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THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND

Article · September 2021

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Hemanshi Mehta
University of Delhi
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 THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND

Have you ever introspected, as to why we fail to reason out the rationale behind our behaviour?
For a number of years, Psychologists were dazzled by the very same question. Sigmund Freud’s
topographic model (which dealt with the structure and function of the mind), out of many
contributions made by various other psychologists in the same field proved to be helpful in
finding possible answers to the same.

According to the above model, we have three levels at which our mind exists. On one hand, our
conscious mind consists of the thoughts, feelings, desires that we are aware of at present. While
on the other hand, our unconscious mind consists of mental activity that we are unaware of. It
consists of sexual and aggressive desires and impulses which act as possible sources of
psychological conflict. This is because the person struggles to either keep those desires and
impulses repressed or find a way that would be acceptable to the society to express them openly.
As the unconscious forces are capable of causing psychological warfares, they are kept hidden
from our conscious awareness. Lastly, our mind also has its ‘middleman’ popularly known as the
preconscious or subconscious mind. As the name suggests, our preconscious mind is responsible
for mediating between our conscious and unconscious mind. It contains all the information that
is hard to recall immediately. We might become aware of the constituents of our subconscious
mind if we put some amount of effort in recalling the matters i.e. by attending to them closely.
According to Freud, while our unconscious mind provides the highest constituent gradient to our
mind, our conscious mind is just the tip of the iceberg. Therefore, the above model of the mind is
conclusive enough of the enormous role played by our unconscious or repressed desires in
determining our behaviour.

Furthermore, Freud also proposed a structural model of the mind consisting of the id, ego and
superego which reside as forces inside our unconscious mind. While the id is the storehouse of
our instinctual energy, primitive needs as well as our sexual and aggressive desires and operates
on the ‘pleasure principle’, the ego operates on the ‘reality principle’. Digging deeper, the id
works unreasonably and unrealistically because of its extensive focus on satisfaction of
instinctual needs. The id is moderated by the watchful nature of the ego as it focuses on finding a
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suitable way to gratify a person’s desires. Lastly, the superego performs an important role in
reminding us of our morals and ethics. Thus, the function of the superego can be compared to the
role of parents and elders in the socialisation of a child. To illustrate, a boy’s id would encourage
him to go ahead and eat candies without giving any consideration to the consequences of his
action (for example, scolding from his mother), the ego would help the boy in finding a
reasonable way to eat candies (for example, asking prior permission from the mother) and the
superego would suggest that doing so would be moral and ethical and thus right.

Sigmund Freud was one of those great psychologists who understood the importance of our
unconscious forces that guide our behaviour. His deep rooted understanding for the same was
reflected in his contributions in the field as well. He is righteously known as the father of
‘Psychoanalysis’, popularly known as ‘Psychoanalytic psychotherapy’ which has proven to be an
important tool in the treatment of mental distress and illnesses by the means of unraveling the
unconscious forces reflective in our behaviour. Freud was and still is renowned for his methods
such as ‘dream analysis’ and ‘free association’ that helped his clients in becoming aware of their
inner conflicts. Following free association, the client is made to lie down on a couch and close
his/her eyes. Furthermore, the client is encouraged to share whatever comes to his mind without
any censoring, thus having the freedom to freely associate one thought with the other. The client
is also supposed to write down in detail what happened in his/her dream on waking up. Then it
would be the responsibility of the therapist, the psychoanalyst in this case to interpret the content
of the dream. Why these methods prove to help the clients is due to them using various defence
mechanisms such as denial and repression to avoid knowing what their unconscious motives and
feelings are as their revelation brings about pain and feelings such as fear, grief, anxiety etc.
Also, further posing a challenge to the therapist to unravel the same.

To conclude, the functioning of the unconscious mind till date doesn't fail to fascinate humanity
and is still an active area of research.