The Unknown and the Unconscious

Putting it as simply as possible, the “Unconscious” is a term for powerful moods or ideas that interrupt your normal state of mind, coming at you as if from nowhere i.e. they appear in your mind with no obvious cause. If negatively experienced, this produces the “symptoms” that Sigmund Freud first described a hundred years ago: e.g. compulsive behaviour, obsessions, phobias, anxiety etc. The psychiatrist Carl Jung later proposed the view that the Unconscious could also be experienced positively, and not just in a negative form – for instance, as “gut” feelings that can be trusted, and as intuitions, or dream guidance.

Over the last century, Freud’s view has undergone some reinterpretation and revision by some of his own followers, and has also received criticism by psychotherapists coming from other standpoints. To complicate matters further, the very notion of the Unconscious has been challenged by existentialist philosophers and psychotherapists, who doubt that an unconscious area of your mind exists at all.

Nevertheless, after a century, Freud’s work has actually stood up pretty well as a legacy – so much so that his terminology has embedded itself into our everyday language. How often are people accused of being “in denial” for example, or that they did something “unconsciously”?

My own position is that there are indeed unknown, active factors outside our conscious awareness, and that we have to accommodate and allow for them. I also take the view that there is a connection between rejected, disowned feelings and anxiety.

Dealing with these unknown factors is the task of psychotherapy.

I am not pessimistic, however, as the rejected feelings themselves can contain potential. Not only that but beneath it all, if we can reach it, a basic wholeness exists in our human nature. The news is good.