| World of Emotion |
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New Ideas in Psychology
| Chapter 4 | The Nature of Abreaction |
Page 21 |
[ Weak Self-Image ] [ Definition of Psycho-Analysis ] [ Determinism ]
[ What is Anxiety ? ] [ Switching ]
| previous | Subconscious
Determinism |
When anxiety becomes attached to the memory of an event it causes the problem of subconscious determinism.
Such determinism is predominantly learned in childhood. When a child has a problem, if it can work through that problem and the anxiety it feels about that problem, then it can assimilate the lesson to be learned and move on to other problems. If it cannot handle that anxiety, then it becomes motivated to avoid and deny that problem ; the memory becomes repressed. Now the problem remains permanently in the subconscious mind, even when the child has grown up. So an unpleasant experience in childhood becomes, in a similar social situation, an unpleasant experience for the adult. Why ?. Because the adult replays the anxiety that the child generated in that situation. The adult is still utilising avoidance and denial (though he / she no longer knows why, since the memory is repressed).
Subconscious determinism occurs because the motivation to avoid and deny difficulties is compulsive in anxiety-provoking social situations. And this motivation is itself subconscious. Subconscious motivation is the central issue of human life. A person will behave in inflexible and stereotyped ways, and not understand why he does so.
Many of the major ideas or themes of Western intellectual thought have only been attempts to bypass this issue. [¹]
I list a few of the main philosophical themes of modern times :
| Kant | was led to the concept of duty. |
| Stirner | was led to the concept of nihilism. |
| Schopenhauer | was led to world-hating asceticism. |
| Kierkegaard | was led to the leap of faith. |
| Nietzsche | was led to will and his superman. |
| Marx | was led to the reification of economics. |
| Bakunin | was led to ideas of destruction and creation. |
Max Stirner was a nineteenth-century sceptic who explored narcissism ( about 70 years before Freud and Jung ), and is usually packed in with the anarchists and nihilists for want of a better classification. Michael Bakunin was a nineteenth-century anarchist, the major opponent of Karl Marx.
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Copyright
© 2002 Ian Heath
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