Induced "Freudian slips" and bulimia

This study proceeds from Motley's (1980) experiments and from a study perfo rmed by Schuttauf, Bredenkamp and Specht (1997), who attempted, by means of induced slips of the tongue, to test hypotheses derived from psychoanalysi s. In a study with neutral and conflict-relevant material, the frequencies of induced slips were compared among 16 bulimic and 16 normal female subjec ts. Special attention was paid to the analysis of what we call non-specific slips which correspond most closely to the compromise character of Freudia n errors. By measuring the latencies of correctly spoken words we also comp ared latent errors. The results that bulimic subjects in general produce mo re speech errors in the area of conflict-relevant words than normal subject s. This difference is manifested in the incidence of the non-specific slips and the latencies of correctly spoken words. Bulimia patients also produce d more spoonerisms. According to the psychoanalytic view, this result was n ot expected.