Freud - The Structure of The Mind

According to Freud, the mind is like an iceberg.  We are only aware of the 'tip' of our mind our conscious, yet it is the unconscious that is responsible for the way we behave.

• The conscious mind is the part of the mind we can gain access to.  It contains our thoughts and perceptions.

• The preconscious is part of the mind we can gain access to if we try. It contains our memories and recent experiences.

• The unconscious is the part of the mind that we cannot gain access to.  It contains traumatic experiences, shameful experiences and our fears, passions and instincts.  It is dominated by libido (sex) and thanatos (aggression).

Sometimes the unconscious mind can slip to the surface through Freudian Slips - where an intended action is replaced by an untended one.  For example Freud explained a story whereby one of his patients who disliked the tablets he was giving her said "please do not give me anymore of those big bills" - she had meant to say pills but the cost of the treatment was also worrying her and this slipped to the surface.

Below is some video footage of Freudian Slips

Another example of where our unconscious slips to the surface is in our dreams.  The dream we remember contains the 'manifest' content.  Freud argued our dreams have hidden meaning, the 'latent' content.  For example a girl dreaming of chasing a snake may have penis envy (a snake is a phallic symbol).  This transformation of the latent content to the manifest content is done by our ego and this helps to ensure we are protected from our desires and fears.

Click here for access to a dream dictionary to analyse your dreams.  However, remember Freud said that not all things we dream about is symbolic - "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar"