WHY DO WE NEED THE ‘UNCONSCIOUS’?
Ayad Gharbawi
October 19, 2009
Does the unconscious exist? Obviously the field of psychology has much to say about the unconscious, but I am asking a question by questioning the existence of this subject.
What do we know about the unconscious? According to Freudian psychologists, for example, there is the Id, the Ego and the Superego that are supposed to be residing within the unconscious.
Yes, but where is the evidence that there exists these man-made constructs such as the ‘Id’ or the ‘Ego’ in the first place? Clearly, there is absolutely no evidence for the existence of these concepts.
When we talk about the venerated unconscious, what evidence do we have for its existence?
Or to put the question in another context: what exactly is the unconscious in the first place?
The unconscious is an ‘area’ in our minds that are repressed by the person and from time to time this same unconscious releases some of its entities and at times it directly affects the conscious mind.
I contend that Man has events, sounds, sceneries, thoughts, memories and emotions (com) that he has forgotten and that, due to certain affecting factors, these constituents of the mind will resurface back into the mind of the same person. If we are to say that the unconscious is when a person ‘forgets’ these events, sounds (com) then so be it. But that hardly is what psychologists have in mind when they discuss the unconscious!
I posit that the ‘unconscious’ – if we are going to insist that the unconscious does exist in the first place – is nothing more than an area of the mind that is unaware of the (com) in question. All events, sounds, sceneries, odours, thoughts, images, memories, emotions (com) that are in the (?-) area of the mind – or, the unaware region of the mind – constitutes the ‘unconscious’. Nothing more, and nothing less.
And since these (com) are within the (?-) area of the mind, I am not sure of what value is there is talking of an independent entity called the ‘unconscious’?
Let us take an example. We’ve all heard of the example of a person who has a repressed desire for doing something, but the person (Ob) does not know about this desire (Em1). So, psychologists tell us that this desire exists within (Ob) unconscious. From time to time, this same unconscious mind creates for (Ob) mental pain precisely because (Ob) is not acting on this (Em1) or releasing it. By ‘pain’ (Ob) may suffer from recurrent nightmares or he may feel depressed.
By the same line of thinking, we can equally say that (Ob) has (Em1) in the (?-) area and that nothing more than the exact same (Em1) is causing (Ob) this mental anguish that we just discussed?
What need is there to bring in, or to create this ‘unconscious’ theme to our discussion when we can be sufficient with the existence of (Em1)?
The fact is that the field of the awareness/unawareness factor (?+/?-) in the mind of any person is sufficient to be existing without the need to create this concept of the ‘unconscious’ mind.
I contend, that as far as the individual person, observer is concerned, the unconscious has no meaningful function; it is a complete irrelevance.
The only matter that is relevant to any mind, observer or self are unknown and/or forgotten emotions, desires, needs, memories, and if these entities affect the observer’s mind in any way, positively and/or negatively, then we can say that the same person in question is being affected by mental entities that he is unaware of to varying and changing degrees (?-).
The truth is that the ‘unconscious’ concept needlessly complicates the subject of psychology; furthermore, it adds an endless number of utterly harmful psychiatric classifications and definitions that are completely unnecessary, and that are extremely burdensome on the very minds of the people who are being needlessly classified in the first place.
Ayad Gharbawi
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