Evaluation of the Usefulness of Freud’s Concept of the Unconscious for Understanding Human Psychology
Sigmund Freud gives a thorough evaluation and analysis of the mind of an individual in his psychoanalytic theories. His description of the unconscious mind helps both students and professional psychologists fully understand human psychology as a discipline. Freud’s conceptualization of the unconscious gives an analysis of the composition of the unconscious mind, how it works, and several ways in which it influences the daily activities in the life of humankind. Therefore, Freud’s work is of great importance in a branch of psychology referred to as cognitive psychology. He was not the one who actually invented the idea of the conscious and the unconscious mind, but he was responsible for making the ideas popular and clearly understand by many people which were his great contributions to the discipline of psychology. Between the years, 1900 to 19905, Sigmund Freud, gradually developed the topographical of the human mind. In his model of the mind, he described the structure and features of the human mind together with their function and contribution to consciousness and unconsciousness. In this context, the paper gives the gives a critical evaluation of the usefulness of Freud’s concept of the unconscious mind for understanding human psychology.
In Freud’s model (the psychoanalytic theory of personality), he used the analogy of an iceberg to simply describe the three levels of the human mind. Freud described the unconscious mind, which is already comprised of all the mental processes and the physiology we know which was seen as the tip of an iceberg (De Sousa, 2018). For example, one might decide to get a drink after feeling thirsty. To begin with, the preconscious mind is basically comprised of the feelings and thoughts that a particular person is not currently aware of, but those feelings, thoughts, and memories can be brought to consciousness easily once the person gets triggered. Therefore, the preconscious can be seen as a “waiting room” whereby thoughts, memories, and feelings are stored until they are brought to consciousness after being attracted to the eyes or the ears. The preconscious mind may be comprised of mild emotional experiences. However, powerful and traumatic negative emotions can be repressed hence, making them absent in the preconscious mind ("Freud’s Model of the Human Mind | Journal Psyche", 2018).
The Unconscious Mind
The human unconscious mind is comprised of the mental processes which are unavailable or inaccessible to consciousness. However, these mental processes have the capability to influence behaviors, feelings, and judgments. The unconscious mind is basically the primary and fundamental basis of human behavior, i.e. according to Freud. Differences in the composition of the unconscious mind make different people have varying behavior. For example, just like an iceberg, the large and most important part of the human mind is what is invisible ("Freud’s Model of the Human Mind | Journal Psyche", 2018). The decisions, thoughts, feelings, and motives of people are usually stored in the unconscious and are actually influenced by the past experiences of a person. Freud used the three systems of his model in his structure of the human personality, also called the psyche. The psyche is comprised of the id, ego, and the superego. The unconscious part of the mind is regarded as the id. On the other hand, the superego and the ego have both the unconscious, preconscious, and the conscious aspects. Freud divides the mind into three levels which describe the different usages of each level.
These levels include the unconscious (comprised of 30-40%), the subconscious (50-60%), and the conscious part/level (10%). There are factors which affect people by causing mental illness which are called psychopathologies, and which can be treated by psychoanalysis. The unconscious mind sits deep inside the brain, i.e. just below the subconscious. It is in this part of the brain that past experiences and memories reside (Kelsey, 1955). These are the memories which have been consciously forgotten or have been repressed by conditions such as trauma. These memories then form the basis of our habits, emotions, beliefs and behavior and been programmed since birth. The psychoanalytic theory of Freud shows us that it is in the unconscious mind that the necessary psychological changes can be occur through the application of the concept of psychoanalysis.
One can be aware of what is going on in the conscious mind but cannot have an idea of the kind of information that is available and kept in the unconscious mind. Freud compared the human mind to an iceberg. Like an iceberg, the mind is made of the conscious (the smaller portion which can be seen) and the unconscious part/mind (which is the biggest portion and cannot be seen from the surface). The unconscious mind generally consists of all sorts of disturbing and significant information we do not necessarily need to be aware of simply because they can be threatening to have full knowledge of them. The unconscious mind serves as a repository (or a ‘cauldron’) made up primitive wishes and impulses which are kept at a “bay” and controlled/mediated by the preconscious mind ("Sigmund Freud's Theories | Simply Psychology", 2018). Freud, for example, found out that some desires and events were too painful or too frightening for his patients to acknowledge and bear. He, therefore, believed that such kind of information could be locked in the unconscious mind (the invisible portion). This situation can happen through the process of repression.
