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Confusion . and . Identity
The links in the table on the left take you to sub-headings in this article.
Subconscious . Structure In the nineteenth century, consciousness was often characterised by an arrangement of three factors : will (or action), mind, and emotion (or feeling). However, the gradual realisation that the unconscious mind existed created a problem : the unconscious mind could not at that time be fitted into this scheme. Something new was required in theory. Along came Freud, who produced a different triplet : ego, superego, and id. Now a person had both a conscious mind and an unconscious one. |
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Sub - headings |
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| Two identities | |
| How a psycho- analyis works | |
| References |
However, Freud's formulation suffers from vagueness ; symbolism was used to fill the gaps. Freud's understanding of the mind was brilliant, but I needed to go much further than him into the manner in which the mind worked.
Nineteenth century thinkers focused mainly on consciousness.
Freud added his model of unconsciousness.
To these ideas I added my model of idealism.
Notes. The name given to what is ‘below’ the normal (or surface) consciousness varies : the unconscious, or the subconscious, or the preconscious, depending on a theorist's terminology. My usage of terms is as follows :
I use the term ‘subconscious mind ’ for what is personal to the individual,
and the term ‘unconscious mind ’ for what is general to humanity.
In addition, my model of consciousness is a triplet of will/desire, mind, and feeling/emotion. This model means that consciousness is either functioning as will, mind, and feeling, or the slightly different formulation of desire, mind, and emotion.
It is described in the first article on Emotion, section Model of Emotions, and a short note is given in the glossary.
The mind of a person is often frustrated by his / her own subconscious reality. This is the realm of determinism, of influences that the person cannot explain and often finds disturbing.
What does subconsciousness mean ? . For a long time I could not decide what it is that is subconscious – is it the will or is it the mind ? . Was Schopenhauer correct in his view that the will is blind and unconscious (in the sense of being non-personal)? [¹]. Or is it rather that the subconscious is a subconscious, deluded mind, a view that is compatible with the teachings of Mahayana Buddhism ?
Determinism
means that a person is subject to subconscious
motivation.
In a situation that he finds distressful, the person is being
motivated to act in a certain way by some strong impulse that he
is not aware of : his motivation is subconscious and compulsive. [²]
Is subconscious motivation the way of consciously using the mind in response to subconscious will, or the way of consciously using the will in response to subconscious mind ? . What would be the difference ?
Two Identities
However, my analysis of infancy trauma and its long-term consequences eventually gave me an answer to the riddle of subconsciousness. [³]. From this analysis I constructed the view of a person as having two identities, these being the person's individual identity and social identity. [4]
The individual identity relates to factors of consciousness that are derived purely from his or her's own being, whilst the social identity relates to his or her's social conditioning and social learning. Both of a person's identities are structured into will / desire, mind, and feeling / emotion.
One identity is usually preferred at the expense of the other. The socially-orientated person is centred in their social identity and often represses their individual identity. Whereas for me my individual identity is usually dominant, and reflects my introverted states of mind (though my idealism enables me to switch to my social identity when necessary).
The two identities usually conflict. Social identity requires the person to lose his / her boundaries and become one of the group or the community ; consensus is needed. Whereas individual identity requires the person to remove confusion from his / her mind, thereby removing social dependency ; choice is desired.
A person’s life becomes the drama produced by the interaction between their two identities.
Therefore, whether the social identity is subconscious or whether it is the individual identity that is so, the person's subconsciousness is structured in exactly the same way as the surface (or normal) consciousness is.
This means that the subconscious is structured into will/desire, mind, and feeling/emotion.
The subconscious contains both a subconscious mind and a subconscious will. [5]
These ideas enable me to state how motivation is usually handled by the subconscious mind.
Subconscious motivation usually means the influence of the current subconscious mood and its associated ideas.
Depending on the issue at hand, either subconscious will or subconscious mind dominates. When subconscious will is operative, then the person has to learn to manage it.
The two identities often closely parallel each other in the conscious and the subconscious minds. In general, when one of the four main compound emotions (narcissism, jealousy, guilt and pride) is conscious then its binary, or complementary emotion, is likely to be subconscious, with the binary modes matching as well. So if the love mode of narcissism is dominant in the conscious mind then the love mode of jealousy is likely to be dominant in the subconscious mind. If the vanity mode of narcissism is uppermost in the conscious mind then jealousy in self-pity mode is probably foremost in the subconscious mind. Similar polarities work for guilt and pride. [6]
These ideas on identity can be put another way. Take the extremes of personality, the introvert and the extrovert. For the introvert the surface consciousness is their individual identity and the subconsciousness is their social identity ; vice versa for an extrovert. The subconscious mind of the introvert tries to move him / her in the direction of social responsibility, whereas the subconscious mind of the extrovert moves him / her in the direction of being more of an individual. These complementary stimuli create a distinctive effect.
