THE UNCONSCIOUS, in Gay, Freud Reader
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Repression aims at making an idea that represents an instinct not become conscious.
An unconscious idea “can still produce effects.”
Now, as Freud says, “all that is repressed is unconscious, but not all that is unconscious is repressed.”
As he says, the “unconscious has a wider scope.”
In therapy, in order for an unconscious idea to become conscious, “it must overcome resistances.”
JUSTIFICATION FOR THE CONCEPT
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The unconscious is both “necessary and legitimate.”
Since there are gaps in consciousness, as seen in parapraxes and dreams, we must infer an
unconscious to cover such.
Indeed, as Freud says “all these conscious acts remain disconnected and unintelligible if we insist
upon claiming that every mental act that occurs must also be experienced by us through
consciousness.”
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Moreover, since our consciousness includes so little at any given time, the rest exists “in a state of
latency.”
Of course, some say that when thoughts are latent, they are not psychical.
However, as Freud says, they are psychical, and we would only think different by the Cartesian
“equation of the conscious with the mental.”
Note: This objection seems Cartesian, in that is supposes that he mind knows it contents, transparently.
Freud notes that this equation begs the question. Actually, it is like a persuasive definition; one that is not
plausible.
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As Freud says, such Cartesian assumptions are only a convention, as such.
As such, he says, it “disrupts psychical continuities,” it involves us in parallelism, and “overestimates
the part played by consciousness.”
Lastly, as Freud says, this convention “forces us to prematurely abandon psychological research.”
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Given all this, Freud suggests we concentrate on what we know. Namely, he says
o Unconscious states have “points of contact” with the consciousness
o With therapy, they can be “transformed” into conscious states.
o And, “all the categories we employ to describe conscious mental acts, such as ideas, purposes,
etc., can be applied to them too.”
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As Freud says, the assumption of the unconscious is legitimate too.
Just as we assume others have minds, we “psychoanalysis nothing more than we should apply this
process of reasoning to ourselves too.”
In this case, would say our mental states “seem to be coming from someone else.”
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Yet, this inference, oddly, seems to “a second consciousness,” a second mind.
And Freud says this is not what he intends.
To clarify, he addresses three objections, the first of which are silly.
o Another consciousness that is itself unconscious seems to be a contradiction.
o Unconsciousness mental states seem to “know nothing of each other.” However, if so, then
each, it seems deserves its own unconscious, which would itself be independent. Infinite
regress of minds?
o The unconscious seems to include lots of crazy stuff, all of which we disavow.
Note: Freud does not address these objections individually. But notice, this objection, that an unconscious
conscious mind, could not really have intentionality, and could not be mental. But clearly, Freud does not
think this that the unconscious is a mind, so this does not follow. The second objection is simply a
non-sequitur, for, such independence does not imply either that the second group of states is mind has all the
characteristics of the first. Lastly, this third objection is true, but is just the thesis of psychoanalysis, and no
objection.
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Freud says, thus, that that to get around these objections, we must “modify our inference,” in that
“what is proved is not the existence of a second consciousness in us, but the existence of psychical
acts which lack consciousness.”
MEANINGS
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 The unconscious, as Freud says, is made of thoughts which are either “temporarily unconscious,” or
just latent, or repressed, and so unconscious.
 The latter, if they became conscious, would “stand out as the crude.”
 The unconscious, in the systematic sense, is when states bear “inclusion in particular systems with
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certain characteristics.”
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Freud says “a psychical act goes through two phases.”
o Ucs phase
o And then, it becomes Cs.
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Between these is the “testing mechanism or censor.”. Now, an act, if it is “rejected by the censor,” it is
repressed in the Ucs
Note: We are meant to imagine a border guard as such. Not only does the guard check you, but also he
changes you, assuming you pass.
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Freud says if the thought passes, then that does not mean it is conscious, but “it is capable of
becoming conscious.”
At this point, the thought is pre-conscious, or Pcs.
Note: Freud notes that there might be censorship between the Pcs and the Ucs but he says that, due to lack of
knowledge, we only know of only the censorship between the Ucs and Pcs.
