a-general-introduction-to-psychoanalysis-sigmund-freud

therefore, counted on one finger." Or, "My husband may eat and drink
whatever he wants. But you know very well that I don't permit him to want
anything; therefore he may eat and drink whatever I want." In all these
cases, therefore, the slip arises from the content of the intention itself, or is
connected with it.
The other type of relationship between the two interfering intentions seems
strange. If the interfering intention has nothing to do with the content of the
one interfered with, where then does it come from and how does it happen to
make itself manifest as interference just at that point? The observation which
alone can furnish an answer here, recognizes the fact that the interference
originates in a thought process which has just previously occupied the person
in question and which then has that after-effect, irrespective of whether it has
already found expression in speech or not. It is therefore really to be
designated as perseveration, but not necessarily as the perseveration of
spoken words. Here also there is no lack of an associative connection
between the interfering and the interfered with, yet it is not given in the
content, but artificially restored, often by means of forced connecting links.
Here is a simple example of this, which I myself observed. In our beautiful
Dolomites, I meet two Viennese ladies who are gotten up as tourists. I
accompany them a short distance and we discuss the pleasures, but also the
difficulties of the tourist's mode of life. One lady admits this way of spending
the day entails much discomfort. "It is true," she says, "that it is not at all
pleasant, when one has tramped all day in the sun, and waist and shirt are
soaked through." At this point in this sentence she suddenly has to overcome
a slight hesitancy. Then she continues: "But then, when one gets nach Hose,
and can change...."[19] We did not analyze this slip, but I am sure you can
easily understand it. The lady wanted to make the enumeration more
complete and to say, "Waist, shirt and drawers." From motives of propriety,
the mention of the drawers (Hose) was suppressed, but in the next sentence
of quite independent content the unuttered word came to light as a distortion
of the similar word, house (Hause).
Now we can turn at last to the long delayed main question, namely, what kind
of intentions are these which get themselves expressed in an unusual way as
52