Of all twentieth century psychologists, there is none more famous or, rather, infamous than Dr. Sigmund Freud.

A self-proclaimed scientist, a failed hypnotherapist and the founding father of psychoanalysis, Dr. Freud dedicated his life to the exploration of the human mind, seeking to unravel its mysteries. Freud created and popularized many different theories concerning the human mind, laying the foundation for a field of psychology called psychoanalysis (Morag, Lecture 1 Philosophy & Psychoanalysis, 2012). However, his theories were and have continued to be extremely influential on societys perception of the mind. Of all of his assertions, I argue, that Freuds most significant contribution to societys understanding of the mind was his elaboration on the unconscious mind and the exploration of its potential in the therapeutic process. Before his foray into psychoanalysis, Dr. Freud sought to understand the mind and treat behavioral abnormalities via hypnosis (Morag, Lecture 1 Philosophy & Psychoanalysis, 2012). Under the direction of his teacher Jean Martin Charcot, Freud opened a private practice and attempted to treat hysterical patients with hypnotherapy (Morag, Lecture 1 Philosophy & Psychoanalysis, 2012). Shortly afterward, Freud realized that hypnotherapy was limited in its ability to explain the etiology of behavioral abnormalities and was often ineffective in their treatment (Morag, Lecture 1 Philosophy & Psychoanalysis, 2012). He was forever grateful for Charcots teachings, but deemed it necessary to seek other avenues for therapy (Morag, Lecture 1 Philosophy & Psychoanalysis, 2012). Freud looked no further than to one of his contemporaries, hypnotherapist Josef Breuer. Breuer had stumbled upon talk therapy in the treatments of one of his patients and in that, Freud saw great potential (Morag, Lecture 1 Philosophy & Psychoanalysis, 2012). This discovery led Freud to question why talking, particularly about ones current mental state or feelings would have such a tremendous impact on ones well-being and eventually led him to his split-consciousness hypothesis (Breuer & Freud, 1893).

By 1893, Freud had begun using talk therapy to treat his patients. One such patient was Miss Lucy. Miss Lucy had come to Freud with a peculiar ailment; she smelled burnt pudding wherever she went (Freud, Case 3, p. 106). Using talk therapy, Freud moved away from the hypnotherapeutic method of suggestion and allowed Miss Lucy to talk through her affliction, its manifestations, its origins and her current mental state (Freud, Case 3, pp. 106124). Observing her answers and asking further questions, Freud concluded that Lucy had associated the smell of burnt pudding with an earlier trauma, particularly that of her employers rejection (Freud, Case 3, pp. 116-117). Freud had observed that many of his patients hysterical symptoms could be explained by a particular trauma, a primal scene, which was so incompatible with the mind that it had caused it to split its consciousness (Freud, Case 3, pp. 115-117). For Lucy, her rejection was so devastating that she did not wish to remember it. However, the mind cannot simply erase the memory of such a trauma; it can merely suppress the emotion and repress the memory into the unconscious. Analogous to the conservation of energy law, the memories of these traumas cannot be destroyed; rather they can only be converted into a new psychical form, often exhibited physically as hysterical symptoms. Lucys rejection was so distressing to her that she sought its repudiation. In turn, it manifested itself physically in something associable to her rejection. Freud conjectured that the explanation, and later argued the working through by the patient, of their internal unconscious desires was critical to the cessation of hysteria (Freud, Remembering, Repeating and Working-Through, pp. 147-156). Understanding the importance of Freuds assertion that the mind itself could be divided requires further explanation. This division was not a physical one, although Freud had hoped his theories would find scientific merit, but rather a metaphorical one (Morag, Lecture 2 The Unconscious, 2012). Freud went on to explain these divisions and their

