Since Descartes and Kant, philosophy has been convinced that the progress of knowledge, cognition depends on the further deepening of the analysis of the mind - the main ability of consciousness. At the same time, it was assumed that the rational ability of judgment is not determined by any external circumstances, and the content of the judgment can always be clarified with the help of the mind itself. Another way of saying this is that the content of consciousness was supposed to be transparent to itself, in its experience all the influences, needs and interests of the conscious person were represented. The classical paradigm of consciousness was dominated by the belief that a person tells the truth if he says what he knows.

But already Spinoza and Marx discovered that there was a determination hidden in relation to consciousness itself. “Hidden” in the sense that consciousness does not know about this determination, because it is not represented in its experience. Consciousness is knowledge plus some states of the psyche that are formed outside the control of the self-conscious self in the act of interaction of the psyche with the outside world. This indicates that the psyche is wider than consciousness, and in its space there is content that is not represented in consciousness. Mental life, which takes place without the participation of consciousness, mental phenomena, states and actions that occur outside the control of the mind, are designated by the concept of the unconscious. The non-representation of the unconscious in the experience of consciousness creates the illusion of freedom of consciousness, its self-sufficiency and autonomy. This illusion was the basis of the doctrine of consciousness in the philosophy of classical rationalism, for example, R. Descartes. If the unconscious exists, then it is fundamental to consider that what a person says is always true if he says what he knows. thinker of the 20th century. E. Fromm expressed this idea in this way: “Most of what is real inside us is not realized, and most of what is realized is unreal.”

The 20th century drew attention to the irrational, uncontrolled sphere of human consciousness - the sphere of the unconscious. Certain aspects of consciousness (intuition, insight, unclear motivation for behavior, etc.) have become the subject of study and understanding. The first to turn to this great and mysterious sphere of consciousness was the Austrian physician Sigmund Freud, who began by studying the behavior of patients with neurasthenia and drew attention to the fact that human behavior is determined by unclear, deep-seated causes associated with past experiences, stressful situations. The basis of psychoanalysis, created by Z. Freud, is the assertion that conflict situations that arise in the human psyche are associated with the remnants of memories of what was once experienced.

Freud developed a technique for eliminating such conflicts - to refresh forgotten memories, to make the conflict understandable and thereby make it obsolete. The task of psychoanalysis is to translate unwanted, disturbing, conflicting fragments of the unconscious into the conscious and thereby resolve them. Great clinical experience allowed Freud to find ways to penetrate the realm of the unconscious. These are, first of all, dreams, an analysis of childhood impressions, in which, according to Freud, a special role is played by the relationship of a child with a parent of the opposite sex, an analysis of slips of the tongue, etc. Freud paid special attention to sexual desires, as playing, in his opinion, a paramount role in human life. He formulated the postulate of the "oedipal complex". In the tragedy of the ancient Greek author Sophocles "Oedipus Rex", the hero unknowingly kills his father, marries his mother and, having learned from the oracles about his deed, blinds himself. The "Oedipus complex" was elevated by Freud to the rank of a psychoanalytic doctrine, with the help of which he tried to explain both the problematic moments in human behavior and the origin of religion, morality, and art.

The human psyche, according to Freud. Consists of 3 levels:

"I" - consciousness;

"It" is the unconscious;

"Super-I" conscience, unconscious guilt, ideal I.

A great power is hidden in a person - the “unconscious”, or, as Freud called it, “It”. This force is controlled and distributed by the libido (lat. libido - attraction, desire, passion) - the hypothetical mental energy of sexual desires. "I" is just a servant of "It", trying to earn the favor of the master. "Super-I" rules over a person, asking him socially approved patterns of behavior. What is not passed through the filters of the "Super-I" is driven into the unconscious, "forced out" of consciousness, subsequently becoming the cause of serious mental disorders. Thus, man turns out to be an unfortunate being torn by contradictions, who serves three masters and is therefore constantly subject to a triple threat: from the outside world, from the desires of the "It" and from the severity of the "Super-I".

Freud believed that human narcissism had suffered two sensitive blows before him - the discovery by Copernicus of the fact that the Earth is not the center of the universe, the discovery by C. Darwin of the animal origin of man, but the third, most sensitive blow to human delusions of greatness, was inflicted by Freud, who proved that man is not a master in his own soul, in his own mind.

After Freud's work, it became clear that the mind is not the last instance in consciousness, that the content of rational thinking is determined by some deep processes taking place in the psyche, where the human "I" is not present. Freud owns the words that the “I” is not “the master in its own house”, and that the human consciousness is forced to “be content with miserable information about what happens unconsciously in mental life”.

Freud believed that the unconscious is the cause and basis of human spiritual slavery. In his opinion, a psychotherapist is obliged to help the patient to realize the unconscious and thereby expand the scope of human freedom, rid him of the power of "It".

