Boundary separating conscious from subconscious is permeable and variable. The boundary separating the conscious from the subconscious (literally, “beneath awareness”) is, of course, arbitrary since that boundary is permeable and always changing – content that is conscious (in awareness) at one moment can become subconscious (out of awareness) the next, and what once was subconscious can again become conscious, depending on the direction in which one turns the focus of one’s awareness.
Unconscious and subconscious distinguished. There will always be certain portions of each individual’s psyche that will never be consciously known by the intellect alone. These areas are truly “unconscious” in so far as the conscious mind is concerned, and with which the comprehending ego will never become familiar in any conscious way, even though it may know intellectually that these portions of the self exist. “Subconscious” portions of the psyche, on the other hand, are areas of each person’s reality, which are potentially consciously available, even though the individual is not aware of them at the present moment. The important question is: What portions of the psyche are consciously unknowable (truly unconscious) and what portions with which we are not at all familiar in any conscious way are capable of becoming consciously knowable (truly subconscious)? From a transpersonal perspective this is an important question because “You may not know all of yourself, but that is a process of self-discovery, of becoming…. The more you discover of yourself, the more you are” (Butts, 1995, p. 68).
Revisioning subconscious portions of the self. As Freud pointed out, the subconscious portion of the self is not simply a cardboard figure that can be bullied or pushed around. Nor is it accurate to conceive it as an impersonal machine that can be manipulated to carry out the orders of the outer, conscious ego. Although Freud tended to see the subconscious portions of the personality as “nonconscious,” some transpersonal theorists have moved beyond such a formulation, while retaining Freud’s important concept of the personal subconscious. The subconscious portion of each individual’s reality is far more conscious than Freud supposed.
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The unconscious is hardly nonconscious. As Myers and later Jung discovered, the subconscious, subliminal stream of consciousness is complicated, richly creative, infinitely varied, purposeful, and highly discriminating.
“The unconscious perceives, has purposes and intuitions, feels and thinks as does the conscious mind. We find sufficient evidence for this in the field of psychopathology and the investigation of dream processes” (Jung, 1964b, p. 56). It is hardly nonconscious. The waking ego is simply not aware of it because memory of it is blocked.
The conscious ego rises indeed out of “the unconscious,” but the unconscious being the creator of the ego, is necessarily far more conscious than its offspring. The ego is simply not conscious enough to be able to contain the vast knowledge that belongs to the inner conscious self from which it springs. (Butts, 2002, p. 435)
The inner subconscious mind. In these terms, the subconscious portions of the self are conscious. Just as our usual, waking conscious mind is directed by an outer ego, so is the inner subconscious mind directed by what may be terms an inner ego that organizes so-called subconscious and unconscious material. There is an inner ego or inner self that is the organizer of “unconscious” experience (Roberts, 1974). F. W. H. Myers called this inner ego the “subliminal self;” Jung simply called it the Self (Jung, 1960; Myers, 1976).
5. The importance of the psychological ego
The tripartite structure of the psyche – id, ego, and superego – that characterizes Freud’s account of personality provides a handy framework for explaining the many facets of the personality and has proven to be a useful construct system for relating transpersonal aspects of the self (e.g., the transpersonal self, superconscious, collective unconscious) to ordinary personality functioning (the ego). As Allport noted: “Freud played a leading if unintentional role, in preserving the concept of ego from total obliteration throughout two generations of strenuous positivism” (Allport, 1969, p. 37).
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