Saying or writing something other than what you thought is the principle of the revealing slip of the tongue. This phenomenon reveals what the individual does not want to admit but which escapes him. What are the different types of slips of the tongue? How to interpret them?
The revealing slip designates a word that escapes the individual during a conversation. In his work Psychopathology of Everyday Life, Sigmund Freud explains that this phenomenon allows us to reveal what the individual cannot admit himself. “This psychological mechanism testifies to the unconscious since what is said represents what is inside of the individual but which is not admitted either to oneself or to others. It escapes him when he appears, it’s a surprise. The rational aspect, the control of reason and the intellect are subjected to a kind of farce from the unconscious“, explains Véronica Olivieri-Daniel, clinical psychologist. For example, the person may want to say “I’m sorry, I wanted to arrive on time but I couldn’t” and say instead “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to arrive on time”. Basically, she expressed what she was not aware of.
Two types of slips of the tongue are more common than the others
In Psychopathology of Everyday Life, Freud describes in great detail all types of slips of the tongue. However, the two best known are the nominative slip of the tongue and denial by delegation. Nominative slips of the tongue relate to name confusions. “They result in saying the name of something or someone instead of something or someone else. For example, when we say mother instead of sister, father instead of husband. This nominative slip accounts for the symbolic function of the person mentioned“, indicates the clinical psychologist. Denial by denial corresponds to saying “no, I didn’t want something” when that’s what the person wanted. Slips of the tongue demonstrate that, whatever happens, we are caught up by our unconscious. A slip of the tongue can also be gestural or memory.
What meaning in psychology?
“In psychology, the meaning of a slip of the tongue comes close to that of the dream : it is a manifestation of the unconscious which arises suddenly, escapes the person and allows him to express what he had unconsciously within him but which he does not want to admit”, explains the specialist. A slip of the tongue can be interpreted in two ways:
► A simple language error which has no particular meaning;
► One revealing slip of the tongue : in the psychoanalytic approach, the slip of the tongue reveals something that the individual wanted to hide unconsciously.
Thanks to Véronica Olivieri-Daniel, clinical psychologist in Paris.