Explore the concept of the unconscious and critically compare how it is understood across Freudian, Kleinian and Lacanian models. (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Mind and The Unconscious--A Modification of Freud's Agencies
2001
The aim of the review is to discuss what the mind must be like for the psychoanalytic term like "the unconscious" to be meaningfully applied. Freud's two systems called the unconscious (Ucs.) and the preconscious-conscious (Pcs.-Cs.) are introduced and their replacement with alternative categories such as id, ego, and superego is discussed. In the light of mental conflict the paper covers problems that are associated with the application of Freud's structural theory, taking into consideration the changing view of what constitutes normal as well as pathological mental functioning. The paper suggests changes to Freud's structural and topographical agencies. It is concluded that the idea of separate mental agencies as suggested by Freud is untenable and that it should be replaced by one that better fit the data that one is attempting to order or explain.
Psychoanalysis and Exploration of the Unconscious
Pro Edu, 2019
The psychic is not homogeneous, uniforms, undifferentiated, linear, but it is present in various forms. It has a great functional and existential differentiation and uniformity. It manifests itself in the form of conscious psyche, subconscious and unconscious. The relationship between them, their harmony or conflict, determines the originality of human nature. The unconscious as a form of the psyche constitutes the most controversial level of organization of psychical life. It is stated that psychology stopped placing the notion of conscience in the center of its theoretical and practical preoccupations, making place for the unconscious. The unconscious is not only whatever became automatism, but also what I suppress. Freud explains suppression by a conflict between Superego (which represents the childhood interdictions which became interiorized) and Id, the natural pulsations which we were taught in childhood to blame. Freud urges us, through this, to regain the conscience of what is unconscious. The Superego is a necessary stage in the forming of moral conscience, but it should not be mistaken for the moral conscience itself. The genuine moral conscience does not reduce itself to the Superego. A psychological explanation of the origin of the Superego does not replace the foundation of the moral conscience. Psychoanalysis cannot account for values.
Review of The unconscious and its narratives
Dreaming, 2000
Freudian" Freud with whom we are familiar through the theoretical work of Jones and Rapaport and not the "post-modern" Freud whom we encounter through Lacan and Derrida, but Freud as he is manifest in his own self-interpreted career. Giora concretely reveals Freud's hesitations and ambivalences within three domains: dreaming, therapy, and literature. And, in a series of essays, he presents his own perspective. Dreaming (the first essay) is his primary focus, although his conception of therapy (the second essay) and literature (the third essay) cannot be understood independently of his discussion of dreaming. In this respect, Giora honours Freud, who also gave dreaming theoretical primacy.
The Unconscious in Contemporary Phenomenology and Psychoanalysis
2018
Cristi Bodea's book entitled Hiatus. Problema fenomenologică a inconștientului (Hiatus. The Phenomenological Problem of the Unconscious), which stands as the edited version of the author's PhD dissertation, defended at the Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, under the supervision of Professor Virgil Ciomoș, focuses on the relationship between Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytical approach and Marc Richir's phenomenology, pursuing the articulations of the theme of the unconscious in both theories. In the phenomenological attempt of exhaustively conquering subjectivity as the ultimate source of meaning, the problem of the unconscious stands as a recent milestone, for it unveils an additional layer of subjectivity which seems to complete the scheme envisioned by an entire phenomenological tradition. Psychoanalysis, on the other hand, was the one to discover, and, thereafter, to bring into discussion the unconscious as the core structure of subjectivity. Consequently, the inquiries of both contemporary phenomenology and
Unconsciousness between Lacan and Freud
In this essay I will discuss the concept of the unconscious between Lacan and Freud; and, examine how it relates to desire, focusing on how desire reveals itself through Lacan's participation in Kojeve's dialogue with Hegel. In this examination of identity, Freud's concept of the unconscious is situated between, "Cause and that which it affects" (Lacan, 22). I will argue that Lacan and Freud not only privilege the male, but also accept and reconstitute the language of domination; therefore impacting the power structure of the other.
With reference to your reading this year, explain what you understand by the psychoanalytic term the Unconscious. Illustrate and evaluate this, demonstrating your understanding of it with reference to a well-known piece of literature (a novel, play or a fairy tale), a film, a work of art or television programme.
The unconscious and its images
2008
The first volume of Writings and Conferences from Paul Ricœur brings together the texts that he devoted to psychoanalysis. In these articles, (...)
On the Conception of the Unconscious.
Academia Letters, 2021
Traditional psychoanalysis, as is well known, has regarded repressed animalistic drive desires as central components of the unconscious. From today's point of view this conception is too restrictive and too undifferentiated. First of all there is a realm of the non-mental, but for the mental causally relevant unconscious. For all mental states and processes are controlled by neurophysiological activities in the brain. Moreover, these neural activities are correlated with algorithmic programs typically studied by the cognitive sciences. These algorithms are largely innate. Embodied cognition theory has pointed out that there are motor processes that are particularly tailored to cognitive processes and skills and are usually described as body schemas (i.e., forms of cognitive embodiment). Body schemas are stored in non-declarative memory, the content of which is often considered not only unconscious but also inaccessible to consciousness in principle. Neurophysiological and algorithmic processes as well as body schemata essentially constitute the non-mental unconscious. The mental unconscious can be populated (as Freud already noted) by almost all kinds of mental states found in the mind. From a psychoanalytic perspective, the motivational systems are particularly significant. Some of these components are not repressed but permanently unconscious, for example, basic mechanisms that access other mental mechanisms (metamechanisms such as stimulus generalization and the repression), furthermore, the feelings present from birth, understood as mechanisms whose operation is unconscious, while their evaluative component is usually phenomenally conscious. For example, we experience fear consciously, but not the fear mechanism, which usually runs in us at lightning speed. Some mechanisms are also results of repression. Finally, principles of archaic rationality and an elementary sense of ego in the form of kinesthetic self-perceptions also belong to the realm of the non-repressed, permanent mental unconscious-permanent in the restricted sense, though, that these components are permanently unconscious in all those people who are not familiar with the theory of
Integration of the cognitive and the psychodynamic unconscious
American Psychologist, 1994
Cognitive-experiential self-theory integrates the cognitive and the psychodynamic unconscious by assuming the existence of two parallel, interacting modes of information processing: a rational system and an emotionally driven experiential system. Support for the theory is provided by the convergence of a wide variety of theoretical positions on two similar processing modes; by real-life phenomena-such as conflicts between the heart and the head; the appeal of concrete, imagistic, and narrative representations; superstitious thinking; and the ubiquity of religion throughout recorded history-and by laboratory research, including the prediction of new phenomena in heuristic reasoning.