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CriticaLink | Freud: On Narcissism | Terms

unconscious

In his 1940 Outline of Psycho-Analysis, Freud asserts that one of the founding arguments of psychoanalysis is that a significant dimension of the psychic life of human beings is not available to our conscious minds. A great deal of the contents of the psyche are either preconscious--not presently conscious, but available to consciousness through the processes of memory or suggestion--or unconscious. The unconscious dimension of the mind is made up of the instincts located in the id and material that has been repressed. The activity of the unconscious can be detected in dreams, and can also create conflicts within the psyche that lead to neuroses.