implications in greater detail in his essay The Ego and The Id. Freud asserted that the mind consisted of a vast amount of experiences or memories which are not all readily available to our conscious. This assertion does hold scientific merit as perception sciences have proven that our minds encode much more than we may initially realize, i.e. upon questioning, I may recall what my peers were wearing at lunch despite the fact I was not consciously aware that I had taken notice. Freud divides the consciousness of the mind into three metaphysical components: the conscious, the preconscious and the unconscious (Freud, Consciousness and What is Unconsciousness). This metaphysical model is often taught using an iceberg metaphor, one which compares the divisions of consciousness within the mind to the structure of an iceberg1. The conscious component of our mind consists of thoughts, desires and emotions that we are aware of and is comparable to the portion of an iceberg that can be seen above water. What is above the surface, what is conscious, is clear to us. What is conscious is transitory in nature; what we are aware of today is often different than what we are aware of tomorrow (Freud, Consciousness and What is Unconsciousness, p. 14). The second component of consciousness, the preconscious, would be analogous to the portion of the iceberg that is submerged, yet close to the surface. A person is unaware of ideas, thoughts, or experiences which exist in their preconscious, but will have the ability to recollect them and thereby make them conscious. Therefore, Freud explains that the preconscious is descriptively unconscious rather than dynamically repressed (Freud, Consciousness and What is Unconsciousness, p. 15). The last layer of the iceberg, or the metaphysical division of consciousness, is the dynamically repressed unconscious referred to as the unconscious (Freud, Consciousness and What is Unconsciousness, p. 15). The unconscious is akin to the portion of the iceberg that is completely submerged by water and far from the surface. Here is the portion of the mind

This analogy is one which Ive learned repeatedly in my psychology courses.

which constitutes our innermost desires, feelings, and thoughts (Freud, Consciousness and What is Unconsciousness). We are often completely unaware of their existence or characteristics, yet they guide our behaviors and have profound influence on our state of well-being (Freud, Consciousness and What is Unconsciousness). The unconscious mind is the backbone of psychoanalysis (Morag, Lecture 2 The Unconscious, 2012). Freud posited that conflicts within our unconscious mind are key etiological components in the expression hysteria (Freud, A Case of Hysteria, 1905). How can our mind be in conflict with itself? Freud argues that the un/conscious mind can be further divided into three separate entities, distinct in their formation and function. Freud names these entities the id, the ego, and the super-ego (Freud, Consciousness and What is Unconsciousness, p. 28). In describing these entities, I will treat them as agencies of the mind as Freud himself did. This description of the un/conscious poses an important problem that will be discussed later. The id is our unconscious compulsion to seek pleasure and avoid pain. It is perhaps the most basic instinct shared by all organic life (Freud, Consciousness and What is Unconsciousness, pp. 23-26). It is ruled by the pleasure principle, the topic of his 1920 essay Beyond the Pleasure Principle, one in which rewards are sought after and anything that causes harm is avoided. These instincts/urges are located in our unconscious (Freud, Consciousness and What is Unconsciousness, pp. 23-26). However, humans are not purely instinctual beings and this is on account of our ego. The ego is tasked with keeping our desires from imprisoning us, from causing us harm or eventual dissatisfaction (Freud, Consciousness and What is Unconsciousness, pp. 23-26). The ego bases itself in our perception of the world and is therefore constituted in our preconscious (Freud, Consciousness and What is Unconsciousness, pp. 23-26). The ego keeps our instincts in check with reality. It exerts the influence of the external world on the id to realign the

pleasure principle, with what Freud calls, the reality principle (Freud, Consciousness and What is Unconsciousness, pp. 23-26). Our ego is therefore our source of reason (Freud, Consciousness and What is Unconsciousness, pp. 23-26). Lastly, there exists the entity called the superego. The superego pressures us to be perfect, reprimanding us when we fail to live up to expectations (Freud, Consciousness and What is Unconsciousness, pp. 29-32). The superego is developed during an infants oedipal crisis in which the infant identifies his self with a particular parent and seeks to make himself completely similar to said parent (Freud, Consciousness and What is Unconsciousness, pp. 31-39). The expectations the superego imposes on us are not restricted to our perceived expectations of the parent the infant identifies with, but can later be modeled to express the perceived values of any influential authoritative figure. This is the judgmental component of our consciousness; this is our ego ideal or conscience (Freud, Consciousness and What is Unconsciousness, p. 34) The superego lies in direct conflict with the id, passing judgments of morality on our unconscious desires. It not only tells us what we should be doing, but what we shouldnt be doing (Freud, Consciousness and What is Unconsciousness, p. 34). The ego is therefore a barrier between both agencies, forcing reality based compromise on both the superego and the id. The id, ego, and superego all play an important role in Freuds explanation of the etiology of hysteria. According to Freud, as outlined in his work The Mechanism of Hysterical Phenomena, hysterical symptoms are physical manifestations of the egos attempt to suppress incompatible emotions. Freuds now infamous Doras Case clearly exemplifies this theory. Freud conjectures that Dora, a young woman seeking relief from hysteria, has suppressed her sexual desire, originating from the id, for a man named Herr K (Freud, A Case of Hysteria, 1905). Dora had suppressed her sexual desire for Herr K, a family friend and much older man, because her superego had deemed a relationship with an older man

