Freudian slip
A
Freudian slip, or
parapraxia, is an error in
human action,
speech or
memory that is believed to be caused by the
unconscious mind. Some errors, such as a woman accidentally calling her husband by another man's name, seem to represent relatively clear cases of Freudian slips. In other cases, the error might appear to be trivial, bizarre or even nonsensical, but shows some deeper significance on analysis.
The Freudian slip is named after
Sigmund Freud, who described the phenomenon he called
faulty action (
Fehlleistung or
parapraxis) in his
1901 book
The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. Freud gives several examples of seemingly trivial, bizarre or nonsensical Freudian slips in
Psychopathology; the analysis is often quite lengthy and complex, as was the case with many of the dreams in
The Interpretation of Dreams.
Popularization of the term has diluted its technical meaning in some contexts to include any slip-of-the-tongue phenomenon, often in an attempt by the user to humorously assign hidden motives or sexual innuendo to the mistake. It is not clear, however, what Freud considered an "innocent" mistake, or if he thought that there were any innocent mistakes. The enormous quantity of slips analyzed in
Psychopathology, many of which are banal or apparently trivial, would seem to indicate that Freud felt almost any seemingly tiny slip or hesitation would respond to analysis.
