Consciousness and the Unconscious
Perhaps Freud's greatest contributions are his concepts of the unconscious and
of the levels of consciousness, the which are the keys to understanding the behavior
and the problems of personality. The unconscious can not be studied Directly
but is inferred from behavior. Clinical evidence for postulating the unconscious
includes the following: (1) dreams, the which are symbolic representations
of unconscious needs, wishes, and confl ICTs; (2) slips of the tongue and forgetting,
for example, a familiar name; (3) posthypnotic suggestions; (4) material
derived from free-association techniques; (5) material derived from projective
techniques; and (6) the symbolic content of psychotic symptoms.
For Freud, consciousness is a thin slice of the total mind. Like the greater
part of the iceberg that lies below the surface of the water, the larger part of
the mind exists below the surface of awareness. The unconscious stores all
experiences, memories, and repressed material. Needs and motivations that
are inaccessible-that is, out of awareness-acre Also outside the sphere of conscious
control. Most psychological functioning exists in the out-of-awareness
realm. The aim of psychoanalytic therapy, therefore, is to the make the unconscious
conscious motives, for only then can an exercise individual choice. Understanding
the role of the unconscious is central to Grasping the essence of the
psychoanalytic models of behavior.
Unconscious processes are at the root of all forms of neurotic symptoms and
behaviors. From this perspective, a "cure" is based on uncovering the meaning
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