What is the unconscious in psychology

The problem related to the existence of a sphere of psychic activity that does not reach the level of consciousness, arising from the philosophy since ancient times, has had great development, in particular by the work of Sigmund Freud and the research psychoanalytic. In Freud's words, the discovery of the unconscious is the third wound inflicted on human narcissism: with Copernicus the man is no longer at the center of the universe, with Darwin he is no longer created directly by God, with psychoanalysis he is no longer master in his own house.

In the field of psychoanalysis, the term unconscious defines a system of the psychic apparatus formed by withdrawn content, invested by strong instinctual charges and regulated by mechanisms specific. In this Psychology-Online article we will then see what is the unconscious in psychology, how it works and Sigmund Freud's theory.

Index

1. What is the unconscious in psychology
2. How the unconscious works in psychology
3. Sigmund Freud's theory of the unconscious

The most suggestive image to understand what the unconscious is and its importance is offered by Sigmund Freud with the iceberg metaphor, in which he compares our psychic apparatus with this great iceberg: the part that emerges above the water is the part conscious, while the immense submerged part, much larger than the visible part, is the unconscious part (psychoanalysis).

The unconscious is the part of our psyche that does not reach the level of consciousness, a mental system to which he gave special importance psychoanalytic theory, distinguishing it from the conscious part and from the preconceived.

In the vast majority of cases, you can spend your whole life disinterested in the messages that come from the unconscious and even ignoring their existence; especially in situations of suffering anguish, phobias, insomnia, loss of control.

In this way, psychoanalysis is used as a specific possibility of treatment that investigates the unconscious motivations (that is, we are not aware) of behaviors. distinguishing two types of unconscious within itself:

• The descriptive unconscious: Renders unavailable after deletion are declared unconscious.
• The topical unconscious: it is a substructure of the psyche - together with the conscience and the preconceived - defined by certain processes and by certain laws.

The unconscious is - returning to the metaphor of the iceberg - the invisible part, the part submerged in water, a area beyond our control from which we must interpret the signals through various manifestations such as Dreams, lapses and other symptoms and evidence to understand.

In the unconscious we find the remotest memories of our childhood, hidden emotions and passions, unconfessed desires not even to ourselves. Probably paying more attention to everything that happens to you during the day, you will also notice some manifestation of your unconscious.

How many times have you had incomprehensible dreams? Dreaming of arguing with someone can reveal a state of tension towards a person in our daily "entourage", or feel a strong attraction in dreams for a person that in reality we would never have considered, could reveal a hidden passion, perhaps we embarrassed

Dreams and so-called Freudian slips are the manifestations of the unconscious easier to explain; on the other hand, when one is in the presence of true pathologies, such as states of anxiety, panic attacks or different forms of neuroses, the reflections on what our unconscious is communicating to us become more complex to interpret and, in most cases, require the intervention of a specialist.

Now that you know what the unconscious is and how it works, we will focus on the most outstanding features of the theory of the unconscious of Sigmund Freud:

• dynamics and conflict: the unconscious is characterized by dynamics and conflict, since it is the place of processes causes, such as impulses and desires, and at the same time the effect of defensive processes such as absorptions.
• otherness: it is presented as alterity with respect to consciousness in the sense of being another scene, another subject: it is not the level of psychicity merely preliminary to consciousness, but there are processes that directly interfere with conscious activities (imago, ghosts, complex).
• The autonomy: the unconscious has its own logic, that of the primary process regulated by the pleasure principle. This consists in the fact that excitations, impulses and desires tend to immediate discharge through action in the outside world, or hallucination and sleep.
• permanence: the unconscious is characterized by the childhood legacy that remains in the adult.

If you have found this article interesting about what the unconscious is in psychoanalysis and you want to continue expanding information, we recommend that you consult our article Difference between unconscious and subconscious.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to What is the unconscious in psychology, we recommend that you enter our category of cognitive psychology.

• Columbus, b. (2011). TUTTO Psychology and Pedagogy. Milan: De Agostini.
• Cortese, G. (2018). Cos'è l'inconscio e come si manifesta nella tua vita quotidiana. Recovered from: https://www.ohga.it/cose-linconscio-e-come-si-manifesta-nella-tua-vita-quotidiana/