Unconscious

UNCONSCIOUS, a term accepted in psychology whose exact content, however, cannot be considered definitively established, since the question concerns the psychically unconscious, i.e., the existence of acts that are indeed psychic, but at the same time somehow unaccountable to the conscious personality of man. Historically, the doctrine of the unconscious goes back to Leibniz, who first expressed the idea that, alongside clearly experienced and intensive perceptions, there are "petites perceptions" or "imperceptible perceptions" (perceptions insensibles). Wundt, comparing conscious activity to the field of vision, recognizes at any given moment a fixation point of greatest attention (the act of apperception) surrounded by several concentric spheres of increasingly indistinct psychic states bordering on the threshold of consciousness, beyond which the unconscious begins, understood as the complete absence of psychic life. Standing at approximately the same point of view are some modern psychologists and psychiatrists, e.g., Schilder, Kretschmer, and others. In their opinion, however, the marginal areas of consciousness, containing not only intellectual products (such as, for example, unclear representations, vague concepts) but also affective states and drives, can, despite their considerable distance from the fixation point, possess great dynamic tension. Schilder calls these marginal zones the "sphere" and entirely identifies it with the concept of the psychically unconscious, which exerts a powerful effect on all human behavior and explains a number of psychoneurotic symptoms and psychotic pictures. Schilder does not recognize the psychically unconscious in any other sense. Meanwhile, the most irreconcilable proponents of the theory of the psychically unconscious assert that all impressions forgotten by man (which have, however, retained the ability to be reproduced under suitable conditions) continue to exist in the realm of the unconscious, remaining psychic in the true sense of the word. Wundt energetically opposed this view in his time; he said that all psychic processes are conscious and that, consequently, to recognize the psychically unconscious would mean recognizing something psychic which at the same time is not psychic. Despite this categorical judgment by Wundt, a whole series of facts, mainly of a psychopathological order, forces scientific thought to stubbornly return to the concept of the psychically unconscious as a completely peculiar state that does not coincide with the concept of vague, indistinct, or spherical, according to Schilder's terminology. For example, creative processes indicate the presence of some preliminary processing of psychic material taking place somewhere beyond the limits of consciousness, while the ready conclusion (the creative act, discovery) unexpectedly flares up at a moment when the conscious thoughts of the artist or scientist are intensively focused on completely different subjects. Obviously (say proponents of the hypothesis of the psychically unconscious), somewhere in the depths of the personality, alongside conscious ones, some other psychic processes were playing out, capable of producing the same final result (and perhaps even greater) as the most intensive conscious work; in other words, the concept of the psychic is broader than the concept of consciousness. Similarly, during somnambulistic attacks, actions are performed that are unaccountable to the subject's consciousness, to explain which it is necessary to admit, alongside the "upper consciousness," some other, "lower consciousness," according to Grasset's terminology. To this category of phenomena belong, for example, entire journeys performed by patients in that state which French authors designate by the term "second ego" or "double consciousness" (double conscience). Analogous facts can be found in the literature on hypnosis. All of them received detailed elaboration in the works of Pierre Janet, the most prominent representative of the French psychopathological school, whose founders were Charcot and Ribot. However, Janet, speaking of psychic material capable of splitting off from the conscious ego and forming a new ego lying outside the sphere of the former personality, regards this process, in all cases without exception, as a phenomenon of a pathological order or, at the very least, as an artificial product created, for example, by hypnotic suggestion. Further development of Janet's theory is contained in the works of the American psychologist Morton Prince.

The representatives of purely physiological schools stand at a completely different point of view. To the question of what happens to a person's experiences when the latter undergo temporary forgetting, the physiological theory of the unconscious asserts that these experiences simply cease to exist as such; they remain only in the form of certain changes in the nervous tissue, in the form of traces that can (with sufficient intensity of the nervous process) once again result in a psychic act. Such phenomena as the subconscious solution of problems, sudden discoveries, hysterical and somnambulistic attacks, and so forth, according to this theory, are explained by purely nervous processes. Ribot held such a point of view, and Münsterberg and the entire Russian reflexological school entirely adhere to it. For Bekhterev, unconscious processes "are reflexes whose paths are laid in the nervous system of the brain, but the reproduction of which at a given time depends on the active part of the personality, and therefore these reflexes remain unaccountable to the latter." As can be seen, this theory entirely abolishes the whole question of the psychically unconscious.

