Mind, Conscious and Unconscious

In the course of my work as a therapist, I am often talking to clients about the difference between conscious and unconscious mind. Many people have never even considered that such a division exists, and would assume that the mind is that ‘thing’ that is having thoughts, making decisions throughout the day and perhaps providing a few dreams at night. And yet in the many attempts by neuroscientists to estimate the amount of mental activity that is conscious, it ranges between about 1 to 5 percent. What we think of as our minds, is really only a very small part of mental activity.

 

To make matters worse, a researcher named, Benajmin Libet, carried out experiments in which participants were covered with electrodes to read the electrical activity of the brain, whilst being asked to make random decisions about such things as moving a finger. What this work and subsequent studies have revealed, is that the decision to move a finger happens approximately 0.2 second before we think we are making the decision. We can observe an electrical signal called a ‘readiness potential’ before our conscious mind makes the decision. In other words, we have already decided what we are going to do or say before we ‘think’ we are making that decision.

 

This means that the unconscious mind is actually doing the work in our lives and it lets our conscious thoughts in on the act a little later. It is in this difference between what we think we are and what we actually are, that the world of therapy operates. Famous psychologist and pioneer of therapeutic techniques, Carl Jung, stated, ‘Unless we make the unconscious, conscious, it will direct our lives and we shall call it fate’. He was putting his finger on something very powerful that the conscious mind can actually do – it has the power to change our experience of life.

 

Often in therapy, we talk about ‘breakthrough’ moments, that lead to real change in a person’s life. These moments are usually because something that has been living only in the unconscious, has made it to the conscious mind and there is a lightbulb moment. This might the recollection of a traumatic event, or it might be the realisation that past events have lead that person to have a particular belief about the world that they didn’t even realise that they had.

 

One woman that I previously worked with, wondered why she always self-sabotaged anything in her life that gave her pleasure and fulfilment. After carrying out an exercise in which she wrote down her story up to the present, she realised that growing up in a very strict religious sect, had instilled the belief that pleasure was an indulgence and had to be rejected. She particularly recalled how she had loved dancing as a little girl, until she was removed from the class because she was being put forward for a competition – and to have obtained glory for dancing by winning a competition, would, in the view of this religious sect, have detracted from the glory of God. And so, her dancing was terminated. Fast forward twenty-five years, and she would drink too much and destroy a relationship, because it was going too well.  With the realisation, she was able to start changing that pattern.

 

What is it, you might ask, that is going on in this unconscious realm? The truth is we don’t have anywhere near a complete answer to that. We know that we have automatic processes, such as the beating of the heart, blood pressure, breathing and a host of other activities that we are never normally conscious of and it would be deeply unpleasant if we were – just ask a highly anxious person who feels they need to ‘remember to breath’.

We also have a host of memories, but we can’t think of memories as videotape waiting to be accessed – not at all. Our memories can be pictures, smells, sensations, tastes, emotions and much more, they are also altered by our perception of a situation. If a child has a frightening encounter with a chihuahua, in their mind it will become a large beast, because the size of the beast relates to the level of fear experienced, not some objective classification of dog size. This makes a lot of sense in evolutionary terms – we need to recall dangers in order to avoid them in future, and overplaying the danger is a useful way of remembering and increases our chances of staying alive in future.

 

The unconscious stores in this impressionistic form, the totality of our experience of life and the knowledge that we have acquired along the way, all of which provides the stage on which we live our daily lives. Carl Jung also believed in something known as ‘the collective unconscious’, that at some level humanity shares images, symbols and meaning beyond the limits of our personal experience and learning. Some might also include religious or spiritual experience within this category. I would suggest we certainly don’t know enough about the brain or mind to say this can’t be the case.

 

There is something humbling about the realisation that most of our life is unconscious, and the small flicker of conscious life we experience, is but a ripple in the pond of our actual existence. And there is also something hopeful in the knowledge that this conscious experience we have, has extraordinary power when used wisely. From a Christian perspective it can be viewed as a divine gift, from a Buddhist perspective, it is something to be trained and tamed. From the therapist’s perspective, it gives us a chance to heal injuries in our own lives, but also in so doing to affect everyone around us. When we heal ourselves, we lighten the burden on everyone in our orbit. Our conscious efforts are like those of a ship’s captain, they may not be able to change the weather or tides, but they can point us in the right direction and give us sail that catches the breeze and propels us to exciting destinations.