Hello,
a week ago we had left talking about the unconscious, its existence and its ability to influence our lives. How is this possible? To explain, I have to resort to 'Iceberg of Freud, a figure that shows the structure of the mind according to the theory of the Viennese neurologist named "First Topic".
As we can see here, our conscious mind (conscious or conscious level) emerges only from the "sea" that separates it from the rest of the mind, and with his thoughts and perceptions not is that a small tip that has as its basis something bigger and richer.
If we dive into this sea, in fact, we are faced with the preconscious, or only partially conscious area, where there are our memories and knowledge gained in a lifetime. If you think about the difference between an action and a conscious pre-conscious action is intuitive: an action that takes place at a conscious level, as For example, the perception of pain is always present and we can not ignore it unless we do something to change our state. A preconscious action, such as remembering an episode last summer, this is only if we evoke mental images, or is information that we do not have constant access, although there are in a stable form in our minds.
An important area of \u200b\u200bpreconscious is that dreams are made here (which we'll detail below). Many of psychogenic amnesia and memory disturbances can reasonably be limited to this area.
The Unconscious, which is the basis of Our Iceberg is an area that contains absolutely inaccessible to consciousness, according to Freud, fears, unacceptable sexual desires, desires, irrational, immoral and violent impulses, selfish needs and humiliating experience. This material is so dangerous is held in this area of \u200b\u200bnon-awareness in order to avoid damage to the conscience.
Personally, I do not share this negative view of the Unconscious in its entirety, but most married Carl Gustav Jung's thesis according to which our unconscious is the repository of so that most frightens us (Jung called this aspect "L ' Shadow ") but is also the place of our hidden potential and unexpressed. What important is that these three areas of the mind communicate with each other in one way or another, and that occasionally they may come into conflict because of conflicting desires. Should not be seen then these three blocks as something separate, but as a dynamic (appunto!) that interacts, blends and contrasts depending on the desires and life experiences. Certainly, our consciousness has sometimes need to defend what they may want to bring out the unconscious, and therefore has in its possession of psychic defenses (we shall return) that allow him to manage his irrational side. Toward the last years of his life, Freud amplified this theory by defining the conscience "I," the unconscious "Es" putting the preconscious in between these two and adding a third force (or instance), the "superego", a sort of censor and moralizing that is formed during childhood growth on the model of the authority figures of our childhood. We'll talk about this later, because it is a crucial step of psychodynamics.
But as we can observe the communication between these three areas? Freud said that it is visible, and encrypted using symbolic language, dreams, and the "blunders" or in episodes such as slips of the tongue and wit. The task of consciousness is to regulate this flow of desires and adapt to the reality of everyday life. For those interested in this aspect, I suggest you read the text "The Psychopathology of Everyday Life" by Sigmund Freud. The book is easy to find and has minimal cost, also the writing of Freud is very nice and clear, thus making his text a reading affordable, even for those who are fasting to psychoanalysis.
Now, I think is enough for today! In the next post will look at the way of expressing the unconscious needs and defenses that the individual puts in place.
