Freud forgot. He was settling his accounts. And came across client M who he could not remember. The 14 year old girl was suffering from abdominal pains and he diagnosed her as having Hysteria. Freud treated her and she improved. Unfortunately the patient died two months later of sarcoma of the abdominal glands. Freud missed her physical illness and treated her psychologically.

He wrote about this in his book Psychopathology of Everday Life P.152
Freud had failed. So he wanted to forget his failure.

What he was trying to describe was that we have have no choice in our forgetting. Like we have no control over what hurts us or causes us pain. So Freud’s psyche felt the pain triggered by the failure and tried to dismiss the incident by forgetting. Freud’s life was invested in his clinical reputation: so to fail was a big deal for him. Noticing how we forget is one of the keys to what hurts us and how we were hurt.
Freud Forgot

Copyright Adrian Scott
North London Counsellor Blog 2020
All Rights Reserved
Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argment and critique