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Now Freud brings up the issue of, when a thought changes from Ucs to Cs, does it, by doing so, gain
“a new record,” such that is in in afterwards two places, or does is there just “a change in the state of
the idea,” and that is all?
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Freud bypasses this concern, in a way, since “it is impossible to locate ideas in the brain.”
Therefore, we do not really know.
It follows that, as he says, for the present “our topography has nothing to do with anatomy.”
However, Freud says that although we do not know, still, the second registration idea, while less
probable, is “cruder but more convenient.”
Given this, ideas can advance from one place to another.
Yet, not lose their first location.
As an example of this, Freud mentions that, in therapy, the patient has one idea, yet we mention the
same to him, he does not put them together.
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Note: The patient has the idea in his Ucs. And then, he has it in his Cs, because we told him it. This just
assumes the Ucs and Cs ideas are the same. However, as Hume would say, they are not, The two impressions
would be totally different. However, Freud too realizes that the ideas would not have the same content.
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Indeed, as Freud says, they are not the same. Rather, they will not be so, for “there is no lifting of the
repression until the conscious idea, after the resistances have been overcome, has entered into
connection with the memory trace.”
Note: Yet, if so, this does not count as an example of a second registration of the same idea.
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Concerning the second registration or change of state view, Freud admits “we are not in a position to
decide between positions.”
TOPOGRAPHY AND DYNAMICS OF REPRESSION
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Freud makes an attempt to say what is going on in repression.
By a withdrawal of “cathexis,” from a Pcs thought, he says, repression takes place
In other words, one of three things happens
o Withdrawal of Pcs cathexis
o Retention of Ucs cathexis.
o Replacement of Pcs cathexis with Ucs cathexis.
However, Freud says, this is all done on the assumption of the functional “change in state” conception
of repression.
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But then, Freud asks, assuming that some thought is now in the system Ucs and has cathexis, “why
does it not renew its efforts to become Pcs?”
Assuming it could do so, it would, and “this could no on endlessly.”
To insure this does not happen, we must assume an “anti-cathexis,” operative here.
By means of this, “the system Pcs protects itself from the Ucs idea.”
Note: However, the original cathexis attaches to Cs or Pcs ideas, thoughts, or individual things. Yet, notice,
the anti-cathexis seems to attach to the system Pcs itself.
 As Freud says, “anti-cathexis is the sole mechanism of the primal repression.”
 As such, it is a permanent expenditure of energy.
SYSTEM UCS
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The Ucs consists of instinctual representatives that seek to discharge cathexis.
In other words, wishes
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As Freud says, there are lots of these in the Ucs, but they are “exempt from mutual contradiction.”
Note: By this, I assume that Freud does not mean that Ucs wishes do not contradict themselves logically.
Instead, it makes more sense to say that, yes, there is logical contradiction, but they are independent and do
not notice this contradiction.
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Indeed, Freud says when two such wishes are active, “they do not cancel each other out,” but “form a
compromise.
In the Ucs, there are only contents “cathected with greater or lesser strength.”
In the Ucs, what happens is
o displacement: one idea surrenders its cathexis to another.
o condensation: one idea appropriates the cathexis of another.
The Pcs, though, is a “secondary process.”
Next, the content of the Ucs are “timeless,” in that they are not ordered, and pay no attention to time.
Moreover, they pay no heed to reality, but rather only care about pleasure.
Freud summarizes that the content of the Ucs are
o Except from contradiction
o Timeless
o Immune to reality
Of course, we only know about the Ucs by studying dreams and neuroses, and then only in light of the
Pcs
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Freud notes that ideas in Pcs resist discharge.
In other words, displacement and condensation happen less.
Perhaps there is some displacement and condensation, but much of the old energy stay behind.
Freud notes how Breuer infers “two state of cathected energy in mental life- one that is bound and the
other that is free.”
Freud says he agrees.
Also, the Pcs has to restore much of what is lost in the Ucs, such as “order in time,” and “reality
testing.
And, he says, the Pcs must perform “censorships.”
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