Freud believed that unconscious information such as feelings, beliefs, and emotions can be brought to consciousness or awareness through a process referred to as free association. In this technique, he asked his patients to relax and say whatever came into their minds without considering how irrelevant, embarrassing, or trivial it could be (De Sousa, 2018). By following these stream of thoughts from the patients, Freud believed that he could unmask the contents kept in the unconscious mind of his patients, whereby repressed feelings, emotions, painful childhood memories, and desires.
According to Freud’s concept, the unconscious mind consists of a person’s biologically-based instincts which include the Thanatos and the Eros. These instincts are usually responsible for the primitive urges for aggression and sex ("Sigmund Freud's Theories | Simply Psychology", 2018). Furthermore, Freud argued that the primitive urges (sex and aggression) of people do not often reach the stage of consciousness. This is because those urges are usually unacceptable to our conscious and rational selves. In response to this trend, people have, therefore, developed a big range of “defence mechanisms”, for example, repression against showing off these primitive urges with the aim of avoiding to know their unconscious feelings, thoughts, and motives. Freud emphasized the significance of the unconscious mind. The basic assumption of the Freudian theory is that the unconscious mind usually controls people’s behavior to a very greater degree that people suspect or know. Therefore, the main aim of psychoanalysis is to bring out the application of the above described defence mechanisms, hence facilitating the process of making the unconscious conscious. Freud further believed that the influences of the unconscious reveal themselves in several ways such as dreams, and in the slips of the tongue (which are currently popularly known as the ‘Freudian slips’). For example, Freud gave an example of an event whereby a British Member of Parliament with a fellow parliamentarian with whom he was irritated as ‘the honorable member from Hell’, instead of ‘from Hull.’
A Critical Evaluation of Freud’s Concept
Earlier on, the discipline of psychology was skeptical regarding the idea of the various mental processes which operate at the unconscious level (McLeod, 2018). To some psychologists such as behaviorists who were determined to be more scientific in their approach to the concept of unconsciousness (in the unconscious mind), has finally proved to be a source of frustration. This is because it defies all the objectives of its description and it is very difficult to objectively measure or test it. However, with time, the gap between psychoanalysis and psychology has greatly reduced making the notion of the unconscious an important focus in psychology. In this regard, cognitive psychology has identified the unconscious processes, for example, automatic processing, procedural memory, and social psychology which has described the significance of implicit processing. These empirical findings have shown the usefulness of the unconscious processes in human behavior.
However, an empirical research in the field of psychology, has now revealed the limitations of the Freudian theory of the unconscious mind. The current notion of the ‘adaptive unconscious’ is not similar to the psychoanalytic one. In this case, it is considered that Freud has underestimated the significance of the unconscious, and like an iceberg, there is a bigger portion of the mind that is unseen. The mind functions efficiently by relegating high level of sophisticated processing to the unconscious mind. Freud viewed the unconscious as only a single unit which is contrary to modern psychology which now understands the mind to be comprised of a collection of entities that have evolved gradually and operate outside the unconscious. For example, different people have abilities to recognize different face more efficiently and quickly, which illustrates how the unconscious entities operate separately. Whereas, Freud believed that the ‘primitive urges’ remained unconscious for the purpose of safeguarding individuals from anxiety, the modern view of psychology of the adaptive unconscious is that information is kept outside of consciousness for reasons efficiency rather than repression.
Conclusion
Despite, the Freudian theory of the unconscious mind facing a lot of criticism and evaluation from the modern psychoanalytic theory and psychology, it still remains as an important concept that developed basis of the understanding of cognitive psychology and other fields of psychology. Several psychologists, earlier on and currently, recognize the concepts of Freud regarding the unconscious since he simply compared the unconscious mind to an iceberg for easy understanding. They have, therefore, used various articles and journals which give an evaluation of the importance of Freud’s Concept of unconsciousness with the aim of fully understanding human psychology.
References
De Sousa, A. (2018). Freudian theory and consciousness: A conceptual analysisFNx08.
Freud’s Model of the Human Mind | Journal Psyche. (2018). Retrieved from http://journalpsyche.org/understanding-the-human-mind/
Kelsey, D. (1955). Sigmund Freud. Life and Work. Volume i. The Young Freud. 1856–1900. By Ernest Jones. The Hogarth Press. Pp. 444. Price 27s. 6d. net. Journal Of Mental Science, 101(423), 416-417. doi: 10.1192/bjp.101.423.416-c
McLeod, S. (2018). Unconscious Mind | Simply Psychology. Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/unconscious-mind.html
Sigmund Freud's Theories | Simply Psychology. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/Sigmund-Freud.html
