Reflective awareness, repression, and the cognitive unconscious.

Abstract

The importance of reflective awareness for clinical practice is generally well recognized across a variety of therapeutic approaches. Psychodynamic approaches traditionally also recognize that defense mechanisms provide major impediments to reflective awareness. Recently, however, the neuropsychoanalyst Mark Solms proposes that the dynamic unconscious can be understood in terms of the nondeclarative cognitive unconscious. One consequence of Solms’ proposal is that there is no possibility of lifting repression because nondeclarative content is simply incapable of becoming conscious. This paper addresses whether the dynamic unconscious can be sufficiently addressed by the cognitive unconscious. Cases of anosognosia (denial of illness) are discussed in the context of satisfactorily addressing the complexity of psychodynamic phenomena. This paper contends that while the cognitive unconscious provides an important addition to psychoanalytic thinking, the cognitive view does not adequately account for the dynamic unconscious. The paper proposes retaining the concept of the traditional dynamic unconscious and acknowledging the distinction between motivated and nonmotivated impediments to reflective awareness. Clinical implications of the conceptual distinction between motivated and nonmotivated impediments are further considered.

Psychoanalytic contributions in distinguishing willful ignorance and rational knowledge avoidance

“…For example, a belief would be described as descriptively unconscious if it was believed, without the person currently being aware of having the belief” (p. 2). He writes elsewhere that there is a difference between cognitive science's “cognitive unconscious” and the psychoanalytic “dynamic unconscious” (Boag, 2020 ). The former has non-motivated obstacles to becoming aware of something (e.g., automated processing that is implicit but not presently available to the mind while no motivated repression is involved).…”

“…The former has non-motivated obstacles to becoming aware of something (e.g., automated processing that is implicit but not presently available to the mind while no motivated repression is involved). The latter has motivated obstacles preventing awareness (e.g., unconscious repression involving defense mechanisms defending against unprocessed pain) (Solms, 2017 , 2018 ; Boag, 2020 ).…”

Narratives of Dreams and Waking Thoughts: Emotional Processing in Relation to the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…The theoretical models that analyze the narratives ( Pennebaker, 2000 ; Solano, 2013 ; Bucci, 2021a ) highlight how it is possible to understand the emotional organization and the structure of the person’s defenses during a particular moment in life. The autobiographical narrative capacity is closely linked to the use of defenses and the ability to stay in contact with the different emotions that the events of external and internal reality create in each of us ( Boag, 2020 ). For example, studies on the process of psychotherapy have shown how the progressive lowering of the ego’s defenses allowed for a greater awareness of one’s own experiences ( Kramer et al, 2020 ; De Roten et al, 2021 ).…”