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His "Biological Cock": On Three Decades of Collecting Freudian Slips (Part 1 of 7)

What happens when an English professor becomes a psychologist?

caraman/123RF free image
Source: caraman/123RF free image

In 1978 I resigned a tenured position as an English professor to pursue a doctorate in psychology. But in shifting my focus from literature to the human psyche, I discovered that my lifelong interest in language and creative expression scarcely waned at all. In fact, I found that my sensitivity to diction, style, and rhetoric prompted me to pay particular attention to the unique vocalizations of my therapy clients.

Listening intently over the years to the people I've worked with has enabled me to understand more than at times they could explicitly communicate. But more than that, as a lifelong student of the English language, I couldn't help but also be sensitive to peculiarities, or flubs, in their speech--"bloopers" that occasionally revealed more than they consciously realized. And even when their verbal slip-ups didn't betray deeper meanings, they frequently carried (for me, at least) an "entertainment value" I couldn't deny--though, of course, I never felt free to share my amusement with them.

After all, it's essential that clients experience their therapist as taking them seriously (though maybe not literally, for many clients aren't always able to express their thoughts or feelings accurately, so I'm frequently cast in the role of "translator"). And while I believe I take my clients very seriously, still--when they say something like "I want to tell you, off the collar . . ." (vs. "off the cuff")--I can hardly resist chuckling internally. I can't remember ever having corrected a client when they misspoke this way, or even permitted myself to grin in amusement--for I'd never want them to feel embarrassed or self-conscious about their speech . . . or, for that matter, distract them from what they were attempting to convey.

But (innocently, I hope) I have in the moment allowed myself to enjoy what I could only appreciate as the unintentional hilarity of some of their utterances. Take the client who, to ensure his sobriety, had attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for many years, even though there were some things about the program that--as he put it--he "just couldn't swallow" (!). And I'd be remiss here if I didn't add that in mindfully listening to everything I say in the therapeutic dialogue, I've at times caught myself making verbal errors hardly less ludicrous than the gaffes my clients unwittingly committed.

For over thirty years now, I've kept (secret from my clients!) an ongoing list of verbal curiosities I've been witness to. Typically, they represent verbal goof-ups I found so striking that they temporarily hijacked my professional attention. But many of the utterances capturing my consideration did so not because they were unintentionally comical but, on the contrary, because they displayed uncommon wit or creativity. They were, in the best sense of the term, novel verbalizations that demonstrated the individual's ability to word something in a way that was particularly--sometimes surprisingly--poignant.

When, for example, a woman shared with me how her hurt had "calloused into resentment," the English professor in me immediately wanted to assign her an "A+". And when another client told me how--finally!--she had confronted her husband (who was lamely justifying his latest gratuitous outburst against her by claiming he was "only ventilating"), I could only gasp at her cleverly worded retort. Looking at him right in the eye, she protested: "You don't ventilate, you venomate!"

What I'd like to do in this extended, seven-part post is to enumerate my all-time favorite client locutions. Most of these are clearly gaffes (we might call them "verbal crimes and misdemeanors"). But as I've already indicated, some of them aren't linguistic transgressions at all but rather surprisingly innovative uses of language. With so many examples of each available, I've sought to group them into seven sections--though, I must admit, some of my selected categories may well teeter on the arbitrary or capricious.

I should also admit that the very title of this piece--indecorous, impish (and, for some tastes no doubt, vulgar or raunchy)-- is itself misleading. To be perfectly honest, I chose it mostly as an attention-grabber, even though the phrase "biological cock" is a genuine--even classic--Freudian slip (which I'll explain later). Mostly, though, the verbal "breaches" I'll be presenting aren't really Freudian slips at all, at least not in the strict sense of that term.

That is, a true Freudian slip pertains to a verbal error that betrays some repressed thought or emotion (frequently sexual). As such, it reveals the speaker's (or writer's) subconscious mind. As one contributor to urbandictionary.com, somewhat belaboringly puts it: it's "a verbal or written flub-up in which one says what one really meant, rather than what one meant to say, by accidentally adding or subtracting a word or substituting a similar word that means something that indicates what one really thinks." To offer just one (humorous) example from the Web: "How many Freudians does it take to change a light bulb? Two! One to change the bulb, and one to hold the penis! . . . Ladder! I meant ladder!"

Most of my examples of verbal quirks and goof-ups don't--at least not technically--make the cut for such slips-of-the-tongue accidentally disclosing one's secret thoughts, feelings, or fantasies. Rather, they follow the term's more popular usage and relate simply to verbal creations that in the moment unexpectedly "jolted" me--whether in startled surprise, bewilderment, unforeseen delight, or even marveling admiration.

So when, for instance, out of nowhere one of my clients reflectively began a statement with the words, "Never having been this old before . . ." I sprang to full attention, anticipating that he was about to say something laden with personal meaning. Then--a split second later--simultaneously amused and bemused, I caught myself thinking, "Wait a minute!--he's not really saying anything that's not always true, and for all of us. . . . Yet what impressive rhetoric to have made me lean forward in my chair so as not to miss a word of what I was about to be told!

Note 1: Later parts of this post exemplify the broad variety of clients' verbal idiosyncrasies and originality that have supplied me with many moments of unexpected wonder and delight. The various sections are entitled: "Most Memorable Freudian Slips," "Verbal Screw-Ups, "Forms of Words Never Heard Before," "Idiomatic Screw-Ups," "Unconscious Hilarity," "Linguistic Creativity," and "Unexpected Client Wit." Hopefully, each of them will afford you some of the "innocent pleasure" I myself have enjoyed being privy to them.

Note 2: I invite interested readers to follow my psychological/philosophical musings on Twitter.

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