Key Arguments

• Freud states that "The repressed is for us the paragon of the unconscious," indicating that repressed material defines the dynamic unconscious.
• He distinguishes two kinds of unconscious: "the latent, yet able to become conscious, and the repressed, which, in and of itself and by implication, is unable to become conscious."
• He proposes terminological adjustments: calling the latent content that is only descriptively unconscious "preconscious" (pcs) and reserving "unconscious" (ucs) for the dynamically repressed.
• He reorganizes nomenclature into three systems—"conscious (cs), preconscious (pcs), and unconscious (ucs)"—explicitly based on dynamic considerations rather than pure description.

Source Quotes

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. The repressed is for us the paragon of the unconscious. We see, however, that we have a twofold unconscious, the latent, yet able to become conscious, and the repressed, which, in and of itself and by implication, is unable to become conscious.

The repressed is for us the paragon of the unconscious. We see, however, that we have a twofold unconscious, the latent, yet able to become conscious, and the repressed, which, in and of itself and by implication, is unable to become conscious. Our insight into the psychical dynamics cannot remain without impact on the nomenclature 10 and descriptions.

Our insight into the psychical dynamics cannot remain without impact on the nomenclature 10 and descriptions. We call the latent only what is descriptively unconscious, not, in the dynamic sense, preconscious; the name unconscious we limit to the dynamic unconscious repressed, so we have now three terms, conscious (cs), preconscious (pcs), and unconscious (ucs), no longer in the merely descriptive sense. Consider the pcs, which lies closer to the cs than to the ucs, and since we have called the ucs psychical, we will do the same unobjectionably to the latent pcs.

Key Concepts

• Our term of the unconscious we obtained too from the theory of repression. The repressed is for us the paragon of the unconscious.
• We see, however, that we have a twofold unconscious, the latent, yet able to become conscious, and the repressed, which, in and of itself and by implication, is unable to become conscious.
• We call the latent only what is descriptively unconscious, not, in the dynamic sense, preconscious; the name unconscious we limit to the dynamic unconscious repressed, so we have now three terms, conscious (cs), preconscious (pcs), and unconscious (ucs), no longer in the merely descriptive sense.

Context

Mid‑chapter clarification of how repression theory leads to a refined typology of the unconscious and the introduction of the cs/pcs/ucs triad.