Beyond the Unconscious - Part II

Towards a Unity of Mind and Body: The Embodied Unconscious So, how can we re-read Freud's observations with a more peaceful gaze? First, we must move beyond the illusion of omnipotence. Freud often equated God with a "super-dad," projecting an absolute masculine figure. Yet, in monotheisms, God creates man in His image, but this does not make man a god. Divine omniscience is not transferred to the human. Therefore, the Freudian vision, postulating a potentially omniscient spirit limited by the unconscious, is inaccurate.

Perhaps we must accept that the human being is neither omnipotent nor omniscient. No therapy or spiritual practice (meditation, yoga) will render the individual omniscient. Mindfulness allows one to reach the maximum consciousness of human capacities, not a super-power. Similarly, therapy allows one to understand the hidden mechanisms of the mental theater without illuminating everything.

Once this non-omnipotence is accepted, everything falls into place. The mind is one; it expresses itself through consciousness, but part of its functioning remains non-conscious, like an iceberg. The body and mind are inseparable. Contemporary theories tend to place the "unconscious" within the body: the mind embodies itself. If the body can somatize ailments, cannot it also help digest and heal our traumas?

Slips of the Tongue: Micro-tumors of the Mental Process We are left with the question of slips of the tongue and parapraxes, Freud's major innovation. They serve as outlets, evacuating what consciousness rejects. Repression is the mechanism that renders the memory unknown, an idea that put Nietzsche on Freud's path. But what are they concretely?

Envisioning a material reality for the mind, beyond abstraction, opens unprecedented avenues. We can draw a parallel between a repetitive slip of the tongue and cancer: both are dysfunctions of an established biological process. Associated with repression, they can be viewed as micro-tumors. They are the symptom of something that, if untreated, can degenerate.

Conclusion: The Unconscious is Not an Entity, but a Process Knowing the Pythagorean theorem does not require postulating an unconscious. We recall it when we need it. The mind possesses a selection system (consciousness, attention) that allows mobilizing only what is necessary. We do not remember our entire life simultaneously, which would be unbearable. Similarly, our sensory perception is selective.

In this approach, the non-conscious part of the individual can no longer be separated into a distinct entity. There is no longer a place for projection to reject what we are. This aligns with the truth of spiritualities: we are not our emotions. The Freudian unconscious suggests we permanently carry all our emotions, ready to emerge. Yet, a person with a phobia of bees does not panic constantly; fear exists only in the face of reality. Without reality, the feeling is not present.

Finally, did the strict distinction between consciousness and the unconscious not create a major cognitive bias? Without this separate unconscious, the individual is not omnipotent, but simply conscious, not omniscient. The mind operates through complex, non-rational mechanisms (archetypes, schemas) of which the individual is unaware. The unconscious, like a vast repository of memories and blockages, does not exist as an autonomous entity.

Freud had the brilliant idea of structuring a practice of learning and evolution, and his approach remains useful. However, his reading is largely oriented by his personal history. Psychological knowledge can become cognitive biases if not regularly criticized. The human being is not omniscient. Mindfulness, like the psychological endeavor, is the learning of being conscious to the maximum of one's capacities, knowing that we can never know everything. The goal is above all to learn to live more fluidly, without projecting our shadows onto an imaginary entity.