The "subconscious" and Psychoanalysis
Though laypersons commonly assume "subconscious" to be psychoanalytic term, this is not in fact the case. Sigmund Freud had explicitly condemned the word as long ago as 1915: "We shall also be right in rejecting the term 'subconsciousness' as incorrect and misleading". In later publications his objections were made clear:
| “ | "If someone talks of subconsciousness, I cannot tell whether he means the term topographically – to indicate something lying in the mind beneath consciousness – or qualitatively – to indicate another consciousness, a subterranean one, as it were. He is probably not clear about any of it. The only trustworthy antithesis is between conscious and unconscious." | ” |
Thus, as Charles Rycroft has explained, "subconscious" is a term "never used in psychoanalytic writings". And, in Peter Gay's words, use of "subconscious" where "unconscious" is meant is "a common and telling mistake"; indeed, "when is employed to say something 'Freudian', it is proof that the writer has not read his Freud".
Freud's own terms for mentation taking place outside conscious awareness were das Unbewusste (rendered by his translators as "the Unconscious") and das Vorbewusste ("the Preconscious"); informal use of the term "subconscious" in this context thus creates confusion, as it fails to make clear which (if either) is meant. The distinction is of significance because in Freud's formulation the Unconscious is "dynamically" unconscious, the Preconscious merely "descriptively" so: the contents of the Unconscious require special investigative techniques for their exploration, whereas something in the Preconscious is unrepressed and can be recalled to consciousness by the simple direction of attention. The erroneous, pseudo-Freudan use of "subconscious" and "subconsciousness" has its precise equivalent in German, where the words inappropriately employed are das Unterbewusste and das Unterbewusstsein.
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Famous quotes containing the word subconscious:
“On a subconscious level your child experiences separation from you as a “punishment.” And if he is to be “rewarded” with your return, he must be very good.... Eager for you to come back, your finicky son would probably eat liver if your baby-sitter served it, and he wouldn’t dream of resisting her at bathtime.”
—Cathy Rindner Tempelsman (20th century)