UNCONSCIOUS - unconscious, non-reflective, spontaneous. In the ordinary sense, the unconscious is usually associated with what is higher than consciousness (over- or super-consciousness, intuition, spirituality) or below consciousness (sub-consciousness, with which artists sometimes deal, but more often - doctors). In philosophy, the recognition of the unconscious deliberately excluded the idea of the identity of the psyche and consciousness (Descartes, introspectionists).
IN AND. Ovcharenko
Unconscious (Shapar)
UNCONSCIOUS - 1) The totality of mental processes, acts and states caused by the phenomena of reality, in the influence of which the subject is not aware. 2) The form of mental reflection, in which the image of reality and the subject's attitude to it do not appear as an object of special reflection and constitute an inseparable whole. It differs from consciousness in that the reality reflected by it merges with the experiences of the subject, with his attitude to the world; therefore, voluntary control of actions and assessment of their results are impossible in the unconscious.
Unconscious (Gritsanov)
UNCONSCIOUS (unconscious mental) - in the most common meanings: 1) a set of active mental formations, states, processes, mechanisms, operations and actions of a person, unconscious by him without using special methods; 2) the most extensive and most meaningful part (system, sphere, area, authority, etc.) of the human psyche; 3) the form of mental reflection, the formation, content and functioning of which are not the subject of special extra-scientific reflection; 4) the state of a person, characterized by a lack of consciousness.
Consciousness and unconsciousness in direct opposition have recently been on the stage. Previously, only consciousness received close attention, and they did not try to discern the unconscious. But he changed everything, he pointed out the colossal significance of the unconscious in human life and began to study it.
After Freud, the concept of the unconscious expanded, Assagioli worked this concept even more thoroughly. Now the conscious and unconscious in psychology are also studied by cognitive psychologists, conducting many experiments that allow us to penetrate into the area of the unconscious - into the processes of the brain, revealing the fundamental role of the unconscious in our behavior.
A bit of history
Until recently, in philosophy and science mental life considered fully or mostly conscious. This explains the fact that we have to use negation, and not some specific word to define processes other than conscious (unconscious, subconscious, preconscious). There is also a consensus regarding the qualities that conscious thought processes should have:
- Forethought.
- Controllability.
- Seriality.
- Accessibility for understanding.
The concept of the unconscious is still in more difficult situation... The characterization of consciousness and the unconscious is carried out according to the principle: what is not included in the conscious processes of thinking is in the unconscious. V early XIX century the term "unconscious" was used in relation to a state when a person was not aware of why he was doing something under hypnosis.
The types of the unconscious, affecting certain areas of the psyche, are based on one general aspect - they are all unconscious contents that affect people's lives. The concept developed for a long time, there are several main types of the unconscious: individual, collective, social.
The Father of Psychoanalysis, Human History and Psychosynthesis
In the human psyche, consciousness is only small island in the middle of an endless ocean or the tip of an iceberg, while the unconscious is an ocean or an invisible part of a glacier. Based on the analysis of dreams, slips, and associations, Freud identified an area other than consciousness.
According to Freud, it contains everything significant and disturbing that we do not want to be aware of: primitive desires, destructive impulses, frightening experiences. All these contents do not reach consciousness, because they are considered unacceptable.
Forms of manifestation of the unconscious, according to Freud: dreams, fantasies, impulses without awareness of the goal, automatic reactions, delirium, etc. The structure of consciousness and the unconscious, according to Freud, is represented by the following elements: Id, Ego and Super-Ego. The first is responsible for instincts and is almost completely immersed in the unconscious, the second is self-consciousness, maneuvering between and cultural attitudes (Super-Ego), trying to reconcile them.
Carl Jung also worked on this concept. He divided it into individual unconscious and collective. Individual - keeps everything that was displaced by a person in the course of his life. Jung's collective unconscious is an area that is the same for all people. According to Jung, we receive together with genes not only instincts, but also images / models of embodiment / realization of these instincts, named by Jung.
Therefore, archetypes, according to Jung, are literally a collection of the experience of the life of all mankind, imprinted in the structure of the brain in the process of evolution. The concept of the collective unconscious finds confirmation in experiments, and Jung's reasoning about the instinct to imitate becomes relevant in the theory of the adaptive unconscious.
