Talk:Unconscious

Critical Dictionary

As a noun, it designates one of the psychical systems which Freud described in his first theory of mental structure (the "topographical model").

The noun-form is now usually used in the psychoanalytic sense, and refers to the unconscious system described by Freud's first topography of the psyche.

In the second topography, the unconscious system is replaced by the agency of the id, but [Freud]] continues to use "unconscious" as an adjective.

Although Freud is often credited with the discovery of the unconscious, it is clear tha tthe notion of a non-conscious part of the mind has a long history in both philosophy and the psychological sciences.

A distinction has been made between the Freudian unconscious and Jung's concept of a 'collective unconscious'.

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Freud's initial desriptions of the unconscious are based upon his analysis of dreams (1900).

Dreams are described as the royal road the the unconscious because they represent the fulfilment of unconscious wishes that are inadmissible to the preconscious-conscious system, usually because of their sexual nature.

Further confirmation of the existence of an unconscious system is provided by Freud's study of phenomena such as parapraxis (101) and jokes (1905b); everyday phenomena such as slips of the tongue, bungled actions, lapses of memory and the inability to recall names all point to the existence of the unconscious.

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The contents of the unconscious are described as representatives of the drives and as unconscious wishes and desires that are organized into imaginary scenarios and narratives.

Many of these elements have been subjecte to repression or have been refused entry to the conscious mind.

Others relate to fantasies or memories relating to the primal scene or the Oedipus complex.

At times, Freud further speculates that the unconscious also contains elements of a phylogenetic heritage made up of residual elements of the vicissitudes of human history.

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Insofar as it is a system, the unconscious is described by Freud as having a number of special characteristics.

It is governed by the primary processes of the free circulation of energy and libido, and characterized by the mobility of cathexis.

The unconscious is timeless, indifferent to external reality, oblivious to the notions of negation and doubt, and obeys only the pleasure principle.

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Virtually all post-Freudian psychoanalysis may be regarded as contributing to an understanding of the unconscious, but the most extensive reworking of the concept is that propounded by Lacan.

In his celebrated "Rome Discourse" on the field and function of language and speech in psychoanalysis (1953), Lacan describes the unconscious as the censored chapter in the history of the individual subject.

The truth of this censored chapter can, however, be found elsewhere; it exists in the form of 'monuments' such as the nuclei of a neurosis, the symptoms that can be read like some strange language.

It can be found in the 'documents' of infantile memories, in the indivudal's character traits, and in the fragments that link the censored chapter to the chapters that precede and follow it.

Lacan remarks that psychoanalysis is quite literally a talking cure, with speech as its sole medium, and goes on to describe the unconscious as being structured like a language (1957).

Drawing on the linguistics of Saussure and Jakobson's work on 'aphasia', Lacan argues that symptoms and unconscious formations such as the dream-work display the same formal properties as the rhetorical devices of metaphor/metonymy, which he likens to the mechanisms of condensation and displacement.

References

unconscious 12-13, 19-36, 39-41, 43, 45-8, 56, 56-60, 68, 72, 76, 79, 82-3, 100, 102, * 104, 119, 125-31, 133-50, 152-5, 156-7, 161-2, 174, 176, 181, 187-8, 197, 199-200, 203, * 207-8, 217, 221, 224, 231-2, 235, 242, 247, 249-52, 257, 260, 263, 267, 274 Seminar XI