A volume in the series, Ideas in Psychoanalysis (Series Editor, Ivan Ward). This series explains psychoanalytic concepts, their relevance to everyday life, and their ability to illuminate the nature of human society and culture. Published by Icon Books Please note that this volume is one of ten titles in this series included as a chapter in On a Darkling Plain Freud’s discovery of the dynamic unconscious is arguably his most important contribution to our understanding of the human mind. While others before him had realised that not all mental activity is conscious, it was Freud’s aim to study in detail both the content and the alien mode of thinking of the unconscious mind. Dreams burst upon us, playing enigmatically upon our inner theatre, dense with obscure meaning. Freud showed the continuity between dreams, puzzling neurotic and psychotic symptoms, slips of the tongue and a multitude of errors which reveal the existence of the unconscious mind. Phil Mollon explains that while we may have illusions of autonomy and conscious awareness of our motivations, psychoanalysis reveals that we are often ‘lived by’ the unconscious which dwells within, largely hidden during daylight, but revealing its controlling influence within the dramas of sleep. Immensely creative yet powerfully destructive, the unconscious can be a source of guidance as well as subversion, evoking both awe and dread. Phil Mollon is a psychoanalyst and a clinical psychologist. He works in the National Health Service and in private practice in Hertfordshire. His psychoanalytic interests include memory, trauma, and psychosis. Phil Mollon is a psychoanalyst, psychotherapist and clinical psychologist. He served on the Working Party on Recovered Memory of the British Psychological Society, and has written widely on the subject. from the publisher's website
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