Beyond the Unconscious Part I

Introduction: Is the Concept Necessary? The concept of the unconscious is often presented as a cornerstone of Freudian psychology. Emerging partly from Nietzschean thought, it introduced a rupture in our understanding of the mind. Yet, is this concept truly necessary? According to Freud, the mind is divided into two entities: consciousness and the unconscious. Beyond immediate awareness, there exists a distinct instance—the unconscious—that orients our thoughts and actions based on past experiences, traumas, and learning. Although part of the mind, this unconscious would operate according to its own laws, structured by the Freudian triad (Id, Ego, Superego) or Jungian archetypes. Consciousness and the unconscious would interact intermittently: consciousness sometimes accesses dreams, while the unconscious manifests through slips of the tongue or parapraxes (acts missed).

A Complex and Dualistic Representation This vision presents a major complication. Freud theorized the separation between body and mind, yet simultaneously acknowledged, through parapraxes and somatization ("ills replace words"), that the body expresses what the mind represses. We thus arrive at a tripartite being: a consciousness, an unconscious, and a body, functioning in parallel with variable interactions. But is this concept indispensable? What vision of humanity does it translate?

The Illusion of Omnipotence and the Übermensch Beyond the notion of infantile omnipotence, do we not discern a fundamentally idealist vision of the human? This theory could express the idea that consciousness, and thus the individual, would be perfect and omniscient, limited only by the unconscious (guardian of traumas) and the body (source of illness). In short, we would be a "pure spirit," happy and without flaw, were it not for the unconscious and the body reminding us of our human condition. The unconscious then becomes a sack where all problems are discarded. This conception, rooted in the bourgeois Judeo-Christian context of the late 19th century—an era when child protection began to increase—could hide a desire to reassure oneself by imagining oneself omnipotent.

Freud and His Own Shadows: A Biographical Hypothesis In the specific case of Sigmund Freud, this question takes on particular resonance. Some analyses suggest that all of his siblings suffered abuse at the hands of their father, events that Sigmund allegedly denied or repressed. However, his own theory posits that throat cancer can be a symptom of repression linked to the mouth and speech. Freud died of throat cancer. It is tempting to see in his theory a projection of his own inability to integrate traumatic memories. Could the separation between consciousness and the unconscious, the inability to connect with oneself, reflect his own repression? Would the notion of omnipotence then be merely an attempt by the mind to reassure itself by imagining an idealized past?

Similarly, could the concept of infantile sexuality, often attributed to Freud, be the echo of a repressed memory identified as a drive rather than a fantasy? The Oedipus complex, often interpreted as the necessity to "kill the father" to internalize his authority, might it mask a different reality? In the myth, Oedipus kills his father out of arrogance and ignorance, thereby denying any place to his heritage. Conversely, a healthy relationship with parents would imply recognizing the father as an imperfect figure, part of our identity without being denied. If Freud imposes the obligation to "kill the father," is this not a metaphor for erasing the real father and his traumas to support an idealized authority?