The introvert's surface consciousness is the extrovert's subconsciousness.
The introvert's subconsciousness is the extrovert's surface consciousness.
This pattern of relationships is the reason that an introvert can form an harmonious partnership with an extrovert.
How a Psycho-Analysis Works
Now I can explain how a psycho-analysis works. [7]. A problem is changed when a person has insight into its cause. Any strong belief is usually associated with one or more particular desires ; however, the person may not be aware of how belief and desire associate together. The link is through feeling. By allowing intuition to function, he / she follows feeling and discovers the ways that hidden beliefs connect to desires. As subconscious beliefs are brought into consciousness the feeling that motivates them is released from compulsive association with them. Such beliefs now become optional instead of compulsive. Determinism fades.
Since the desires are no longer governed by compulsive beliefs the person experiences dis-orientation - this is due to the change in the way that he / she now uses the will. Subconscious compulsion indicates a defensive manoeuvre in a domain of the personality that is weak and fragile : compulsive behaviour shores up the will. When weakness is removed by insight, so it now becomes possible within that domain of the personality for the person to use the will in other ways. He / she re-orientates the will.
In actuality, a psycho-analysis affects the whole of the subconscious identity.
A purely rational understanding of a problem does not affect feeling or will, and so has no affect in changing subconscious motivation. A rational understanding does not release the subconscious pain that is associated with the problem.
To change subconscious
motivation means to connect both to
the problem and to its associated pain. If the pain level is too
great to face, then intense anxiety will be generated. In
general, the pain threshold in a weak domain of the personality
has a lower value than the threshold in a strong domain. Anxiety
creates a barrier that effectively prevents the subconscious pain
from emerging into consciousness.
Anxiety
will always shield the roots of a painful problem from any
rational investigation.
The only way round this effect is to rely on intuition. [8]
[Anxiety is a shield only for problems created in the current life or incarnation ; for karmic problems (that is, problems created in a previous lifetime), fear is the shield. Fear prevents past-life problems from being resolved. The difference between anxiety and fear is that anxiety equals fear plus vanity.]
Problems associated with the will cannot be changed unless the person is ready (or ‘willing’) to change. So if psycho-therapy is forced onto a person then little or no results can be expected : the coercion will generate mistrust and prevent the flow of intuition.
This article is an abridged version of the article Confusion on my websites
Discover Your Mind and
The Strange World of Emotion.
The number in brackets at the end of each reference takes you back to the paragraph that featured it. The addresses of my websites are on the Links page.
[¹]. I examine some of the ideas of Schopenhauer in the section on Mind, on my website A Modern Thinker. [1]
[²].
There is a section on determinism and motivation in the article Characteristics
of a Psycho-analysis
on my website The Subconscious Mind.
A more general outline of determinism is in the article Determinism on my websites Discover Your
Mind and A Modern Thinker.
A different perspective on subconscious motivation is given in
the article End
States, sub-heading
Will
or Mind, on my
website A
Modern Thinker. [2]
[³].
Infancy trauma is my name for psychological trauma that occurs in
the first years of childhood. This distress occurs when the
stresses and negative states of mind of the parents’ own
lives are transmitted to the fledgling ego of the infant.
An article on Bonding focuses on some problems of a sensitive child and
explains an unintentional source of such trauma. This article is
on my websites The Strange World of Emotion and Discover Your Mind.
In more detail, infancy trauma
is explained in two articles.
The first article, Vulnerability of
the Ego,
focuses on the origins of violence. And the second one, Guilt &
Meaning - part 2,
centres on why trauma occurs unintentionally. [3]
[4]. A more detailed analysis of the two identities is given in the article Two Identities, on my website The Subconscious Mind. [4]
[5]. Most of the time the model of consciousness that I use is a three-fold one : will, mind, and feeling. Will can transform into desire, and feeling can transform into emotion ; this transformation produces the three-fold model of desire, mind, and emotion. This model is explained in the first article on Emotion. For other models of consciousness, see glossary note on consciousness. [5]
[6].
A summary of the factors of four important emotions is :
Guilt = self-pity + self-hate.
Pride = vanity + hatred of other people.
Narcissism = love + vanity.
Jealousy = love + self-pity.
My definitions, descriptions, and analysis of emotions are given in the three articles on Emotion. See Basic Ideas page. [6]
[7]. My main writings on psycho-analysis are on my website The Subconscious Mind. [7]
[8]. Anxiety is an emotion and is analysed in
the three articles on Emotion.
Intuition is analysed in the articles Reason and
Intuition and Loop of Intuition, on my website A Modern Thinker. [8]
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The articles in this section are :
Confusion and Identity
Copyright
© 2003 Ian Heath
All Rights Reserved
The copyright is mine, and the article is free to use. It can be reproduced anywhere, so long as the source is acknowledged.
Ian Heath
London, UKwww.confusion.discover-your-mind.co.uk/index.htm
e-mail address:
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