A completely peculiar understanding of the unconscious is offered by Freud's psychoanalysis. He distinguishes two types of the unconscious: 1) forgotten psychic material capable, however, of penetrating into consciousness (Bewusstseinsfähig)—this is, according to Freud's terminology, the preconscious (Vorbewusst, abbr. Vb.), and 2) psychic material consisting of drives and desires that during the child's development were systematically suppressed by upbringing and are now forced to remain unconscious, because socio-ethical, aesthetic, and other cultural habits, having reached great strength, do not permit the free manifestation of these primal (infantile) drives. Freud designates cultural habits by the conventional term "censorship," and calls the entire process "repression." The sum of all repressed drives constitutes the content of the unconscious (Unbewusst, abbr. Ubw.). The unconscious, however, possessing dynamism, can break outward, but always undergoes distortion in the process, which is produced by those same repressing forces, or censorship. Such breakthroughs are observed in dreams, slips of the tongue, errors, slips of the pen, and so forth, as well as in nervous symptoms—fears, hysterical seizures, obsessions, and so forth (see Psychoanalysis).

Consideration of all the cited facts and theories leads to the inevitable conclusion that the psychic is not only the totality of experiences, but also that complex material process one of whose properties are these experiences. It is undoubtedly true that under certain, not yet fully elucidated conditions, when psychic experiences disappear, their material basis is not deprived of some dynamism in the form of the ability to influence human behavior. Thus, the unconscious is not psychic as devoid of direct experiences, but it is psychic as a collection of certain material processes no less complex than those that govern acts of conscious behavior. Freud's theory, in that part of where it treats the question of the specific content and mechanisms of the unconscious, is subject to more specialized presentation and analysis (see Psychoanalysis).

"-idei filosofii" [Ideas of Philosophy], no. 15, St. Petersburg, 1914 (contains an exposition of the doctrine of the unconscious by Hartmann, Münsterberg, Ribot, and others); Freud, S., Fundamental Psychological Theories in Psychoanalysis, pp. 125–159, Moscow–Petrograd, 1923; by the same author, The Interpretation of Dreams, Moscow, 1911; by the same author, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, fascs. 1 and 2, Moscow–Petrograd, 1922; by the same author, The Ego and the Id, Moscow, 1924; Janet, P., L'Automatisme psychologique (Russian translation, Moscow, 1913); Bekhterev, V. M., General Principles of Human Reflexology, Moscow–Petrograd, 1923.

Yury Kannabikh.

