Having established that repression works by preventing an idea from becoming conscious, rather than destroying it altogether, Freud proceeds to investigate the 'unconscious' where these ideas, and many other affects are held. However he faces an inevitable problem - how can one learn about the unconscious? He proposes that through psychoanalysis we can study the translation of things from the unconscious into the conscious. Firstly though he addresses more pressing issues.
1. Justification for the Concept of the Unconscious
The fact that it is so hard to study the unconscious has provoked controversy, in the scientific world, questioning its very existence. Freud proceeds to argue that the assumption of the unconscious is necessary and legitimate and that he has various proofs of its existence.
It is necessary because the data of consciousness has many gaps in it - both in healthy and sick people certain psychical facts can only be explained by presupposing other acts, beyond consciousness - for example parapraxes and dreams, and the sudden arrival of an idea into one's head etc. Furthermore, Freud argues that when we consider all of our latent memories (which he argues cannot be mere residues of somatic processes, but are indeed residues of psychical processes), it seems incomprehensible to deny the existence of the unconscious.
Freud then turns his attention to what we know for certain about the nature of these debatable states - no physiological or chemical process can give us any notion of their nature - on the other hand he argues that it is certain that they do have abundant points of contact with conscious mental processes - before psychoanalysis, post-hypnotic suggestion had tangibly demonstrated the existence of the unconscious.
Secondly, Freud's argument that the assumption of the unconscious is legitimate, is supported by the fact that in the same way that we infer consciousness in other people, through analogy from their observable utterances and actions, so we should apply this process of inference to ourselves, which would lead us to the assumption of another second consciousness (responsible for the acts and manifestations in oneself that cannot be linked with the rest of one's mental life). Critics here argue, that an unconscious consciousness is just as unlikely and assuming as the idea of the 'unconscious'. Furthermore, we have a second consciousness, why not a third and a fourth etc.? Thirdly, some of the latent processes identified seem alien to us and therefore are not likely to be from an alternative consciousness, but rather suggest the existence of psychical acts that lack consciousness.
Having justified the 'unconscious' Freud relates it to other ideas such as animism, which caused us to see copies of own consciousness all around us, so whilst we must be careful not to attribute properties of the conscious too readily to the unconscious, the inference of one from the other seems legitimate.
2. Various Meanings of 'The Unconscious' - The Topographical Point of View
Freud outlines his ideas of the unconscious. He proposes that the unconscious comprises both acts which are merely latent, temporarily unconscious, but which differ in no respects from conscious ones, and processes such as repressed ones, which if conscious would be bound to stand out in the crudest contrast to the rest of the conscious processes. From findings of psychoanalysis, he then proposes that a psychical act goes through two phases with a 'censorship' between the two. In the first phase the act is unconscious, and if it is rejected by censorship it is 'repressed' and remains in the unconscious system (Ucs.). If however, it passes the censorship 'test' it enters the conscious system (Cs.) where it is not yet conscious but is capable of becoming conscious - Freud calls this capacity for becoming conscious the 'preconscious' (Pcs.). Having established this 'topographical' view, Freud then tries to apply to the question of whether, when an act is transposed from the Ucs. to the Cs. Does this transposition involve a fresh record of the idea in question, the unconscious registration co- existing alongside - or rather does the transposition involve a change in state of the idea? Freud proposes that this second more functional hypothesis is more probable, however since this topographical view, for the present has nothing to do with anatomy, we have no insight into the localisation of these processes as the first hypothesis requires.
Having discussed 'ideas' and the unconscious, Freud now looks at whether there are also unconscious instinctual impulses, emotions and feelings. He proposes that instincts can never become conscious - only their ideas can, and they must be represented in the unconscious by their idea too - as if it did not manifest itself by an idea - we could know nothing about it.
With respect to emotion, it seems that the essence of an emotion is that we should be aware of it, but in psychoanalytic practice unconscious love, hate, anger etc. is often spoken of. The main difference between ideas (and instincts therefore) and affects and emotions, being that ideas are cathexes - basically of memory traces - whilst affects and emotions correspond to processes of discharge - the final manifestations of which are perceived as feelings. Therefore when we talk of unconscious affect or emotion, we mean that it has been repressed (by one of three possible vicissitudes see before) so whilst it seems accurate to talk of affective structure in the Ucs. it must be noted that there may be others that become part of the Cs. Furthermore the importance of the system Cs. (Pcs.) as regards access to the release of affect throws some light upon the form taken by an illness. So, having asserted that in repression the affect and its idea are severed, each undergoing separate vicissitudes - it seems that in reality the affect does not arise until the break through to a new representation in the Cs has been achieved.
