Freudian slip? Wait a minute!

Monday Column By Hameed M. Bello, PhD

hamdbelo@yahoo.co.uk

Did you call it Freudian slip? Wait a minute! Now let’s face it! Is it the same as absent mindedness, public phobia, lack of composure or coordination, stage fright or some inexplicable conditions? Why does a public speaker intent upon saying a thing ends up saying the opposite of it, or mixing up the issues as we have seen of late in the texts and utterances of some prominent political figures in the course of their campaigns. One possible explanation is what psychologists refer to as the stream of consciousness. 

The Encyclopaedia Britannica explains stream of consciousness as the  narrative technique in nondramatic fiction intended to render the flow of myriad impressions—visual, auditory, physical, associative, and subliminal—that impinge on the consciousness of an individual and form part of his awareness along with the trend of his rational thoughts. The term was first used by the psychologist William James in ‘The Principles of Psychology’ (1890). As the psychological novel developed in the 20th century, some writers attempted to capture the total flow of their characters’ consciousness, rather than limit themselves to rational thoughts. To represent the full richness, speed, and subtlety of the mind at work, the writer incorporates snatches of incoherent thought, ungrammatical constructions, and free association of ideas, images, and words of individual characters. It is common to find incomplete, sometimes disagreeable or contradictory utterances by characters in fictions that employ the narrative technique of ‘stream of consciousness’. This is against the background that arts, including literary arts, mirrors the society and imitates life, the reality. 

The recurring trend of Freudian slips, though not new occurence in the delivery of speeches by Very Important Personalities (VIP), the fact that it is happening so often deserves some reflection. A standard meaning of the noun phrase, ‘Freudian slip’, as used by native speakers of the English language, with a little bias as it is applied in the field of psychology, is that it is a mistake in speech or action in which a person supposedly shows their true subconscious desires. In this context, Freudian slip is synonymous with ‘parapraxis’, itself a mistake, such as a slip of the tongue, that reveals a concealed thought or motive. Similar errors, though not exactly the same as Freudian slip that occur in spontaneous speeches of public figures are ‘spoonerism’ and ‘malapropism’. One explanation of Spoonerism is that it is a verbal error in which a speaker accidentally transposes the initial sounds or letters of two or more words, often for humorous effect, but also in some unintentional errors, as in the sentence: You have hissed the mystery lectures, instead of: You have missed the history lectures. As for malapropism, it is the mistaken use of a word in place of a similar-sounding one, often with an amusing effect, but it also occurs in some innocent errors, (e.g. ‘I was overghasted and flabberwhelmed’ instead of ‘I was flabbergasted and overwhelmed’. ‘dance a flamingo ’ instead of flamenco, etc. 

 The question to ask is why does a slip of tongue occur frequently in the speech of prominent people, and as we shall see shortly, also in public speeches of presidential candidates of leading political parties in Nigeria’s much awaited 2023 election contest that promises to be too close to call, and perhaps even more heated and intense than ever before in the political history of the country since independence in 1960. The nation is also getting set to elect a president that can take off speedily from where President Muhammadu will stop in May, 2023, to fix the nation in dire need, in areas where it has not been fixed, and to consolidate where progress has been made. A thorough interrogation and understanding of the slips that flow from the nation’s intending leaders could offer some insight into their mental and psychological preparedness to deliver good governance to the people as from 2023. 

For reference, the noun phrase, Freudian slip, emerged from the name and works of a famous Austrian/German Neurologist and Psychologist, Sigmund Freud whose theory of Psychoanalysis has impacted greatly in studies across disciplines like in Political Science, Literature, Medicine, Psychology and Sociology among others. As accounted for by the encyclopedia, Freudian slip is named after Sigmund Freud, who, in his 1901 book “The Psychopathology of Everyday Life”, described and analyzed a large number of seemingly trivial, even bizarre, or nonsensical errors and slips, that speakers often make. Freud, himself, notably referred to these slips as “faulty functions”, “faulty actions” or “misperformances”. 

As in the study of dreams, Freud is known to have submitted his discussion with the intention of demonstrating the existence of unconscious mental processes in the healthy:

In the same way that psycho-analysis makes use of dream interpretation, it also profits by the study of the numerous little slips and mistakes which people make—symptomatic actions, as they are called … I have pointed out that these phenomena are not accidental, that they require more than physiological explanations, that they have a meaning and can be interpreted, and that one is justified in inferring from them the presence of restrained or repressed impulses and intentions. [Freud, An Autobiographical Study (1925)]

The food for thought here is for the reader to think out what could be the likely ‘restrained’ or ‘repressed’ impulses and ‘intentions’ as observed by Freud, in the slips that we see occur in the text of say Atiku Abubakar, Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and that of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu. Recall that the PDP had last week tried to make a political capital out of the Freudian slip made by the APC presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, calling for God’s blessing on PDP, his rival party, ahead of the 2023 elections. Perhaps he meant to say God Bless APC, his own party. Tinubu spoke in Jos, the Plateau state capital where he flagged off his presidential campaign officially. The event was attended by President Muhammadu Buhari and other party bigwigs and was transmitted live. The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Hon. Debo Ologunagba, said the fact that Tinubu made the prayer was a pointer that it was not a slip of tongue but a divine proclamation. How divine the slip is as the PDP claims will come to pass in less than 100 days. 

Elsewhere in Kaduna recently, Atiku Abubakar too was reported to have made some slips interpreted by critics as being insensitive to the regional sensibilities in the country – particularly the North/South divide. He allegedly called on the North not to vote Southern candidates, but his handlers claimed he was quoted out of context. Atiku Abubakar reportedly made the unimpressive statement during an interactive session with the northern political leaders under the aegis of the Arewa Joint Committee at Arewa House, Kaduna. The group was holding the session with the major presidential candidates, of which Atiku took the first turn. The Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi did not make an outright slip, but he was also taken up for expressing commitment of elected president to dialogue with IPOB, and other bodies proscribed and declared as terrorist organisations by the Federal Government.