The unconscious as a forensic-medical concept. An unconscious state is a term denoting such, for the most part sudden, reductions in the norms of excitability of the cerebral cortex, in which the perception of stimulation from the external world and one's own body does not provoke any reactions, or provokes them to an extremely reduced degree. One should distinguish the unconscious state in the medical sense from the unconscious state in the legal sense. In unconsciousness, there is a cessation of the perception of impressions, as well as an absence of psychological internal experiences. An unconscious state occurs in very severe brain disorders resulting from infections, poisonings (alcohol, morphine, chloroform, etc.), traumatic injuries, concussion of the brain, epileptic seizures, apoplexy, etc. Unconsciousness in the indicated sense, i.e., a state characterized by a complete loss of consciousness while vital vegetative manifestations continue, precludes any activity and therefore has no significant importance in a forensic-medical respect, with the exception of isolated cases when a person who has fallen into this state is subjected, by virtue of their helplessness, to any criminal actions on the part of other persons. The unconscious state in criminal law is defined as a state in which a person does not understand the nature and significance of what they are committing and cannot direct their actions. In this sense, the unconscious state is a delimiting sign embracing all states that exclude subjective imputability (see). The expression "unconscious state" as a legislative term is not found in the current Soviet Criminal Code. In Soviet legislation, it corresponds to the expression: "in a state of temporary disorder of mental activity or in another pathological state, if these persons could not comprehend the significance of their actions or direct them." The concept of the unconscious state in the legal sense embraces such disorders in which psychological processes are not terminated, but also do not rise to the height of self-consciousness, as a result of which there is a disturbance of the correct and clear perception of the surroundings. These include: 1) somnolent states (drowsiness, somnambulism), 2) transient states in connection with a disturbance of blood circulation in the brain, 3) states in connection with intoxication or infection, 4) states of morbid psychological agitation (see Affect). In these cases, we are dealing with a change in the scope and clarity of consciousness. The scope of consciousness is the number of representations simultaneously filling consciousness; clarity is the completeness of representations of any concept, with the simultaneous exclusion of representations not related thereto. Under normal conditions, the content of consciousness at each moment is small, and alongside what is clearly conscious, there is what is less clearly conscious; in other words, everything located in the focus of the field of consciousness is clearly and distinctly conscious, and what is located on its periphery is hazy. Under pathological conditions, it is possible, on the one hand, to shift the focus of consciousness from the center to the periphery, and on the other hand, to fluctuate the center of our mental life, the consciousness of our own ego. Thus, there are various degrees of awareness of psychological processes and experiences. The same transitions are possible here as at twilight between the fading of a bright sunny day and the onset of a deep dark night. Morbid clouding of consciousness is usually accompanied by a disturbance of perception, associative activity, orientation in time, place, and surroundings; at the same time, thinking slows down, becomes unclear, and the reproduction of previous impressions weakens. As a result of the disturbance of the correctness and clarity of perceptions, illusions and hallucinations sometimes arise, and the interpretation of surroundings becomes absurd and delusional. The suppression of higher brain instances leads to the predominance of lower ones, expressed in reflex and automatic actions. The subject is under the sway of an isolated circle of ideas with strong emotional coloring, alien to the usual content of their thinking, and their behavior and actions at the given moment are dictated by them. During such states, patients often perform seemingly purposeful actions, although their behavior is determined by impressions uncorrected by reason, and control by previous experience is absent. External behavior, which in some cases is completely correct, does not contradict the presence of a disorder of consciousness. The sole criterion—amnesia (see)—although it represents a very valuable clinical sign of those psychological processes that occur outside the field of clear consciousness, is nevertheless clearly insufficient, since the disorder of memories can be expressed in various degrees. It should be kept in mind generally that not every clouding of consciousness is necessarily accompanied by amnesia; for example, in delirious states (and even twilight states) in some genuine epileptics, memories of what was experienced may be preserved. Disorders of consciousness play a prominent role because they frequently cause severe disorders of critical judgment, changes in mood, absurd ideas, and sensory deceptions. The criminogenic significance of a disorder of consciousness is determined, on the one hand, by the insufficient coordination of psychological functions, and on the other hand, by the insufficiency of perceptions and the reduction of the control of the personality as a whole. Hence the predominance partly of impulsive criminal actions, partly of completely senseless actions. Of particularly great criminogenic significance are those twilight states that are accompanied by hallucinations, illusions of a frightening character, and delusional ideas. Among them, the first place is occupied by disorders of consciousness in epileptics and in persons in a state of pathological intoxication, followed by the twilight states of traumatics and hysterics, delirium tremens, and so forth. The criminogenic significance of oneiric and confusional consciousness in infectious, schizophrenic, and manic-depressive diseases is quite high. In civil law, the unconscious state is a cause eliminating the legal capacity of a person who has fallen into this state. Soviet legislation (Article 31 of the Civil Code) considers any transaction performed by a person "temporarily in such a state that they cannot understand their actions" to be invalid.