More than one hundred years after Freud began publishing some of his
seminal theories, the concept of the unconscious still occupies a
central position in many theoretical frameworks and clinical approaches.
When trying to understand clients' internal and interpersonal struggles
it is almost inconceivable not to look for unconscious motivation,
conflicts, and relational patterns. Clinicians also consider it a
breakthrough to recognize how our own unconscious patterns have
interacted with those of our clients.
Although clinicians use concepts such as the unconscious and
dissociation, in actuality many do not take into account the newly
emerging neuropsychological attributes of nonconscious processes. As a
result, assumptions and lack of clarity overtake information that can
become central in our clinical work.
This revolutionary book presents a new model of the unconscious, one
that is continuing to emerge from the integration of neuropsychological
research with clinical experience.
Drawing from clinical observations of specific therapeutic cases, affect
theory, research into cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychological
findings, the book presents an expanded picture of nonconscious
processes. The model moves from a focus on dissociated affects,
behaviors, memories, and the fantasies that are unconsciously created,
to viewing unconscious as giving expression to whole patterns of
feeling, thinking and behaving, patterns that are so integrated and
entrenched as to make them our personality traits.
Topics covered include: the centrality of subcortical regions,
automaticity, repetition, and biased memory systems; role of the
amygdala and its sensitivity to fears in shaping and coloring
unconscious self-systems; self-narratives; therapeutic enactments;
therapeutic resistance; defensive systems and narcissism; therapeutic
approaches designed to utilize some of the new understandings regarding
unconscious processes and their interaction with higher level conscious
ones embedded in the prefrontal cortex.
