Sigmund Freud question?

Question

how does he distinguish error ans illusion? he says they are not the same thing, he says that an illusion derives from human wishing. what is an error? thanks!

Answer 1

Error in memory perhaps? He felt strongly in unconscious thought.

Answer 2

Both illusions and delusions, he wrote, are characterized by the prominence of wish-fulfilment in their motivation; it is this that distinguishes them from errors, although, he adds, an illusion is not necessarily an error. Otherwise, he concludes, the difference between a delusion and an illusion has to do with our point of view: when we call a belief a delusion we are considering it primarily in terms of its objective relation to reality, whilst when we call it an illusion we are considering it primarily in terms of its subjective elements of wish-fulfilment. (1)

A further difference between the two words lies in their different implications for mental health. If, as Freud says, a delusion is a mistaken belief motivated by wish-fulfilment and identified by reference to a shared world of knowledge and common sense, it is also a word which expresses an alienation from that world which may at times become madness. It was widely believed in the eighteenth century, for example, that delusive ideas were symptoms of insanity. Illusions, on the other hand, as Charles Rycroft reminds us, "are not pathological phenomena." (2) If sometimes they alienate us from the world, they may also connect us to it. Illusions belong to the normal history of our desires and affections as they mix themselves with the world, and we acknowledge this when we speak of the illusions rather than the delusions of childhood. If delusions are songs of experience, illusions are songs of innocence, from which we do not need to be cured, only awoken.

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