inappropriate and reprehensible. After the suppression of a highly distressing emotion, the ego will then repress a particularly traumatic experience or memory by the ego into the unconsciousness. This is an important step in the expression of hysteria (Morag, Lecture 2 The Unconscious, 2012). In Doras case, her ego represses the scene in which Herr K attempted to kiss Dora, prompting her to feel disgusted and to slap him (Freud, A Case of Hysteria, 1905). Although Doras ego attempted to suppress her incompatible desires and repress the traumatic advance made by Herr K, her ego could not make them disappear completely. After suppression and successful repression, a scene similar to the initial trauma will elicit hysterical symptoms imaginatively associated with the suppressed emotion and the repressed memory (Morag, Lecture 2 The Unconscious, 2012). In other words, a later similar scene will act as a trigger, eliciting the expression of her unconscious conflict. In Doras case, her aversion to public displays of affection owed its origin to her traumatic memory of Herr Ks advance and her suppressed sexual desire for him (Freud, A Case of Hysteria, 1905). Freud went through great lengths to further connect Doras hysterical symptoms to conflicts within her unconscious. Using a method dubbed free-association, Freud observed the relationships, words, objects and people that were consistently brought up in Doras discussions and dreams (Morag, Lecture 2 The Unconscious, 2012). Freud believed these free associations signified emotions and emotional memories imaginatively associated with her symptoms (Morag, Lecture 2 The Unconscious, 2012). Her hysterical symptoms, Freud argued, were symbolic representations of her suppressed desires and repressed unconscious memories (Morag, Lecture 2 The Unconscious, 2012). In order to provide the patient complete relief from their hysteria, Freud had initially argued that it was merely necessary to observe the primal scene or suppressed emotions and explain their psychoanalytical significance to the patient (Morag, Lecture 2 The Unconscious,

2012). The cases of Dora and Miss Lucy made Freud rethink this position (Freud, Remembering, Repeating and Working-Through). Dora never successfully achieved relief from her symptoms and the explanation of Miss Lucys suppressed love did not provide the immediate relief Freud had expected. In each case, the ego had taken great pains to suppress desires and repress unconscious memories. Therefore, Freud decided that the patient must reach the conclusions on their own and at their own pace. The patient should even be allowed to re-enact previous relationships or scenes with the analyst, transference, for recollection without affect invariably produces no result (Breuer & Freud, 1893, p. 6). Recently, philosophers have raised new concerns or added new descriptions to Freuds unconscious mind. One such philosopher, Ian Hacking, asks the psychoanalytic community to address the issue of screen memories. Screen memories, a phenomenon observed by Freud, are instances of our earliest memories whose defining features are symbolic of later unconscious conflicts (Freud, Screen Memories, pp. 315-318). These memories are often intensely vivid and thusly, they are quite peculiar. The majority of our memories is hazy and requires great effort to weave together into a cohesive narrative. Freud agrees that these intensely vivid scenes may even be formed from the residues of later memories (Freud, Screen Memories, p. 320). In Freuds autobiographical example, his screen memory had been selected because it represented his unconscious desire to deflower his cousin, marry his neighbor and his need for material comfort (Freud, Screen Memories, pp. 315-318). This childhood memory is not exactly how Freud experienced it in childhood (Freud, Screen Memories, pp. 317-318). Therefore the childhood memory could merely be a representation of how it appeared to him at a later period, in his adulthood, when it was elicited (Freud, Screen Memories, p. 316). If true, these insights could modify the etiology of hysterical expression and its relation to the unconscious mind.

