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I’m a little disconnected – The distraction explained by psychoanalysis

For psychoanalysis, being disconnected or distracted is not an immutable personality trait.

Hello friends!

In our Course on the Psychopathology of Everyday Life we ​​are now studying Chapter VII – Forgetting impressions and intentions. It is a fantastic chapter, with many examples illustrating the inner psychic conflict between what Freud here calls will and counter-will.

In today’s text, I would like to highlight a very interesting aspect that is in a footnote and explains distraction according to psychoanalysis.

Distraction explained by psychoanalysis

Before moving on to the note, it is convenient to introduce the content of the chapter. Freud, although he does not have a complete explanatory model about memory and forgetting (we still don’t have one), seeks to analyze everyday events that elucidate the influence of the unconscious.

For example, he tells the following story:

“A man,” reports Brill, “was pressured by his wife to participate in a social event to which he was basically indifferent. Giving in to his wife’s pleas, he started to take his evening dress out of the trunk, but suddenly decided to shave first. Having done so, he returned to the chest, found it locked, and, despite a long and intense search, could not find the key. Being Sunday night, it was impossible to get a locksmith, so the couple had to apologize for their non-attendance. When the chest was opened the next morning, the lost key was found inside. Distracted, her husband dropped it into the trunk and then closed the padlock. He assured me that he had done it unintentionally and unconsciously, but we know that he did not want to attend the social event. Therefore, there was no lack of reason for the loss of the key” (FREUD, p. 154).

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We therefore have two conflicting intentions:

– The will not to go

– The desire to go (at the request of the woman).

From the point of view of conscious – or supposedly conscious – intention, what happened was a slip, a mistake. However, from an unconscious point of view, it was a hit.

So, in situations like these, we tend to justify our mistake by saying that it was unfortunate or that it was an accident or, more commonly, that it was caused by lack of attention or distraction.

In the footnote added to the 1910 edition, Freud writes:

“Ferenczi reports that he himself was once ‘distracted’ and that he was famous among his acquaintances for the frequency and singularity of his slips. But, he says, the signs of this ‘distraction’ have almost completely disappeared since he began to practice the treatment of the sick through psychoanalysis and was forced to turn his attention also to the analysis of his own self. He is of the opinion that one gradually renounces these faulty acts as one learns to increase one’s own responsibility. He therefore justifiably maintains that absent-mindedness is a state that depends on unconscious complexes and can be cured by psychoanalysis. One day, however, he was berating himself for having made a technical error in the psychoanalysis of a patient. That day, all of his old ‘distractions’ reappeared. He tripped several times while walking down the street (a representation of his faux pas in treatment, forgot his wallet at home, tried to pay a kreutzer except for the tram ticket, he had not buttoned his clothes properly, etc” (FREUD, p. 167).

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Through this footnote we can draw some conclusions about the phenomenon of distraction. These small errors, without major consequences, reported by Ferenczi as stumbling, wrong buttons on clothes and the value of a passage are small and banal. They are everyday and even go unnoticed – except perhaps for the idea that we are having a bad day or an unlucky day.

But distraction, unfortunately, can also cause bigger mistakes, much bigger than these, some of them even fatal like car accidents, for example.

Large or small, these errors are explained by the principle of the interference of two simultaneous intentions: a conscious intention and an unconscious intention, a will and a will that goes against the initial will, therefore, a counter-will.

What draws attention in this footnote to the Psychopathology of Everyday Life is that, in addition to removing absent-mindedness as a phenomenon attributable to someone’s personality or character (and, consequently, an immutable trait), psychoanalysis not only explains the meaning of these events but also allows, through the treatment provided by the analysis, with which these faulty acts diminish or cease.

In social life, we are able to excuse someone for a minor mistake. But some faulty acts can impact a relationship and have very unpleasant consequences. Freud gives the example of the boyfriend who forgets an appointment with his beloved. Although this can be justified by a forgetting of minor importance, as a distraction or as inattention, the girlfriend will not be happy and will usually try to attribute a greater meaning to the fact. For example, saying that he doesn’t care about her anymore, that in the beginning of the relationship there wasn’t that kind of lack of consideration, and so on.

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That is, in social life we ​​already understand that there are unspeakable reasons behind certain mistakes. With psychoanalysis, it is possible to understand the meaning of these errors. And with analysis it is possible to broaden the horizon of perspective and, with that, to be more aware of our wills (and counter-wills) – which certainly also increases the responsibility for our actions and reduces the margin for faulty acts to hinder us. or hurt others.

Questions, suggestions, comments, please write below.

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