Freud’s Theory of the Unconscious Mind

        

The essay, ‘A note on the unconscious in psychoanalysis’ was written by Sigmund Freud in the year 1912. Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a method of explaining and treating mental and emotional disorders by having the patient talk freely about himself or herself and especially about dreams, problems, and early childhood memories and experiences. Freud may justly be called the most influential intellectual legislator of his age. His creation of psychoanalysis was at once a theory of human psyche, a therapy for the relief of it’s ills, and an optic for the interpretation of cultural and society. In his essay, Sigmund emphasised the unconscious mind, and a primary assumption of his theory is that the unconscious mind governs the behaviour to a greater degree than people suspect. 

Sigmund Freud’s concept of the unconscious mind lays a foundation to the psychoanalysis and has had a significant influence on psychology and the understanding of human behaviour. Freud proposed that our conscious mind represents only a small portion of our mental activity, while the greater portion includes our thoughts, desires and memories resided in the unconscious. 

Sigmund Freud tells us that, in psychoanalysis, the unconscious mind refers to that part of the psyche that contains repressed ideas and images, as well as primitive desires and impulses that have never been allowed to enter the conscious mind. Freud considered the unconscious mind as a vital part of an individual. It is irrational and has no connection to the reality. 

The conscious, preconscious, and unconscious minds are the three fundamental parts of Freud's mental structure hypothesis. The preconscious holds ideas and memories that are relatively easy to bring into conscious awareness, whereas the conscious mind represents our immediate awareness. However, psychoanalysis is particularly interested in the unconscious mind.

Freud compared the three levels of mind to an iceberg when describing them. Consciousness, which is made up of the thoughts that are currently the center of our attention, is seen as the tip of the iceberg. The preconscious is made up of everything that can be remembered and is the middle portion of the iceberg. The unconscious is the third and the most significant zone and is compared to the huge chunk of the bottom of an iceberg that cannot be seen from above. The most significant portion of the mind is the portion you cannot see, similar to an iceberg. 

We come to know, that the experiment, post-hypnotic suggestion, teaches us to insist upon the importance of the distinction between conscious and unconscious and increases it’s value. In the experiment, performed by Bernheim, a person is put into a hypnotic state of mind and is woken up. While the person was in the hypnotic state, under the guidance of the physician, he was ordered to perform a certain task at a particular decided time after his awakening, say half an hour later. He awakens and appears completely conscious and in his ordinary condition he has no knowledge of his hypnotic state, but the impulses to do the ordered task rushes into his mind and he does it consciously, though not knowing the reason behind his urge. It seems difficult to describe the experience in any other way than to say that the order had been present in the mind of the person in a state of latency, or had been present unconsciously, until the decided moment arrived and then had become conscious. However, only the concept of the act to be performed came into consciousness. All the other concepts associated with this - the sequence, the influence of the physician, the recognition of the hypnotic state, remained unconscious even then. 

Freud then, tells us about the distinction between foreconscious and unconscious activity. The distinction between foreconscious and unconscious behaviour is based on their accessibility to conscious awareness. The foreconscious represents thoughts and memories that are not immediately conscious but can quickly emerge to the surface, whereas the unconscious contains deeper, hidden content that requires specialised techniques to access. The relevance of both in understanding human behaviour and mental processes is emphasised in Freud's psychoanalytic theory.

We see how dreams are connected to our unconscious state of mind. In Freud’s early writings, he insisted that dreams are “the royal road to knowledge of activities of the unconscious mind”. The specific dream details were called their manifest content, while the presumed repressed wishes expressed were referred to as latent content. Freud suggested that the dreamer refrained from waking and avoided unpleasant awareness of repressed wishes by disguising them as odd manifest content in an effort called dreamwork. He believed that in dreams, sensory pictures and situations represent impulses that one cannot satisfy when awake. 

In conclusion, Sigmund Freud gives us an informative overview regarding the psychoanalysis and has greatly contributed towards the same. He was solely concerned with the unconscious part of the brain and provided numerous techniques to help study it. Some of which are - dream analysis, free association, Freudian slip. However, as the time progressed, the discipline of psychology shifted towards what was observable and quantifiable and so, many critics mocked Freud’s theory. Sigmund Freud was heavily criticised for his theories. Several critics stated that Freud’s theories were overly basic and repetitive, and that he was too concentrated on what could not be seen. He was also accused of lacking empathy and of putting his emotions onto his theories. His views have been criticised for frequently reducing human behaviour to a small number of deterministic causes and ignoring the influence of culture, socialisation, and individual agency. Despite these objections, Freud’s theories have had a lasting influence on psychology. 

While many of Sigmund Freud’s ideas have fallen out of favour, the importance of the unconscious has become one of his most significant and long lasting contributions to psychology. Psychoanalytic therapy, which investigates how the unconscious mind shapes behaviour and thoughts has emerged as a valuable therapeutic option for mental illness and psychological suffering. 

Bibliography: 

1) A note on the unconscious - Sigmund Freud 

2) verywellmind.com

3) britannica.com