The unconscious: What took so long, what we know, and clinical implications

Unconscious processes are reviewed from historical, empirical, neurocognitive, and clinical perspectives. Historical factors delayed the scientific study of unconscious processes in academic psychology because of the Cartesian identification of mental with conscious awareness. This became even more extreme when behaviorism dismissed internal processes altogether. Psychoanalysis emphasized unconscious processes from its inception, but its isolation from academic psychology and aversion to empirical methods limited its influence. Academic psychology, in turn, dismissed psychoanalytic methods and insights, and eventually came to recognize unconscious processes, which it saw as normative. Some of the main research findings are reviewed and clinical implications are suggested. Finally, three neurocognitive models of the mind as possible metapsychologies are examined. All posit unconscious, parallel, and associative processing, and they also align with many psychodynamic tenets including contradiction, conflict, and compromise, but do not view them as necessarily leading to pathology. It is argued for a reconceptualization of the unconscious as normative, mostly promoting adaptation, that sometimes goes awry.

Keywords: Unconscious; Neurocognitive models of the mind; Research on unconscious processes; Psychoanalysis; Clinical implications

Joel Weinberger, L’inconscio. Perché ci è voluto così tanto tempo, cosa sappiamo oggi, e alcune implicazioni cliniche in "PSICOTERAPIA E SCIENZE UMANE" 3/2025, pp 377-410, DOI: 10.3280/PU2025-003001