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[[Slips of the tongue ]] are errors involving the uttering (Versprechen), or hearing (Verhören), or [[writing ]] (Verschreiben), or [[reading ]] (Verlesen) of a [[word ]] and which entail an involuntary parody of the word, assuming the word is known. This kind of [[slip ]] is an ordinary occurrence but is structurally related to the paraphasias found in pathological [[conditions]].

[[Freud ]] became interested in slips and word play in 1890, and discussed [[them ]] in his correspondence with Wilhelm [[Fliess]]. Both resemble [[dreams ]] in that they are part of normal [[behavior ]] although they introduce an incongruous and, in the [[case ]] of slips of the tongue and dreams, an involuntary element. Freud's interest arose from his conviction that it would be [[impossible ]] to [[understand ]] psychopathological [[processes ]] without having a clear [[notion ]] of their relation to normal [[mental ]] processes. It was in The [[Psycho]]-[[pathology ]] of Everyday [[Life ]] (1901b) that he provided the first and most [[complete ]] [[discussion ]] of slips of the tongue, but he discussed them again at length in the Introductory Lectures on [[Psychoanalysis ]] (1916-1917a [1915-1917]).

In The [[Psychopathology ]] of Everyday Life, Freud made use of an earlier, essentially functionalist [[work ]] on slips of the tongue and reading errors (Meringer and Mayer, 1895), which he contrasted with his own [[theory]]. He eliminated two hypotheses: that of the "contamination" of the sound of one word by [[another ]] and that of "wandering" [[speech ]] [[images]], which interested Freud to the extent that these disturbances were located below the threshold of [[consciousness ]] (1901b, pp. 57-58). Using numerous examples, some of which are undeniably comical, Freud illustrated the way in which [[repressed ]] [[drives ]] [[return ]] in the [[disturbance ]] of [[language]].

Slips during reading and writing are not structurally different from those that occur in hearing or [[speaking]], and the same motives are found in both, either [[libidinal ]] or hostile. But slips provide infinite forms of expression for those drives, while disguising them, and some require a [[complex ]] effort of [[interpretation ]] that presupposes familiarity with the life and [[memories ]] of their [[author]]. In general, slips of the pen are not as readily noticed by their authors as slips of the tongue.

Freud sums up the [[character ]] of slips of the tongue as follows in the Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis: "the [[suppression ]] of the [[speaker]]'s [[intention ]] to say something is the indispensable condition for the occurrence of a [[slip of the tongue]]." However, the intention can be [[conscious ]] or [[unconscious ]] and still produce a slip. "In almost every case in which a slip of the tongue reverses the [[sense]], the disturbing intention expresses the contrary to the disturbed one and the [[parapraxis ]] represents a [[conflict ]] between two incompatible inclinations."

Slips are especially interesting when they lead us, in trying to understand them, to dissociate the sound (the [[signifier]]) from the [[meaning ]] contained in the word (the [[signified]]). The same was [[true ]] for the most famous parapraxis made by Freud, [[forgetting ]] the [[name ]] Signorelli, to which Jacques [[Lacan ]] (1966) devoted an entire essay. We find in both word play and [[jokes]], as in slips or the forgetting of names, a complex [[dynamic ]] and the same processes ([[displacement ]] and [[condensation]]) that Freud showed to be operative in dreams, whose relevance for the study of the unconscious he recognized. [[Listening ]] for slips of our own often has an immediate revelatory component, similar to that of the [[patient ]] who hears himself say things that are unknown and yet familiar during the course of [[analysis]].

See also: [[Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis]]; [[Formations ]] of the unconscious; [[Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis]]; Language and disturbances of language; [[Linguistics ]] and psychoanalysis; Parapraxis; Psychopathology of Everyday Life, The; [[Repression]]; [[Substitutive ]] [[formation]]; [[Topology]].[[Bibliography]]