Editing Unconscious mind (section)

{{Short description|Mental processes not available to introspection}}

In [[psychoanalysis]] and other psychological theories, the '''unconscious mind''' (or '''the unconscious''') is the part of the [[Psyche (psychology)|psyche]] that is not available to [[introspection]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Westen |first=Drew |date=1999 |title=The Scientific Status of Unconscious Processes: Is Freud Really Dead? |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/000306519904700404 |journal=Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association |language=en |volume=47 |issue=4 |pages=1061–1106 |doi=10.1177/000306519904700404 |pmid=10650551 |s2cid=207080 |issn=0003-0651|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Although these processes exist beneath the surface of [[Conscious mind|conscious]] awareness, they are thought to exert an effect on conscious thought processes and behavior.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kahneman |first=Daniel |title=Thinking, Fast and Slow |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |year=2013 |isbn=978-0374533557}}</ref> The term was coined by the 18th-century German [[Romantic philosophy|Romantic philosopher]] [[Friedrich Schelling]] and later introduced into English by the poet and essayist [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]].<ref>{{Cite journal|date=1981 |editor-last=Bynum |editor-first=W. F. |editor2-last=Browne |editor2-first=E. J. |editor3-last=Porter |editor3-first=Roy |title=Dictionary of the History of Science|journal= Medical History|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05549-4 |doi=10.1007/978-1-349-05549-4|pmc=1139175|last1=Cantor |first1=G. N. |volume=26 |issue=2 |pages=225–226 |isbn=978-1-349-05551-7 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Murray |first=Christopher John |title=Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850 |publisher=Taylor and Francis |year=2004 |isbn=1-57958-422-5 |pages=1001–1002}}</ref>

The emergence of the concept of the unconscious in psychology and general culture was mainly due to the work of Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst [[Sigmund Freud]]. In [[Psychoanalytic theory#The unconscious|psychoanalytic theory]], the unconscious mind consists of ideas and drives that have been subject to the mechanism of [[Repression (psychoanalysis)|repression]]: anxiety-producing impulses in childhood are barred from consciousness, but do not cease to exist, and exert a constant pressure in the direction of consciousness. However, the content of the unconscious is only knowable to consciousness through its representation in a disguised or distorted form, by way of [[dream]]s and neurotic symptoms, as well as in [[Freudian slip|slips of the tongue]] and [[joke]]s. The psychoanalyst seeks to interpret these conscious manifestations in order to understand the nature of the repressed.

The unconscious mind can be seen as the source of dreams and automatic thoughts (those that appear without any apparent cause), the repository of forgotten memories (that may still be accessible to consciousness at some later time), and the locus of implicit knowledge (the things that we have learned so well that we do them without thinking). Phenomena related to semi-consciousness include [[awake]]ning, [[implicit memory]], [[subliminal message]]s, [[trance]]s, [[hypnagogia]] and [[hypnosis]]. While [[sleep]], [[sleepwalking]], [[dream]]ing, [[delirium]] and [[coma]]s may signal the presence of unconscious processes, these processes are seen as symptoms rather than the unconscious mind itself.

Some critics have doubted the existence of the unconscious altogether.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Oxford companion to philosophy |date=1995 |publisher=Oxford Univ. Press |isbn=978-0-19-866132-0 |editor-last=Honderich |editor-first=Ted |location=Oxford}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |date=1981 |author= Stannard, David E. |title=Shrinking History: On Freud and the Failure of Psychohistory. New York: Oxford University Press. 1980. Pp. xx, 187. $12.95 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/ahr/86.2.369 |journal=The American Historical Review |volume= 86 |issue= 2 |pages= 369–370 |doi=10.1086/ahr/86.2.369 |issn=1937-5239|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Callender |first=J. S. |date=1996-02-24 |title=Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.312.7029.518a |journal=BMJ |volume=312 |issue=7029 |pages=518 |doi=10.1136/bmj.312.7029.518a|s2cid=62293185|issn=0959-8138|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Karbelnig |first=Alan Michael |date=2020 |title=The theater of the unconscious mind. |url=http://doi.apa.org/getdoi.cfm?doi=10.1037/pap0000251 |journal=Psychoanalytic Psychology |language=en |volume=37 |issue=4 |pages=273–281 |doi=10.1037/pap0000251 |s2cid=198760071 |issn=1939-1331|url-access=subscription }}</ref>