4. Topography and Dynamics of Repression
Having established that repression is a process that affects ideas on the border between the Ucs. and Pcs. (Cs.) Freud now ventures to describe this in more detail. He proposes that it must be a matter of a withdrawal of cathexis, but this prompts the question - In which system does the cathexis that is withdrawn belong? From looking at repression proper, where the repression withdraws from the idea the preconscious cathexis which belongs to the system Pcs. The idea then remains uncathected, or receives cathexis from the Ucs., or retains the Ucs. cathexis which it had. It is noteworthy that here the functional hypothesis easily defeats the topographical one - since this must be based on an assumption that the transition from the Ucs. to the next, is effected through a change in its state rather than new registration alone (see II).
Freud proposes though that this description is unsatisfactory, and therefore adopts a third account of psychical phenomena (to join the topographical and functional points of view) - the economic one - which endeavours to follow out the vicissitudes of amounts of excitation and to arrive at least at some relative estimate of their magnitude. He then proposes that when one has described a psychical process with respect to these three aspects, the term 'metapsychological' can be coined. He then looks at metapsychological descriptions of the process of repression in the three transference neuroses - replacing cathexis by libido, since in these cases the instincts are all sexual in nature.
Having described anxiety neurosis in terms of these metapsychological aspects, he then looks at how this reflects the other two neuroses - conversion hysteria and obsessional neurosis - which he argues are similar. Nevertheless Freud highlights their differences and the role of 'anticathexis', concluding that it is because of the prominence of the anticathexis and the absence of discharge that the work of repression seems far less successful in anxiety hysteria and in obsessional neurosis than in conversion hysteria.
5. The Special Characteristics of the System Ucs.
Freud notes that the distinction between the two systems the Cs. and the Ucs. is added to by the fact that processes in the one system the Ucs, show properties that are not found in the Pcs. Or Cs. These characteristics of the Ucs. processes are - exemption from mutual contradiction (when two or more instinctual impulses exist side by side) - but rather a compromise, timelessness (i.e. the processes of the Ucs. are not ordered temporally, and replacement of the external by psychical reality.
These processes of the Ucs., in turn are only cognizable under the conditions of dreaming and neurosis - when the Pcs. Is set back to an earlier stage - i.e. regression. However the full significance of these characteristics is only fully appreciated if they are contrasted and compared with the Pcs., which Freud declines from going into in detail here. He does however note that the processes of the Pcs. do show an inhibition of the tendency of cathected ideas towards discharge - hence the proposition by Breuer of two states of cathectic energy - one which is bound and another which is 'free'. Furthermore, in comparison to the Ucs, it is in the Pcs. that the ideational contents can influence each other and be censored etc. however again al of these conclusions have been drawn from observation of humans, and Freud notes that it would be valuable to assess the significance of these ideas with respect to animals, as well as other human pathological conditions.
6. Communication Between the Two Systems
Freud argues that it is incorrect to argue that the Ucs. is at rest whilst the Pcs. performs the work of the mind, nor can it be said that their communication is confined to the act of repression. Rather, the Ucs. is alive and can maintain a number of relations with the Pcs. e.g. co-operation. In sum, the Ucs. is continued into 'derivatives', and that it is accessible to the impressions of life and that it constantly influences the Pcs. and even vice versa.
These ideas are supported by the fact that the derivatives of the Ucs. are not predictably clear- cut from those of the Pcs. This is found especially in the fact that some derivatives of the Ucs. become conscious as substitutive formations and symptoms - on the other hand many preconscious formations remain unconscious despite their nature which implies that they would become conscious - from these observations Freud proposes that the important distinctions are not between the conscious and preconscious, but between the unconscious and the preconscious. Despite this he maintains that there are two censorships from Ucs. to Cs. - the first between Ucs. and Pcs. And a second between Pcs. and Cs, through which the contents pass, being partly derived from instinctual life (throught the medium of the Ucs.) and partly from perception. Consistent with his use of neuroses as evidence - he supports this with the idea that in illness, these two are severely divergent. Freud concludes this section, with ideas about the cooperation that exists between the Pcs. and Ucs. impulse, concluding that the final sharp division between the content of the two systems does not take place until puberty.
7. Assessment of the Unconscious
In his final section, Freud reviews his work thus far and proposes that from drawing upon dream-life and neuroses alone, he has got as far as he can, in describing the Ucs. He then looks at various cases of schizophrenia (Bleuler) or 'dementia praecox' as Kraeplin termed it, especially noting the work of Abraham (1908) and the antithesis between ego and object. Having described various case studies, he concludes that as regards schizophrenia, he is unsure as to whether the process here termed repression has anything at all in common with the repression that takes place in the transference neuroses - or even be a modified version of the formula of repression that occurs between the Ucs. and Pcs.. Rather he only describes schizophrenics' mode of thought in terms of his treatment of concrete things as though they were abstract and omits other possibilities and their relation to the assessment of the Ucs.