Theories of the Unconscious Mind

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Theories of the Unconscious Mind
Instincts are something that every human being has. They affect everything that we do in our day to day lives. Whether we realize it consciously or not. There are many forms of mental and emotional treatment, but psychoanalysis is different. It requires a certain mindset because of the ethical dilemmas that arise during sessions. There is no room for judgment; any judgment of anti-social or destructive thoughts are detrimental to the psychoanalysis process because the patient would shut down. There is a lot of criticism about psychoanalysis because many people believe that what is in the sub-conscious should remain there (Meadow, 2011).
The Freudian Theory states that there are certain thoughts and desires that are repressed in the unconscious mind. The reason that these thoughts are not conscious, is because there is some reason that they feel the need to keep it repressed whether it be an outside force or inside thought. The only way to bring these thoughts into the conscious is to remove whatever emotion or preconceived notion that represses it. It is common that the patient believes that if they were to express these thoughts that there would be consequences. The patients cannot describe what those consequences would be but only that it would be the worst case scenario. It is the job of the analyst to show the patient that they are free to express their darkest inner thoughts without fear of retribution (Meadow, 2011).
Some of the most common reasons that people feel the need to represses some of their undesirable thoughts is because of laws. Laws were made to govern behavior, but do they govern what goes on unconsciously? When people begin to have these dark thoughts, they banish them because...

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...adicate them (Meadow, 2011).
There are tamed and wild impulses. If you fulfill an untamed impulse, you will get a greater sense of gratification then if you were to fulfill a tamed impulse. It is the job of the analyst to free the patient from being controlled by unwanted thoughts while keeping their own prejudices quiet. It is important that they do not influence the patients mind so the patient can keep their individuality. In this way, analysts should be able to help many different people, even people that they have nothing in common with. Every patient has a chance no matter how dark and twisted their mind gets because, there are people out there that know the limits of the psyche as well as the steps to take to ward off destruction (Meadow, 2011).

Works Cited

Meadow, P. W. (2011). Ethical thought and instinctual life. Modern Psychoanalysis, 36(2), 158-175.

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