Key Arguments

• Freud notes that, apart from descriptive usage, psychoanalysis comes to the concept of the unconscious "through the workmanship of experience, in which mental dynamics play a part."
• He claims we must accept "that there exists a very robust mental process or set of processes" that can have all the inner effects of ideas and generate further ideas that can become conscious, yet these processes "themselves are unconscious."
• He applies psychoanalytic theory to assert that these ideas "cannot be conscious, because a certain force resists them"; the presence of resistance differentiates them from merely latent contents.
• The analytic technique provides "a means to lift the resistant force" and thereby make such ideas conscious, empirically justifying their prior unconscious existence.
• He identifies "the state in which they resided before consciousness" as "repression," and the force maintaining this as "resistance" felt during analysis, tying the dynamic unconscious directly to repression.

Source Quotes

Were we to then contradict this point, we would thus get into a debate, in which neither side allows itself defeat. However, we have come to the term or concept of the unconscious by another path, through the workmanship of experience, in which mental dynamics 5 play a part. We have learnt, that is, we must accept that there exists a very robust mental process or set of processes—here a quantitative and also economic element 6 comes into consideration—that can have all the effects in the inner life that the psyche can have, like random ideas, as well as such effects that in turn can, as ideas, become conscious, only they themselves are unconscious.

However, we have come to the term or concept of the unconscious by another path, through the workmanship of experience, in which mental dynamics 5 play a part. We have learnt, that is, we must accept that there exists a very robust mental process or set of processes—here a quantitative and also economic element 6 comes into consideration—that can have all the effects in the inner life that the psyche can have, like random ideas, as well as such effects that in turn can, as ideas, become conscious, only they themselves are unconscious. It is not important to repeat here in detail what so often has been described 7.

It is not important to repeat here in detail what so often has been described 7. Suffice, at this point, to apply the psychoanalytical theory and aver that such ideas cannot be conscious, because a certain force resists them. Otherwise they could become conscious, and we’d then see how little they differ from other accepted psychic elements.

Otherwise they could become conscious, and we’d then see how little they differ from other accepted psychic elements. This theory would thus be irrefutable, for they have found within the psychoanalytical field, a means to lift the resistant force and, with its aid, can make the ideas in question conscious. The state in which they resided before consciousness we call repression and the force which induced the repression 8 and upheld it, we argue, is felt as resistance 9 during analytical work.

This theory would thus be irrefutable, for they have found within the psychoanalytical field, a means to lift the resistant force and, with its aid, can make the ideas in question conscious. The state in which they resided before consciousness we call repression and the force which induced the repression 8 and upheld it, we argue, is felt as resistance 9 during analytical work. Our term of the unconscious we obtained too from the theory of repression.

Key Concepts

• However, we have come to the term or concept of the unconscious by another path, through the workmanship of experience, in which mental dynamics 5 play a part.
• we must accept that there exists a very robust mental process or set of processes—here a quantitative and also economic element 6 comes into consideration—that can have all the effects in the inner life that the psyche can have, like random ideas, as well as such effects that in turn can, as ideas, become conscious, only they themselves are unconscious.
• such ideas cannot be conscious, because a certain force resists them.
• they have found within the psychoanalytical field, a means to lift the resistant force and, with its aid, can make the ideas in question conscious.
• The state in which they resided before consciousness we call repression and the force which induced the repression 8 and upheld it, we argue, is felt as resistance 9 during analytical work.

Context

Freud’s transition from a purely descriptive to a dynamic, repression-based account of the unconscious in Chapter I.