subconscious

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adj

Definition: innermost in thought
Antonyms: conscious, expressed, outer

n

Definition: inner thoughts
Antonyms: conscience, consciousness

A term that appears rather frequently in the psychological literature of the late 19th century, especially in France, the "subconscious" was used to designate a mental state that is subliminal, diminished, or weak and obscure; in terms of conscious thought it implied a difference a degree not of kind. "Judgment and reasoning, whether conscious, subconscious, or unconscious, remain the same, except for a difference in the degree of clarity of the representation," wrote Théodule Ribot in La Logique des sentiments (1905, p. 80).

The subconscious was most clearly delineated in the work of Pierre Janet. In Automatisme psychologique (1889), he posited two contrasting forms of mental activity, automatism and synthesis. The former corresponded to the primal and archaic; the latter, to creativity and higher levels of consciousness. On the basis of experimental work with hysterics, Janet demonstrated that in morbid states, due to a diminished field of consciousness, automatism took precedence over the activity of synthesis.

Janet essentially identified the subconscious with psychic automatism and, in hysteria, he hypothesized profound dissociation and splitting of the personality. He was influenced by the work of Frederick Myers, the British psychical researcher, and the work of American physician Morton Prince on dual and multiple personalities; he also took into account earlier investigations by Jean-Jacques Moreau de Tours on hashish intoxication.

In his early writings, including Studies on Hysteria (1895d), Sigmund Freud used "subconscious" as more or less equivalent to "unconscious" but he soon abandoned the former and disapproved of usage that conflated the two terms. He characterized the unconscious as actively associated with intrapsychic conflict while viewing Janet's subconscious as passive and associated with psychological and physiological weakness. To Janet's "dissociation" he opposed the concept of repression and the psychological duality of separate domains of conscious and unconscious mental functioning.

Bibliography

Freud, Sigmund, and Breuer, Josef. (1895d). Studies on hysteria. SE,2.

Janet, Pierre. (1889). L'Automatisme psychologique: essai de psychologie expérimentale sur les formes inférieures de la vie mentale (thesis). Paris: Felix Alcan.

——. (1937). Les troubles de la personnalité sociale. Annales médico-psychologiques.

Ribot, Théodule. (1905). La logique des sentiments. Paris: Alcan.

—ANNICK OHAYON

A term used by some to describe a segment of the mind below the threshold of consciousness and by others as a collective name for mental phenomena dissociated from those directly or introspectively cognized. F. W. H. Myers, an early and prominent psychical researcher, ascribed various supernormal faculties to it. During the early twentieth century, theories involving such faculties eliminated for many any need to appeal to spirit agencies. Others, however, pointed to the subconscious as a means to reconcile mental activity with spirit agencies. The subconscious may be—as J. H. Hyslop pointed out—the very instrument for receiving and transmitting foreign transcendental stimuli, to which, on favorable occasions, it becomes sensitive.

n

The state in which mental processes take place without the mind’s being distinctly conscious of its own activity.

For a list of words related to subconscious, see:

• Mental States, Processes, and Behavior - subconscious: mental activity and impulses occurring below threshold of active awareness; (adj) existing in mind beyond conscious level

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See words rhyming with "subconscious."

  See crossword solutions for the clue Subconscious.

Dansk (Danish)
adj. - underbevidst
n. - underbevidsthed

Nederlands (Dutch)
onderbewustzijn

Français (French)
adj. - (Psych) subconscient, (gén) inconscient
n. - le subconscient

Deutsch (German)
n. - Unterbewusstsein
adj. - unterbewusst

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (το) υποσυνείδητο

Italiano (Italian)
subconscio

Português (Portuguese)
n. - subconsciência (f)

Русский (Russian)
подсознательный

Español (Spanish)
adj. - subconsciente
n. - subconsciencia, subconsciente

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - undermedvetandet, det undermedvetna

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
下意识的, 潜意识的, 意识不清的, 意识模糊的, 潜在意识, 模糊的意识

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
adj. - 下意識的, 潛意識的, 意識不清的, 意識模糊的
n. - 潛在意識, 模糊的意識

한국어 (Korean)
adj. - 잠재의식의, ~이 아련히 떠오르는
n. - 잠재 의식

日本語 (Japanese)
adj. - 意識下の, 潜在意識の
n. - 潜在意識

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) لا وعي, دون الوعي‏

עברית (Hebrew)
adj. - ‮תת-הכרתי, לא-מודע‬
n. - ‮תת-הכרה, תת-תודעה‬

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