarded as one of the most influential—and controversial—minds of the 20th century.

In 1873, Freud began to study medicine at the University of Vienna. After graduating, he worked at the Vienna General Hospital. He collaborated with Josef Breuer in treating hysteria by the recall of painful experiences under hypnosis. In 1885, Freud went to Paris as a student of the neurologist Jean Charcot. On his return to Vienna the following year, Freud set up in private practice, specialising in nervous and brain disorders. The same year he married Martha Bernays, with whom he had six children.

Freud developed the theory that humans have an unconscious in which sexual and aggressive impulses are in perpetual conflict for supremacy with the defences against them. In 1897, he began an intensive analysis of himself. In 1900, his major work 'The Interpretation of Dreams' was published in which Freud analysed dreams in terms of unconscious desires and experiences.

In 1902, Freud was appointed Professor of Neuropathology at the University of Vienna, a post he held until 1938. Although the medical establishment disagreed with many of his theories, a group of pupils and followers began to gather around Freud. In 1910, the International Psychoanalytic Association was founded with Carl Jung, a close associate of Freud's, as the president. Jung later broke with Freud and developed his own theories.

After World War One, Freud spent less time in clinical observation and concentrated on the application of his theories to history, art, literature and anthropology. In 1923, he published 'The Ego and the Id', which suggested a new structural model of the mind, divided into the 'id, the 'ego' and the 'superego'.

In 1933, the Nazis publicly burnt a number of Freud's books. In 1938, shortly after the Nazis annexed Austria, Freud left Vienna for London with his wife and daughter Anna.

Freud had been diagnosed with cancer of the jaw in 1923, and underwent more than 30 operations. He died of cancer on 23 September 1939. ...more

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“Perciò la differenza tra me ed un uomo superstizioso consiste in questo: io non credo che un avvenimento verificatosi senza alcuna partecipazione della mia vita psichica possa rivelarmi cose arcane sul futuro; credo invece che un'espressione non intenzionale della mia vita psichica possa rivelarmi qualcosa di ignoto che, in fondo, appartiene solo alla mia vita psichica; credo alla casualità esterna (reale) ma non a quella interna (psichica). Insomma, il mio è l'atteggiamento esattamente opposto a quello del superstizioso; egli, non sapendo nulla della motivazione degli atti casuali e degli atti mancati, crede nella casualità psichica; è portato ad attribuire al caso esterno un'importanza che si manifesta nella realtà futura, ed a vedere nel caso un mezzo d'espressione di qualcosa che è nascosto nella realtà. Ci sono dunque due differenze tra me e l'uomo superstizioso: prima di tutto egli proietta all'esterno una motivazione che io cerco all'interno; in secondo luogo, egli interpreta il caso per mezzo di un avvenimento che io riconduco ad un'idea. Ciò che per lui è occulto per me è inconscio; in noi c'è la tendenza comune a non considerare il caso come tale, ma ad interpretarlo.
Ora io sostengo che quest'ignoranza cosciente e questa conoscenza inconscia della motivazione delle casualità psichiche sono una delle radici della superstizione. Proprio perché il superstizioso non sa nulla della motivazione dei suoi atti casuali e perché questa motivazione cerca di imporsi alla sua conoscenza, egli è obbligato a spostarla ed a collocarla nel mondo esterno.” — 2 likes

“Various sources force us to assume that the so-called earliest childhood recollections are not true memory traces but later elaborations of the same, elaborations which might have been subjected to the influences of many later psychic forces. Thus, the "childhood reminiscences" of individuals altogether advance to the signification of "concealing memories," and thereby form a noteworthy analogy to the childhood reminiscences as laid down in the legends and myths of nations.” — 2 likes

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