The main goal that Jung singled out is the gradual clarification of the contents of the collective unconscious for consciousness. It was the gap between them that he considered the cause of psychopathologies. A person learns quickly, but the inner content of the unconscious is closed, inaccessible, which causes psychological discomfort and leads to a crisis.
The continuation and improvement of the ideas of Freud and Jung was taken up by Roberto Assagioli. In accordance with his views, the structure of the unconscious includes the following levels:
- Lower. It represents the simplest forms of psyche activity, which are entrusted with the functions of controlling the body, as well as drives, impulses, complexes, dreams, phobias, mania, and desires.
- Average. The content of this level consists of the same elements that are in waking consciousness, they freely penetrate into consciousness. The functions of this unconscious level: assimilation of experience, development of the activity of the mind and fantasy.
- Supreme (or superconscious). Responsible for, inspiration, heroic aspirations, contemplation.
Consciousness and unconsciousness are intertwined in Assagioli. The levels of the unconscious are combined into a whole system surrounded by the collective unconscious.
The general characteristics of the relationship between the conscious and the unconscious today are roughly clear thanks to studies of the processes occurring in the brain and other factors. Experiments have shown that a person receives a lot of information that he does not pass through consciousness, but moreover, this information is capable of influencing his actions and behavior (although he will not know about it).
Imitating behavior in infants is very developed, which speaks of the dormant instinct of imitation in each individual, which allows you to learn and survive. The desire to adapt to environmental conditions in a person is constantly manifested: he imitates the gestures of other people, their postures, habits and manners.
The idea that action precedes thought is spreading more and more. In particular, John A. Bargh and Ezequiel Morsella in 2008 considered the thesis that it is not consciousness that is the source of our behavior, but ordinary impulses from the outside. The impulse activates the unconscious, and then consciousness only explains or interprets reality.
According to modern researchers, consciousness, of course, plays a certain role in behavior and choice of actions, but not the primary one. Rather, consciousness performs the functions of transforming, processing and transmitting information between members of societies. But researchers doubt its dominance in the field of adaptive, intellectual activity.
Ideas and intuition
How many people know the eureka state? Probably almost everyone. This, as it is called in psychology, and it arises from the deeper areas of the psyche, which emphasizes the role of the unconscious in human life.
Researchers of creativity distinguish two stages in the creation of an idea. The first is to generate a set possible solutions, the second is the assessment and selection of the most promising of them. Generation of ideas seems to work well in the absence of consciousness.
Problem-focused attention usually results in the person thinking a lot about the solution, looking at many ideas, and focusing on the ones they like. He also looks at ideas with different sides, therefore, can reject unsuitable or periodically make adjustments to them.
Here, of course, consciousness is at its best. But it gives up the palm to the unconscious, when the latter extracts from memory many associations that can be useful for formulating an idea.
After a while, just not after a day or a week, it is worth trying to return to the question that caused difficulties, and see what ideas come to mind. There is a high probability of getting an extraordinary, unexpected, but interesting answer from yourself.
Where else can the unconscious activity of our psyche help? Yes, almost everywhere, except, perhaps, financial transactions, it is better to be guided by strict analytical schemes.
