Does our subconscious play an important role in the way we think, feel and behave and generally live (If so how?) or are there other things more important and more effective?
Freud's three tier notion of the unconscious doesn't seem entirely plausible as there are other ways of exploring the ways emotion, for example, works, and how human psyche functions. Although I do believe several layers of consciousness exists and that experience and perception can be negotiated between different layers.
Freud's three tier notion of the unconscious doesn't seem entirely plausible as there are other ways of exploring the ways emotion, for example, works, and how human psyche functions. Although I do believe several layers of consciousness exists and that experience and perception can be negotiated between different layers.
One very interesting take on a pragmatic and clear way of understanding the role of unconscious processes in human development and particularly psychopathology can be found in Bertram Karon and Gary VandenBos' excelent book: "Psychotherapy of Schizofrenia - The Treatment of Choice."
If we see things such as emotions as functionally within other functions but also outside they can be seen as locaters and expressions of experience both internally and externally. Internally they may provide views of life and, even people, that help the individual deal with social complexity.
In the unconsciousness lies an important source of motivation.
Pyszczynski, T., Greenberg, J., & Solomon, S. (2000). Proximal and distal defense: A new perspective on unconscious motivation. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9(5), 156-160.
Strack, F., & Deutsch, R. (2005). Reflection and impulse as determinants of conscious and unconscious motivation. Social motivation: Conscious and unconscious processes, 91-112.
There are a lot of publications on the theme of unconsciousness and emotions/behaviour.
On other interesting perspective is neurophenomenology in which the body is the source of knowledge.
Varela, F. J. (1999). The specious present: A neurophenomenology of time consciousness. Naturalizing phenomenology: Issues in contemporary phenomenology and cognitive science, 64, 266-329.
The unconsciousness is inhabited with inner representations (gathered in childhood) of humans, relationships, self, life, fear,....these inner representations have a massive impact on our daily life.
I can think of inconscius as the mental place where thoghts ( and emotions ) are made in a way that is able to access to conscious life ( Bionian theory). On the other part I can think of inconscious as the mental place where impulses and rapresententions are stored when they are not compatible with our superego or our ego, and cannot be erased definitively. Unconscious affects our mental life because it works with our conscious in giving a meaning to what happens in our life.
The term subconscious processes, does not mean that they are isolated processes of behavior. They have an integrated biological basis, therefore they can intervene in the modulation of conscious responses.
The question is: What is the degree of intervention they have in the cognitive and therefore behavioral structuring?
The analyzes that appear in the book: "The error of Descartes: emotion, reason and the human brain", are very illuminatingThis magnificent work by the neurologist António Damásio is very revealing of issues such as those that we are dealing with right now.
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