Freudian slips

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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.

When I think of freudian slips I often assign them to effects of inattention, stresses and the commonality of humans to simply speak without conscious thought as to what they say. I add in that perceptions from life along with distractions and inattentiveness lead us to say things that might closely sound the same as what was intended. This is one reason why it is important to speak only when you provide conscious thought to what it is you want to say before saying it.

In self-defense, this can achieve deescalation over escalation thus allowing us to avoid physical confrontation. Now, if I simply began, due to the adrenal dump and the adrenal stresses of conflict, to speak about the situation my mind may fly toward all the material I have come to understand regarding conflicts and if my experiences don’t connect properly I could inadvertently say, freudian slip if you will, something that would result in escalation when I intended to deescalate. 

It is sad that this occurs but it does and it is not about, in my mind, saying something you actually intended to say over what you would say for social harmony, etc. but the minds search of fragmented information where something that may seem in that unconscious instinctive instant as appropriate will actually be far removed from the human minds intent. I look at it as the monkey brain taking charge and reaching down into that convoluted and confusing memory data and taking what it thinks is appropriate to accomplish its egoistic pride driven status seeking emotionally driven data and using it to achieve a goal that is not necessarily a avoidance and deescalation goal. 

Freudian slips can be mostly controlled if we can recognize the adrenal stress-conditions we are often thrown into like a non-swimmer into the deep end of the pool and make conscious, human brain logical, choices to say things that will actually accomplish the goals of avoidance and deescalation. This would include the junk the monkey floods our mind into thinking even before it reaches our mouths and becomes audible to our attacker. 

If you are exposed to such stressful situations then any and all information and thoughts from previous experiences and perceptions will try their best to reach a point that will actually overtake logical thinking and replace what would be best with what adrenal stress-conditions drag up as “Possible.” Such speed and force of thinking through stressful conflict tend to overtake and overcome just like the monkey works hard to overtake and overcome the more human logical words, deeds and actions that would avoid and deescalate vs. escalate and partake in conflict and violence resulting in a possible death or grave bodily harm to either or both parties. 

Learn to control the monkey, learn to work with the human brain and make an effort to think before you open your mouth. Most often in many conflicts the road that leads to physical violence can still allow time to think and talk but also train to act instinctively through the lizard with properly trained actions if all else fails and physical violence is on its way. It is rare that asocial predatory process and resource violence happens and even then if you follow the scripts appropriately to the situation you can still think, pause and then speak if necessary, etc.

These are simplistic thoughts meant to make you think and consider options that may not be known or you may not know you don’t know about - do it in training, not in the active situation. 

Consider this, “Linguistic slips can represent a sequencing conflict in grammar production. From this perspective, slips may be due to cognitive underspecification that can take a variety of forms – inattention, incomplete sense data or insufficient knowledge. Secondly, they may be due to the existence of some locally appropriate response pattern that is strongly primed by its prior usage, recent activation or emotional change or by the situation calling conditions.” Meaning that a slip with a person may actually be meant for someone else rather then the current recipient. If a prior situation was strong enough it may cause memory to create and configure a comment in an inappropriate way not meant for the current listener. Again, think first then speak - it is a good way to avoid conflict and escalation of conflict. 

In closing, freudian slips “May” reveal what is truly on your mind but it “MAY NOT.” If you accidentally describe a person as “Titsy” vs. “Ditzy” it may be inadvertent and not mean anything. You can see how it sounds close to what you wanted to say and under stresses and a quick verbalization without thought could allow such slips. Then again, it just might come from the gender and physical presentation of the person to you as you begin to describe them. Regardless of “May or May Not” it tells us we need to stop and think just like active listening, listen to the entire spoken comment; confirm with your counter part what they said by reflecting thoughts back and then think a moment if a comment in return is appropriate. Hmmmm, give me a moment here …. ;-)

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