To develop intuition, it is enough to arrange periodically brainstorm, grab the idea that flashed in the air and try to develop it. Intuition is good at the first stages and when it is completely incomprehensible what step to take next, it is best to walk along open paths, taking the analytical conscious mind as a guide. It remains to add that anxious people should be careful in their conclusions, since, although they can predict negative developments on the basis of intuition, they usually filter out all images of a positive future. Author: Ekaterina Volkova
Sigmund Freud
Freud, Sigmund (1856 - 1939) - Vienna professor of psychiatry, famous scientist, author of a new psychological doctrine of the unconscious (psychoanalysis). Among psychologists of the 20th century, Dr. Sigmund Freud has a special place. Freud's psychological and sociological views were significant influence on art, sociology, ethnography, psychology and psychiatry of the first half of the twentieth century. Freud first spoke about psychoanalysis in 1896, and in 1897 he began to conduct systematic self-observation, which he recorded in his diaries until the end of his life. In 1900, his book "The Interpretation of Dreams" appeared, in which he first published the most important provisions of his concept, supplemented in his subsequent books "Psychopathology of Everyday Life" (1901), "I and It" (1923), "Totem and Taboo" ( 1913), "Psychology of the masses and the analysis of the human" I "" (1921). Gradually, his ideas gained recognition, in 1910 he was invited to lecture in America, where his theory is gaining special popularity. His works have been translated into many languages. Around Freud gradually formed a circle of his admirers and followers, which includes K. Jung, A. Adler, S. Ferenci, O. Rank, K. Abraham. After the organization of the psychoanalytic society in Vienna, its branches open all over the world, the psychoanalytic movement expands, gaining an increasing number of supporters. At the same time, Freud is becoming more and more orthodox and dogmatic in his views, he does not tolerate the slightest deviations from his concept, suppressing all attempts to independently develop and analyze some of the provisions of psychotherapy or the structure of the personality, its relationship with the environment, undertaken by his students. This leads to a distance, and then to a break with Freud of his most talented followers - Adler, Jung, Rank. As Freud's fame grew, so did the number of critical works directed against his views. In 1933, the Nazis burned his books in Berlin. After the capture of Austria by the Germans, Freud's position becomes dangerous, he is persecuted. Foreign psychoanalytic societies collect a significant amount of money and actually ransom Freud from the Germans, who give him permission to leave for England. However, his illness progresses, no operations and medications help, and in 1939 he dies, leaving behind the world he created, already completely open to interpretation and criticism. Freud's teachings, which derive the most complex and valuable forms of mental life from unconscious instincts, mainly from sexual instincts, had great success in the circles of young scientists, but they caused a storm of indignation among the guardians of generally accepted bourgeois morality, who considered obscene such a highlighting of sexual desire and rushed to declare Freudian doctrine "ugly in the aesthetic sense and despicable and dangerous in the moral sense."
The concept of the unconscious
Superconsciousness, consciousness, instincts
The deepest and most significant area of the human mind is the unconscious. The unconscious is a repository of primitive instinctual urges plus emotions and memories that threaten consciousness so much that they have been suppressed and forced into the unconscious. Unconscious material largely determines our day-to-day functioning.
The study of the phenomenon of the unconscious goes back to antiquity, it was recognized in their practice by the healers of the earliest civilizations. For Plato, the recognition of the existence of the unconscious served as the basis for the creation of a theory of knowledge, built on the reproduction of what is in the depths of the human psyche. Being familiar with philosophical ideas Plato, Freud undoubtedly drew from there some ideas about the unconscious. So, it is unlikely that those thoughts of Plato, which were associated with the problem of unconscious knowledge of man, did not fall into his field of vision.
The problem of the unconscious, clothed in the form of considering the possibility of the existence of unconscious ideas, is reflected in the philosophy of Kant (1724-1804). Freud repeatedly refers to Kant in his works. Textual analysis shows that the founder of psychoanalysis was familiar not only with Kant's Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, but also with other works of the German philosopher. In many cases, Freud not only shares Kant's philosophical ideas, but also appeals to his authority when it comes to substantiating his psychoanalytic concepts. This is especially true of the problem of the unconscious. Reflections on the problem of the unconscious took important place in many philosophical works of the XIX century. during this period, a turn from the rationalism of the Enlightenment era and German classical philosophy to an irrationalist understanding of human existence in the world is outlined and carried out. The formation of Freud's psychoanalytic doctrine was influenced by the philosophy of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Many of the ideas of these philosophers largely predetermined various psychoanalytic concepts, including Freud's ideas about the unconscious. Of course, there is no absolute identity between Freud's psychoanalytic teaching and the philosophy of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. For Schopenhauer, the unconscious is initially ontological: - “world will” is the root cause of all that exists. Nietzsche shares this point of view to a certain extent, but he focuses more attention on examining the unconscious as it functions in the depths of the human being. For Freud, the unconscious is primarily and mainly something mental, subject to understanding only in connection with a person. Unlike others, Freud made the anatomy of the consciousness and the unconscious of the mental scientific fact... But he explained this fact on the basis of only a "negative" concept - an unconscious psyche, understood only by negating the attribute of consciousness behind it
