Sigmund Freud, known as the founder of psychoanalysis, talks about both structural and topological concepts when explaining the psychic structure of human beings.
According to the topological perspective, the human psychic world consists of consciousness, preconsciousness and unconsciousness. According to Freud, there are primary and secondary processes in the psychic structure. Primary processes represent the unconscious and secondary processes represent the conscious and preconscious. Freud likens this structure of the psychic world to an iceberg. While consciousness represents the part of the iceberg above the water, the unconscious represents the part below the water. Regarding the existence of the unconscious, Freud speaks of the unconscious as necessary and legitimate. The unconscious is necessary because there is a gap between each information in the consciousness and the consciousness is insufficient to fully explain the behavior of both healthy and unhealthy people.
Many of Freud’s books contain his concept of the unconscious and his theory of personality. However, despite such widespread coverage, an ambiguity about Freud is noteworthy. While discussing his views in the Turkish psychology literature, it is possible to come across the concept of “unconscious” in some sources, the concept of “subconscious” instead, and both in others. These differences in usage bring along various questions. Which concept did Freud use originally, the unconscious or the subconscious? When we look at Freud’s works in general, it is clear that the concept is used as unconscious. When we examine the numerous case studies written by Freud between 1905 and 1920, we come across the concept of unconscious in them. However, there is no such unity in Turkish translations. In some works, although the concept is originally translated as “unconscious” in English, it is translated as “subconscious” (bilinçaltı) in Turkish, while in others the concept is translated as “without conscious” (bilinçsiz) and so on. This gives us an idea that there is a problem in Turkish usage that is generally caused by translation.
When one does in-depth research on Freud, it is possible to come across his earlier works, which are little known. For example, Freud has a work titled Quelques Considérations Pour Une Étude Comparative des Paralysies Motrices Organiques et Hystériques (Some Points for a Comparative Study of Organic and Motor Paralysis) published in French in 1893. When we look at this work, we can see that Freud also uses the concept of the subconscious. Freud states the following: “When the impression remains in the unconscious (le subconscient), it becomes impossible to destroy it.” In fact, this is probably the first concept Freud used to refer to non-conscious mental processes. As can be seen, although the concept of the unconscious is found in almost all of his works, it is possible to encounter the concept of subconscious in his early works. In order to clarify the issue, it would be useful to examine, research and read the historical development of the concepts of subconscious and unconscious and Freudian psychology.
As a result, it was seen that Freud used these two concepts in different meanings. We can easily say that Freud was not the first to use and formulate the concept of the unconscious. Freud benefited from the accumulation of thought before him and adapted this concept to his system with a psychological content. It is known that Freud benefited from Janet and his concept of the subconscious during the development of his theory. For this reason, Freud used the concept of subconscious in the early periods. However, our analysis has shown that when it comes to Freudian psychology, the concept that should be used is “unconscious”. It is accepted by many psychologists that it would be wrong to use the concepts of the subconscious and the unconscious interchangeably. In fact, this distinction has been made by Janet and Freud, who are important representatives of both concepts. The concept of the subconscious was seen as a more clinical concept in terms of its compatibility with topographical theory and the fact that it refers to a place below consciousness, and this usage was preferred among neurologists. However, Freud did not approve of this usage because of the risk of confusing consciousness with the psyche and preferred the concept of the unconscious. In works translated into Turkish or written in Turkish, when Freud’s theory is in question, the concept is sometimes used as subconscious. It is seen that this usage is erroneous and that there is a translation error in the translations. However, we can claim that this error is due to a reason. Since the concept of “repression”, one of the most important concepts of psychoanalysis, expresses a downward direction in Turkish, and since repression is from the consciousness to the unconscious, it is quite practical to depict the unconscious in a spatial manner as a space below the consciousness. The concept of the subconscious seems more appropriate to topographical theory. The expression “suppressing the subconscious” is more useful than “suppressing the unconscious”. Although some of the Turkish works use the term “unconscious”, it was observed that the term “subconscious” was preferred when talking about topographic theory or when discussing the concept of repression. When we look at Freud’s older Turkish translations, some of them use ” pushing” instead of “repression”. It is easier to say that some thoughts are pushed from the conscious to the unconscious instead of repressed. Some translations even use the term “stuffing”. If the concept of “pushing” is used instead of the concept of ” repression”, it is likely that the expression “pushing out of consciousness” will be more accepted.
Kaynaklar: Uçar, S., 2019. Psikanalizde Bilinçdışı, Sevinç, K., 2019. Freudyen Psikolojide Bilinçaltı ve Bilinçdışı Kavramları Arasındaki Benzerlikler ve Farklılıklar
