Smart, dumb, or culturally challenged? A social history of the dynamic unconscious

Abstract

This paper provides a social history of the concept of the unconscious, with particular emphasis on ethical and political dimensions of the concept. The historical review begins with late twentieth‐century contexts for the recuperation within psychology of the concept of the unconscious, then turning to a parallel set of debates in the previous century. The ethical and political implications of two theoretical issues are addressed. First, the author discusses the question of whether conscious and unconscious are distinctly different systems of mind, rather than operating along a continuum. In taking up this controversy, the paper revisits the concept of the preconscious in Freud's structural model. Second, the author addresses the question of what is at stake ethically and politically in adopting dramaturgical metaphors in conceptualizing the unconscious versus a model that enlists mechanistic metaphors. In concluding, an example from the author's experience working in the area of women and war is introduced as an application of theoretical concepts.