It is known that the main regulator of human behavior is consciousness. Freud discovered that behind the veil of consciousness is hidden a deep, "boiling" layer of powerful aspirations, impulses, desires that are not realized by a person. As an attending physician, he was faced with the fact that these unconscious experiences and motives can seriously burden life and even become the cause of neuropsychiatric diseases. This led him to find ways to rid his patients of conflicts between what their consciousness says and hidden, blind, unconscious motives. Thus was born the Freudian method of healing the soul, called psychoanalysis. The doctrine of the unconscious is the foundation on which the entire theory of psychoanalysis is based. Psychoanalysis (from the Greek psyche-soul and analysis-solution) is a part of psychotherapy, a medical research method developed by Z. Freud for the diagnosis and treatment of hysteria. Then it was reworked by Freud into a psychological doctrine aimed at studying the hidden connections and foundations of human mental life The unconscious should not be understood as something abstract or some kind of hypothesis created for the philosophical system. The unconscious is those forms of mental life that, while possessing all the properties of the mental, at the same time are not the property of consciousness. The area of the unconscious includes mental phenomena that arise in sleep (dreams); response reactions that are caused by imperceptible, but really influencing stimuli ("subsensory" or "subceptive" reactions); movements that were conscious in the past, but thanks to repetition were automated and therefore more unconscious; some motives for activity, in which there is no consciousness of purpose, and others. Unconscious phenomena also include some pathological phenomena that arise in the psyche of a sick person: delirium, hallucinations, etc. Being conscious is primarily a purely descriptive term that relies on the most immediate and reliable perception. A psychic element, such as a representation, is usually not permanently conscious. On the contrary, it is characteristic of it that the consciousness of awareness passes quickly; a representation, at a given moment conscious, in the next instant ceases to be such, but it can again become conscious under certain, easily attainable conditions. Representation - or any other psychic element at a certain moment can be present in a person's consciousness, and at a later time it can disappear from there; after a certain period of time, it can reappear in memory completely unchanged, without any previous new sensory perceptions. Taking into account this phenomenon, we can conclude that the idea remained in the human soul during this period of time, although it was hidden from consciousness. But in what form it was, remaining in the psychic life and remaining hidden from consciousness regarding this, is unknown. The unconscious forms lower level psyche. The unconscious is a set of mental processes, acts and states caused by influences, in the influence of which a person does not realize. Being mental (since the concept of the psyche is broader than the concept of "consciousness", "conscious"), the unconscious is a form of reflection of reality, in which the completeness of orientation in time and place of action is lost, speech regulation of behavior is violated. In the unconscious, in contrast to consciousness, purposeful control over the actions performed is impossible, and the assessment of their result is also impossible.
Freud proceeds from the premise that the assumption of the unconscious is necessary due to the existence of such acts, for the explanation of which it is necessary to recognize the presence of other acts that are not conscious, because the given consciousness has many gaps. Only in this case, as he believes, psychic continuity is not violated and the creature becomes understandable cognitive process with his conscious acts. Dofreud's psychology had a normal, physically and mentally healthy person as an object of study and studied the phenomenon of consciousness, while Freud, as a psychopathologist, exploring the nature and causes of neuroses, came across that area human psyche, which remained outside the field of vision of previous psychology. He was faced with the need to study the nature of the psychic, inner peace"I" and those structures that did not fit into the "conscious" itself in a person, and came to the conclusion that the human psyche is a kind of conglomerate, consisting of various components, which by their nature are not only conscious, but also unconscious and preconscious ... In general terms, the human psyche seems to Freud split into two opposing spheres of the conscious and unconscious, which represent essential characteristics personality. Freud calls conscious "the idea that exists in our consciousness, and which we perceive as such, and we assert that this is the only meaning of the term" conscious ". But in the Freudian personality structure, both of these spheres are not equally represented: he considered the unconscious to be the central component that constitutes the essence of the human psyche, and the conscious - only a special instance, built on top of the unconscious. The conscious, according to Freud, owes its origin to the unconscious and "crystallizes" from it in the process of the development of the psyche. Therefore, according to Freud, the conscious is not the essence of the psyche, but only its quality that may or may not be added to its other qualities.
