CHAPTER III
FORGETTING AND REPRESSION
How we remember is an old and unsolved question, but few people think of asking how we forget: and yet one problem is as important as the other. I cannot answer either except by putting a new one, which is, 'Do we ever forget?'
If we specify the factors concerned in memory and say that it depends upon impression, retention, and recall, then what do we mean by 'forgetting'? If an event makes no impression upon the mind there is neither remembering nor forgetting; if there is retention of a memory, but one cannot recall it, it is nevertheless stored in the mind and may yet be revived by some association. So that the only certain factor in forgetting is the loss of power of recall, for what is apparently quite forgotten may still be retained in the unconscious.
Can we voluntarily forget? If by that is meant, 'Can we voluntarily lose the power of voluntary recall?' I must, strange as it seems at first sight, assert that we can, though I make the proviso that 'voluntarily' is a word with a very elastic meaning, and one whose definition would open up the never-ended argument about Free-will. I will take refuge in a quotation[4]:—
'We ought not to assume that a clear and full anticipation or idea of the end is an essential condition of purposive action, and we have no warrant for setting up the instances in which anticipation is least incomplete as alone conforming to the purposive type, and for setting apart all instances in which anticipation is less full and definite as of a radically different nature.'
Expressing this idea in the terms employed in the previous chapters, we can picture an action as being produced by motives in consciousness, and these motives as being influenced to a greater or less extent by the instincts, emotions, and desires of the unconscious. Every action is influenced by the unconscious, however voluntary it may appear. The young man who seeks the society of a maiden may think he is acting voluntarily and with full consciousness of the end in view, but the end is often visualised by the friends of the pair before the young man realises where his instincts and emotions have led him.
The man who resolutely refuses to think of an unpleasant experience and shuts off the thought of it whenever it rises into his consciousness may not have the intention of placing it beyond reach of voluntary recall, but he may succeed in so doing, and the process by which the end was reached was voluntary. That we have this power is shown by the investigation of war-strained soldiers of the type said to be suffering from 'shell-shock'. These men are often stout fellows who have fought long and bravely, and whose condition is a result of the emotions they have suffered rather than of any particular shell explosion. Their typical symptoms are depression, dreams of battle horrors, tremors and stammerings, and strange fears without apparent cause.