I spoke of you as my secret sharer
to whom my life knows many paths;
I named you: the one all children know,
the one all strings are stretched across,
the one for whom I'm dark and still. (Rilke)
The task before us is neither to describe the unconscious nor analyze it, as though we were third party to its clandestine acts, this "we" living above and beyond.
No, our task is to produce the unconscious, to make it exist within us, to recognize its operations as part of our becoming. In any event, what is called the unconscious must be understood from the individual's perspective, and that means its operations will only "make sense" on an individual basis, how it comes into being through each individual's life.
This is the great failing of psychoanalysis, in which everyone can be "boiled down" to identical structural forces.
to whom my life knows many paths;
I named you: the one all children know,
the one all strings are stretched across,
the one for whom I'm dark and still. (Rilke)
The task before us is neither to describe the unconscious nor analyze it, as though we were third party to its clandestine acts, this "we" living above and beyond.
No, our task is to produce the unconscious, to make it exist within us, to recognize its operations as part of our becoming. In any event, what is called the unconscious must be understood from the individual's perspective, and that means its operations will only "make sense" on an individual basis, how it comes into being through each individual's life.
This is the great failing of psychoanalysis, in which everyone can be "boiled down" to identical structural forces.
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What do you think of psychoanalysis? I've only ever taken an introductory course in psychology (a survey level class) so my impression was rather poor. Is there more to it that I don't know? The concept of the 'unconscious' to me seems more like something that consists of personal symbolism rather than concrete, abstract ideas.