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Three periods of development of Freud's doctrine of the unconscious
Sigmund Freud
The human psyche splits, according to Freud, into three areas: consciousness, unconscious and preconscious. These three areas or systems of the mental are in a state of continuous interaction, and the first two are in a state of intense struggle among themselves. The mental life of a person is reduced to this interaction and this struggle. Every soulful act and every human action should be considered as a result of the competition and struggle of consciousness with the unconscious, as an indicator of the balance of forces of these continuously fighting sides achieved at a given moment in life. This concept of the unconscious did not take shape and was defined by Freud immediately and subsequently underwent significant changes. In the first period, Freud's concept of the unconscious was close to the teachings of the famous French psychiatrists and psychologists - Charcot, Liebeau, Janet, on whom she was also in direct genetic dependence. In the second, the most prolonged and most important period in the development of psychoanalysis, all the basic and specific traits Freud's doctrine of the unconscious. Now it becomes completely original. The development of all questions occurs during this period exclusively in the plane of theoretical and applied psychology. In the third period, the concept of the unconscious undergoes a significant change and begins to converge with the metaphysical teachings of Schopenhauer and Hartmann. General issues worldviews begin to prevail over private, special problems. The unconscious becomes the embodiment of everything lower and everything higher in man. Back in 1889, Freud was struck by the experience of the famous expert on hypnosis Bernheim: the hypnotized patient was instructed to open an umbrella in the corner of the room some time after awakening. Having awakened from hypnotic sleep, the lady at the appointed time did exactly what she was ordered to - she walked into the corner and opened her umbrella. When asked about the motives of her act, she replied that she wanted to be sure - whether it was her umbrella. This motive did not correspond at all to the real reason for the act and, obviously, was invented, but it completely satisfied the patient's consciousness: she was sincerely convinced that she had opened the umbrella of her own free will. Further, Bernheim, through persistent questioning and directing her thoughts, finally forced the patient to recall the real reason for the act, i.e. the command she received during hypnosis. From this experiment, Freud made three general conclusions that determined the foundations of his early concept of the unconscious: 1. The motivation of consciousness, with all its subjective sincerity, does not always correspond to the real reasons for the action; 2. An act can sometimes be determined by forces acting in the psyche, but not reaching consciousness; 3. These psychic forces can be brought to consciousness with the help of well-known techniques. On the basis of these three propositions, tested in his own psychiatric practice, Freud, together with his colleague Breuer, developed the so-called cathartic method of treating hysteria. The essence of this method is as follows: hysteria and some other psychogenic nervous diseases are based on mental formations that do not reach the patient's consciousness: these are some emotional upheavals, feelings or desires, once experienced by the patient, but deliberately forgotten by him, since his consciousness , for whatever reason, or is afraid, or ashamed of the very memory of them. Without penetrating into consciousness, these forgotten experiences cannot be normally overcome and reacted (discharged); it is they who cause the painful symptoms of hysteria. These forgotten experiences, causing symptoms of hysteria, are "unconscious", as Freud understood it in the first period of the development of his doctrine. "Unconscious" can be defined as a kind of alien body that has penetrated into the psyche. It is not connected by strong associative threads with other moments of consciousness and therefore breaks its unity. In normal life, dreaming is close to him, which is also more free than experiences. real life, from close associative links that permeate the human psyche. This is Freud's first concept of the unconscious. It has two features. First, Freud does not provide any physiological theory of the unconscious, and does not even try to do so. Secondly, the products of the unconscious can be obtained only in translation into the language of consciousness; there is no other, direct approach to the unconscious besides the consciousness of the patient's self, and there cannot be.
