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Oct 6, 2023 · According to Freud, our behavior is influenced by unconscious memories, thoughts, and urges. These unconscious contents are outside our conscious awareness and can be unacceptable or unpleasant, such as feelings of pain, anxiety, or conflict. Freud likened the three levels of mind to an iceberg. The conscious mind is the tip of the iceberg that ...
- Overview
- What Is the Conscious Mind?
- How the Conscious Mind Works
- The Iceberg Metaphor
- Conscious vs. Preconscious Differences
- How the Preconscious Works
- A Word From Verywell
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The conscious mind is one element of Sigmund Freud's topographic model of the mind. Freud was not the first theorist to describe consciousness or unconsciousness, but these elements played a fundamental part in his theories of human psychology.
In Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory of personality, the conscious mind consists of everything inside of our awareness.
The conscious mind includes:
•Fantasies
•Feelings
•Memories
•Perceptions
It isn't possible to keep every thought, memory, or feeling inside of conscious awareness at all times. So instead, certain information is maintained in awareness, other information remains outside of immediate awareness but still accessible, and other information is hidden from awareness.
Freud's topographic theory was a "map" of the different systems that make up the human mind. According to Freud, the mind is made up of three systems: the conscious (Cs.), the preconscious (Pcs.), and the unconscious (Ucs.)
These systems are controlled by what Freud identified as the primary and secondary processes:
•The primary processes are a way to discharge unacceptable urges that arise from the unconscious mind. It often involves creating a mental image to act as a substitute for acting on an unacceptable urge.
•The secondary processes are how the mind deals with conscious urges through delayed gratification. For example, instead of acting immediately on a thought you just had, you wait for a more appropriate time to take action.
The topographic model of the mind is also part of Freud's larger structural model of personality, which includes the id, ego, and superego.
Freud often used the metaphor of an iceberg to describe the two major aspects of human personality. The tip of the iceberg that extends above the water represents the conscious mind. As you can see in the image on top, the conscious mind is just the "tip of the iceberg." Beneath the water is the much larger bulk of the iceberg, which represents the unconscious.
While the conscious and preconscious are important, Freud believed that they were far less vital than the unconscious.
The conscious mind involves all the things you are currently aware of and are thinking about. It is somewhat akin to short-term memory and is limited in capacity. Your awareness of yourself and the world around you is part of your consciousness.
The preconscious mind, also known as the subconscious mind, includes things that we might not be presently aware of but that we can pull into conscious awareness when needed.
You might not presently be thinking about how to do long division, but you can access the information and bring it into conscious awareness when solving a math problem.
The preconscious mind is a part of the mind that corresponds to ordinary memory. These memories are not conscious, but we can retrieve them to conscious awareness at any time.
While these memories are not part of your immediate awareness, they can be quickly brought into awareness through conscious effort. For example, if you were asked what television show you watched last night or what you had for breakfast this morning, you would be pulling that information out of your preconscious.
A helpful way to think of the preconscious is that it acts as a sort of gatekeeper between the conscious and unconscious parts of the mind. It allows only certain pieces of information to pass through and enter conscious awareness.
Phone numbers and social security numbers are also examples of information stored in your preconscious mind. While you do not walk around consciously thinking about this information all the time, you can quickly draw it out of your subconscious when you are asked to relate these numbers.
In Freud’s iceberg metaphor, the preconscious exists just below the surface of the water. You can see the murky shape and outline of the submerged ice if you focus and make an effort to see it.
The conscious mind is an important part of Freudian theory. This component of the mind is critical for survival since it allows us to direct attention and perceive events that we need to respond to in the immediate environment.
However, Freud also believed that the conscious represented only a tiny portion of the totality of the human mind. While a small portion of the mind is accessible to us through the conscious and preconscious, Freud believed that the bulk of our mind's contents is found in the unconscious. And while this was not directly accessible, tactics such as dream interpretation and free associations might be a way to bring this information into the conscious mind.
4 Sources
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1.Freud's model of the human mind. Journal Psyche. (n.d.).
2.Boag S. Topographical model. In: Zeigler-Hill V, Shackelford TK, eds. Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer International Publishing; 2017:1-6. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1432-1
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Sep 4, 2023 · The global workspace theory is perhaps the most influential theory of consciousness. While there are variations within this model, there are a set of shared assumptions (Eysenck & Keane, 2015). Consciousness is dependent on many unconscious, specialized processes that operate in parallel; for example, motion, depth perception, and color ...
Aug 26, 2022 · Levels of Consciousness. To explain the concept of conscious versus unconscious experience, Freud compared the mind to an iceberg (See figure 11.5). He said that only about one-tenth of our mind is conscious, and the rest of our mind is unconscious. Our unconscious refers to that mental activity of which we are unaware and are unable to access ...
Jun 24, 2022 · Levels of Consciousness. To explain the concept of conscious versus unconscious experience, Freud compared the mind to an iceberg (Figure 1). He said that only about one-tenth of our mind is conscious, and the rest of our mind is unconscious. Our unconscious refers to that mental activity of which we are unaware and are unable to access (Freud ...
Nov 21, 2023 · The superego operates at all three levels of consciousness. The preconscious mind is comprised of both the ego and the superego. ... to the iceberg model in relation to Freud's theory of ...
Jul 14, 2017 · Introduction. Freud introduces his topographic theory of mind in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). There he proposes that the mental apparatus is comprised of three mental systems: the systems unconscious ( Ucs. ), preconscious ( Pcs. ), and conscious ( Cs. ). System Cs. processes are descriptively conscious, such that they are present in ...
