It was the famed psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud who described a variety of different types and examples of Freudian slips in his 1901 book The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. "Almost invariably I discover a disturbing influence from something outside of the intended speech," he wrote. "The disturbing element is a single unconscious thought, which comes to light through the special blunder." According to Freud, these errors reveal unconscious thoughts, beliefs, or wishes.

1. By
Col Mukteshwar Prasad(Retd)
Based on
About.com Psychology
Freudian Slip

2. Freudian Slips: Hints of the
Unconscious
 It was the famed psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud who described a variety of
different types and examples of Freudian slips in his 1901 book The
Psychopathology of Everyday Life.
 "Almost invariably I discover a disturbing influence from something outside of
the intended speech," he wrote. "The disturbing element is a single
unconscious thought, which comes to light through the special blunder."
 According to Freud, these errors reveal unconscious thoughts, beliefs, or
wishes.
 "Two factors seem to play a part in bringing to consciousness the substitutive
names:
 first, the effort of attention, and
 second, and inner determinant which adheres to the psychic material,“
 Freud suggested in his book. "Besides the simple forgetting of proper names
there is another forgetting which is motivated by repression," Freud
explained.
 According to Freud, unacceptable thoughts or beliefs are withheld from
conscious awareness, and these slip help reveal what is hidden in the

3. Modern Takes on Freudian Slips
 The term is popularly used today in a humorous way when a person makes a
mistake in speech. In these situations, observers often suggest (in a comic
way) that the error reveals some hidden emotion on the part of the speaker.
 While Freud imparted a great deal of hidden meaning in these errors, verbal
mistakes are simply an inevitable part of life.
 In an article for Psychology Today, writer Jena Pincott suggested that
people make one to two errors for every 1,000 words they say.
 This amount to somewhere between 7 and 22 verbal slip-ups during the
average day, depending upon how much a person talks.
 Some of these errors might indeed reveal unconscious thoughts and
feelings, but in other cases they are simply cases of misremembering,
language errors, and other mistakes.
 A few studies have supported Freud's idea that unconscious or even
suppressed thoughts can increase the likelihood of verbal errors.
 Motley and Bears (1979) found that people who thought they might receive
an electric shock were more likely to make shock-related verbal mistakes.
 Those who were near an attractive female experimenter were also more
likely to mistake nonsense phrases for words related to beautiful women.

4. Modern Takes on Freudian Slips…
 In one classic experiment, Harvard psychologist Daniel Wegner asked
participants to engage in a stream-of-consciousness verbalization for five
minutes.
 People just talked about whatever passed through their minds for a brief
period. The catch was that Wegner asked them not to think about a white
bear.
 Whenever they did think about a white bear, they were supposed to ring a
bell.
 What Wegner found was that those who had been asked not to think about a
white bear thought of it an average of once per minute.
 Based on these findings, Wegner developed what he referred to as a theory
of ironic process to explain why suppressing certain thoughts can be so
difficult.
 While certain parts of the brain suppresses the hidden thoughts, another
part of our minds occasionally "checks in" to make sure that we are still not
thinking about it –
 ironically bringing the very thoughts we are trying to keep hidden to the
forefront of our minds.

5. The Original Freudian Slip
 Freud based his idea on his work with a young man who misquoted a Latin
phrase from The Aeneid. The young man had dropped one of the Latin words
when he repeated it to Freud, which the psychoanalyst believed that
dropping the word offered a revealing look into the young man's unconscious
mind.
 Through free association, Freud determined that the word reminded the
young man of blood, which he believed was linked to a pregnancy scare the
man had experienced with his girlfriend. Freud suggested that the man had
blocked out the word because it reminded him of this negative experience.

6. Examples of Freudian Slips in Popular
Culture
 You’ve probably heard plenty of amusing slips of the tongue in your own life.
Think about the time your biology teacher accidently uttered orgasm instead
of organism (much to the amusement of your class). Or the time you
accidently told someone you were “Sad to meet you!” instead of “Glad to
meet you!”.
 Verbal gaffes also provide plenty of amusement when spoken by famous
figures, especially when such moments are captured on film.
 Here are just a few modern day examples of famous Freudian slips:
 During a Vatican sermon in 2014, Pope Francis accidentally used the Italian
word "cazzo" (which translates to "F***) instead of "caso" (which means
"example"). The Pope quickly corrected himself, but not before the slip
posted on dozens of websites, blogs, and YouTube videos.
 During a televised speech on education, Senator Ted Kennedy meant to say
that "Our national interest ought to be to encourage the best and brightest."
Instead, Kennedy accidentally said breast - his hands even cupping the air
as he said the word. While he quickly corrected his gaffe and continued, the
slip of the tongue seemed revealing considering his hand gestures and the
family's reputation for womanizing.

7. Examples of Freudian Slips in Popular
Culture..
 At a Washington D.C. dinner party, then National Security Advisor to
President Bush stated, “As I was telling my husb—as I was telling President
Bush.” The Freudian slip seemed to reveal perhaps some hidden feelings the
unmarried Rice might hold toward her boss.
 When actress Amanda Seyfried appeared on the Today show to promote the
film Ted 2, announcer Willie Geist accidently described her as "titsy" rather
than "ditzy." Besides simply being an amusing slip, the comment perhaps
revealed what was really on his mind.