In the second, classical period of psychoanalysis, the concept of the unconscious is enriched by a whole series of new, highly significant points. In the second period, the unconscious becomes necessary and extremely important part of mental apparatus of every person. The struggle between consciousness and the unconscious is declared to be a constant and regular form of mental life. The unconscious becomes a productive source of psychic powers and energy for all areas of cultural creativity, especially for art. At the same time, in case of an unsuccessful struggle with consciousness, the unconscious can become the source of all nervous diseases. The process of the formation of the unconscious, according to these new views of Freud, has a natural character and takes place throughout a person's life from the very moment of his birth. This process is called "displacement". Repression is one of the most important concepts of all psychoanalytic teaching. Further, the content of the unconscious is typified: these are no longer random isolated experiences, but some typical, generally common for all people, connected groups of experiences (complexes) of a certain nature, mainly sexual. These complexes are displaced into the unconscious in strictly defined periods, which are repeated in the history of the life of each person. To understand the content of the unconscious, it is necessary to get acquainted with the theory of drives of Sigmund Freud. Drive means, according to Freud, not a special movement, but internal self-impression, in which it is impossible to leave oneself and insofar as this self-impression is effective, a state of gravity and load on our inner world is inevitably created.
Mental activity is set in motion by external and internal stimuli of the body. Internal stimuli have a somatic (bodily) source, i.e. are born in the body. And here the psychic representations of these internal somatic irritations Freud calls drives. Freud divides all drives according to their purpose and their somatic source into two groups: 1) sexual drives, the purpose of which is the continuation of the race; 2) personal drives, or drives "I", their goal - the self-preservation of the individual. Sexual attraction, or, as Freud calls it, libido, is inherent in a child from the very beginning of his life, it is born with his body and leads a continuous, only sometimes weakening, but never fading away at all life in the body and psyche. The content of the unconscious can be expressed in the following summarizing formula: the world of the unconscious includes everything that the organism could do if it were left to the pure principle of pleasure, if it were not bound by the principle of reality and culture. This includes everything that he openly desired and vividly imagined in the early infantile period of his life, when the pressure of reality and culture was still weak and when a person was more free in the manifestation of his primordial, organic self-sufficiency.
In the third period, the theory of drives underwent significant changes. Instead of the previous division of drives into sexual drives and "I" drives, a new division has appeared: 1) sexual drive, or eros; 2) the death drive. The second group - the Death instincts - underlies all manifestations of aggressiveness, cruelty, murder and suicide. True, there is an opinion that Freud created a theory about these instincts under the influence of the death of his daughter and fear for his two sons, who were at the front at that time. This is probably why this is the most and least considered question in modern psychology. The drive "I" and, above all, the instinct of self-preservation went to sexual drives, the concepts of which, thus, greatly expanded, encompassing both members of the former division. The instinct of self-preservation includes the following subinstincts: nutrition, growth, respiration, movement, that is, those necessary vital functions that make any organism alive. Initially, these factors were very important, but in connection with the development of the human mind (I), these factors, as vital, have lost their former significance. This happened because a person had adaptations for obtaining food, he began to use food not only to satisfy hunger, but also to satisfy the greed inherent only to man. Over time, food began to get easier and easier for him, and he began to spend less and less time on its extraction. The man began to build dwellings and other devices for himself and secured his life to the maximum. Thus, the instinct of self-preservation lost its significance, and the instinct of reproduction, or, as Freud calls it, libido, came to the fore. By eros, Freud understands the attraction to organic life, to its preservation and development at all costs - whether in the form of procreation or preservation of the individual. The goal of the death drive is to return all living organisms to the lifeless state of inorganic, dead matter, to strive away from the restlessness of life and eros. The second feature of the third period is the expansion of the composition of the unconscious, its enrichment with qualitatively new and original moments. The second period was characterized by a dynamic understanding of the unconscious as repressed. The repressed, which consisted mainly of sexual desires, is hostile to the conscious "I". In his book "I and It" Freud suggests calling this entire area of the psyche, which does not coincide with "I", "It". "It" is a deep layer of unconscious drives, a psychic "self", the basis of an active individual, which is guided only by the "principle of pleasure" regardless of social reality, and sometimes in spite of it. “It” is that inner dark element of desires and impulses, which is sometimes so acutely felt by a person and which opposes his rational arguments and good will.