Hacking builds upon this Freudian screen-memory and questions a key principle of psychoanalysis, that childhood trauma/unconscious conflict is the basis for future hysteria. Hacking presents the possibility that childhood memories are re-described in adulthood and, during this re-description, new emotional conflicts may arise (Hacking, p. 245). Hacking aptly uses the redefinition of sexual harassment or molestation across generations to instigate debate. Across generations what constitutes sexual harassment in the workplace has changed dramatically and at one point didnt even exist. Hacking argues that modern descriptions of past events could change the events themselves (Hacking, p. 243). If a woman was tasked with recalling the environment she worked in sixty years ago, she may describe the way men talked to her in todays terminology: they sexually harassed me, or they were sexually abusive towards me. However, sexual harassment in the workplace didnt exist sixty years ago. Therefore, despite the realness of the sexually charged workplace, she is inappropriately describing a past event. Her coworkers could not have been sexually harassing her because, sixty years ago, there was no description for an intentional action constituting sexual harassment. Hacking argues that retroactively re-describing the past creates new opportunities or possible intentional actions (Hacking, pp. 243-244). This may cause a person to attach new emotions to their memories. This re-description transforms the older memory into something novel, requiring it to be reprocessed. These newly associated emotions could be intensely distressing to an individual and eventually lead to hysteria. Hackings insights highlight how important the association of new descriptions of past events can be. Perhaps they could cause an adults ego to repress a previously unrepressed event. Now that the therapeutic implications, background and a few new insights regarding the Freudian unconscious have been explored, it is now imperative that the earlier noted problem concerning agencies be discussed. Freuds divisions of the human consciousness are

quite homunculur in nature. He ascribes human-like verbs to these metaphysical concepts. Thus in its relation to the id, [the ego] is like a man on horseback (Freud, Consciousness and What is Unconsciousness, p. 25) It seems that Freud is creating little people named, the ego, the id and the superego. These agencies fight for supremacy in our mind, control of our thoughts and guide us throughout our lives. If these agencies of the mind are responsible for our thoughts, what are the agencies that control their thoughts and so on and so forth? The most obvious problem concerning Freuds agencies is, of course, that of infinite regression. Where do the agencies end? If the agencies are rejected, however, Freuds description of suppression and repression proves problematic. As philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre noted, it seems highly illogical that one can lie to oneself (Jean-Paul, p. 204). A lie is an intentional action performed by one person to at least one other person. Furthermore, for a lie to occur there the lying party must know the entire truth. If the lying party does not know the truth, it cannot be considered a lie (Jean-Paul, p. 204). The person, if never aware of the truth, can only be considered mistaken. However, if the mind indeed consists of separate agencies, each with their own purpose and guiding principles, perhaps successful repression could be homuncularly explained as one agency lying to the other. Despite the interconnectedness of Freuds divisions of the mind, their divisions presuppose that these agencies are indeed unique. Each agency has its own set of guiding principles. Additionally, since no singular agency dominates the others and each acts on our consciousness at a different level, perhaps one agency could hide information within our unconscious from its counterparts. Freuds theory of the unconscious mind is not his most important work because he accurately described its every mechanism. Its not his most important work because its philosophical implications are infallible. Freuds theory of the unconscious is the most important of his legacies because it encouraged psychological exploration of the mind at a

much deeper level. Freud challenged society to turn away from the superficial, to pursue psychological explanations of abnormality at a much deeper mental level. The human mind is an extremely complex vehicle whose intricacies and expressions cannot be understood merely by observing it at its surface. Our minds can, and do, store a tremendous amount of information. However, we arent always aware of what has been stored. Freuds work concludes that some of these memories associated with strong emotions, located at a deeper level in our minds, are causally connected to psychological distress. Overall though, the exact mechanisms of the Freudian unconscious are inconsequential; the scientific and philosophical limitations of an unconscious mind are well documented. The implications of its metaphysical existence however, are profound. Word Count (Excluding References): 2,739

Works Cited
Breuer, J., & Freud, S. (1893). Preliminary Communication. In J. Breuer, & S. Freud, Studies on Hysteria (Vol. 2, pp. 1-11). Freud, S. In S. Freud, Remembering, Repeating and Working-Through (Vol. 12, pp. 147-156). Freud, S. (1905). A Case of Hysteria. In S. Freud, Dora's Case (Vol. 7, pp. 7-122). Freud, S. Case 3. In S. Freud, The Case of Lucy R (Vol. 2, pp. 106-124). Freud, S. Consciousness and What is Unconsciousness. In S. Freud, The Ego and The Id (Vol. 19, p. 15). Freud, S. Screen Memories. 303-322. Hacking, I. An Indeterminacy of the Past. In I. Hacking, Rewriting the Soul (pp. 234257). Sartre, J. Mauvaise Foi and the unconscious. In Jean-Paul, Bad Faith (pp. 203-211).

Morag, T. (Composer). (2012). Lecture 1 Philosophy & Psychoanalysis. [T. Morag, Performer] Sydney, NSW, Australia. Morag, T. (Composer). (2012). Lecture 2 The Unconscious. [T. Morag, Performer] Sydney, NSW, Australia.