"I" (Ego) is the sphere of the conscious, an intermediary between "It" and the external world, including natural and social institutions, comparing the activity of "It" with the "principle of reality", expediency and external necessity. "It" is passion, "I" is reason and prudence. In "It" the principle of pleasure is indivisible; “I” is the bearer of the principle of reality. Finally, "It" is unconscious. Until now, speaking of the unconscious, Freud dealt only with "It": after all, the repressed drives belonged to him. Therefore, the entire unconscious seemed to be something lower, dark, immoral. All the highest, moral, rational coincided with consciousness. This view is wrong. The unconscious is not only "It". And in the "I", and moreover in its higher sphere, there is a region of the unconscious. The process of repression proceeding from the "I" is unconscious, the work of repression is unconsciously performed in the interests of the "I". Thus, the significant region “I” also turns out to be unconscious. It is on this area that Freud focuses his attention in the last period. It turns out to be much wider, duller and more substantial than it seemed at first. The highest unconscious area in the "I" Freud calls "Ideal - I". "Ideal - I" (Super - Ego) is an intrapersonal conscience, a kind of censorship, a critical instance that arises as a mediator between "It" and "I" due to the insolubility of the conflict between them, the inability of the "I" to curb unconscious impulses and subdue them the requirements of the "reality principle". “Ideal - I” is, first of all, that censor whose orders are fulfilled by repression. Then he finds himself in a whole series of other, very important phenomena of his personal and cultural life. It manifests itself in an unaccountable sense of guilt, which weighs on the soul of some people. Consciousness does not recognize this guilt, fights against the feeling of guilt, but cannot overcome it. Further, the manifestations of the "Ideal - I" include the so-called "sudden awakening of conscience", cases of a person manifesting extraordinary severity towards himself, contempt for himself, melancholy, etc. In all these phenomena, the conscious "I" is forced to obey the force acting from the depths unconscious, but at the same time moral. Trying to penetrate into the mechanisms of the human psyche, Freud proceeds from the fact that its deep, natural layer ("It") functions according to an arbitrarily chosen program of obtaining the greatest pleasure. But since, in satisfying his passions, the individual is faced with an external reality that opposes the "It", the "I" stands out in him, striving to curb unconscious drives and direct them into the channel of socially approved behavior. "It" subtly, but imperiously dictates its terms "I". As a submissive servant of unconscious instincts, the "I" tries to maintain its good agreement with "It" and the outside world. This he does not always succeed, therefore a new instance "Ideal - I" is formed in him, which reigns over "I" as a conscience or an unconscious feeling of guilt. "Ideal - I" is, as it were, the highest being in man, reflecting the commandments, social prohibitions, the power of parents and authorities. According to its position and functions in the human psyche, "Ideal - I" is called upon to sublimate unconscious drives and in this sense, as it were, solidifies with the "I". But in its content, "Ideal - I" is closer to "It" and even opposes "I", as an attorney of the inner world of "It", which can lead to conflict situation leading to disorders in the human psyche. Thus, Freud's "I" appears in the form of an "unfortunate creature" which, like a locator, is forced to turn one way or the other in order to be in friendly agreement with both "It" and with the "Ideal - I" ... Although Freud recognized the "heredity" and "naturalness" of the unconscious, it is hardly correct to assert that he absolutizes the power and power of the unconscious and proceeds entirely from the unbridled instincts of man. The task of psychoanalysis, as formulated by Freud, is to transfer the unconscious material of the human psyche into the field of consciousness and subordinate it to its goals. In this sense, Freud was an optimist, since he believed in the ability to realize the unconscious, which he expressed most vividly in the formula: "Where there was" It ", there must be" I "." All his analytical activities were aimed at ensuring that, as the nature of the unconscious was revealed, a person could master his passions and consciously control them in real life. Freud defines the unconscious as non-verbal; it turns into preconscious (from where it can always go into consciousness) by means of connection with the corresponding verbal representations. Freud was aware of the difficulties that stood in the way of mastering the unconscious, fought for a long time to solve this problem, constantly making adjustments to the understanding of the nature of the unconscious and the so-called "primary drives" that make up its core.