Freud did not rigidly link human freedom with social change. He proceeded from the fact that in any society a person can be turned into a self-conscious and free person, independently determining his own destiny, if he is helped to become aware of his individual unconscious.

Having discovered in the structure of a person’s spiritual experience three levels of “Super-I” (paternal dogmas, traditions, ideals, conscience and other value ideas that dominate culture), “It” (unconscious, instincts), “I” (consciousness), - Freud came to the conclusion that the excessive pressure of the "Super-I" creates an inferior personality, leads people into a world of illusions about the possibility of purely social "tricks" to create human nature, correct and change it. "It" as the development of civilization is forced out, but does not disappear. The repressed unconscious instincts are like a powder keg. Excessive pressure of the "Super-I", as it were, provokes an increase in the power of the "It". As a result, a person becomes a hostage of forces that do not obey his "I". Hence the pathos of Freud's teaching: to find a meaningful balance between the "Super-I" and "It" and thereby enable the "I" to freely and intelligently constitute itself. As long as a person lives in society, he cannot get rid of the influence of the "Super-I"; similarly, as long as he is alive and his body is alive, he will not be able to completely free himself from the force of instincts. The way out is to establish a compromise between them. Only in this case the space of human freedom expands, and, consequently, the space of consciousness.

Declaring that “man is not the master of his own house”, that “human intellect is powerless in comparison with human inclinations”, Freud did not doom man to hopelessness: he demanded from man and mankind constant work to transform “It” into “I”. Where there was "It" should become "I" - such is the leitmotif of his teaching. He argued that ultimately the mind and conscious experience would be stronger than "It".

However, with his teachings, Freud provoked some effects in culture that he did not want and did not expect. When his teaching became known to artists: writers, artists, aesthetes, philosophers, they enthusiastically accepted the magic of the unconscious, admired its secret power, demonized "It". Thus, the idea of ​​the unconscious became central in the work of expressionists, surrealists, the "theater of the absurd", etc. The Freudian idea of ​​the need to correct the influence of the "Super-I" on the structures of the unconscious was vulgarized, brought to the point of vulgarization: the "Super-I" was discounted, it was no longer considered at all, its influence was refused to be taken into account. If in modern times people "freed themselves" from God, then in modern times, Freud's followers in art suggested that people free themselves from social norms and values, and above all from shame. The world of art has taken up the shameless display of all the hidden vices of man, his secret instincts and desires, forgetting about the main theme in Freud's teaching: to defeat the "It".

The crusade of the unconscious, "It" on the consciousness, "I", was due not only to the vulgarization of Freud's teachings by artists. In the twentieth century the repressive and educational aspects of society's influence on the individual have actually weakened. It" triumphed over the "Super-I". The anarchy of the unbridled “It”, instincts, dangerous for society and humanity as a whole, began. "I" plunged into the dark chaos of "It". The ideal demands of the "Superego" turned out to be powerless.

If you follow the logic of Freud's teachings, then there is only one way to tame the rampage of the unconscious, "It", in only one way: to strengthen the "Super-I", i.e. the repressive function of culture and thereby put restraining barriers in the way of the growth of the unpredictable "It". In other words, in order for the “I”, consciousness to strengthen their position, it is necessary to create a meaningful balance between the two elements that affect a person and his “I”: the element of supra-individual norms and attitudes of culture and the element of the unconscious. Otherwise, humanity is in danger of tipping over into barbarism.

However, the further development of science and philosophy, paying tribute to the great theoretical significance of the works of Z. Freidayo, revealed a number of weaknesses in his concept. The First World War demonstrated the emergence of many neuroses not related to sexual experiences. It turned out that it is impossible to explain all the features of the human psyche without going beyond the framework of his personality, without referring to the history of culture. Freud's interpretation of religion and art as a form of neuroses also seemed unconvincing. A number of Freud's followers made fairly reasonable steps towards the Marxist doctrine of the influence of social factors on the formation and development of personality. A whole philosophical direction arose, called neo-Freudianism.

Direct followers of Freud A. Adler and K. Jung eventually rethought his teachings. So Adler, a doctor and psychologist by profession, came to the conclusion that the driving force of the personality is not sexual motives, but the desire for self-affirmation, for power. Adler drew attention to the special role of the first years of life in the formation of personality and laid the foundations for a new pedagogy that gives the child more freedom to achieve superhumanity. Thus, in Adler's views, the emphasis of the main engine of personality formation shifted from the biological, sexual sphere to the social sphere.

Conscious human activity does not exclude the presence in it unconscious. Consciousness and subconsciousness are in constant interaction with each other. The human psyche has two level:

Supreme, formed consciousness.

lower, formed unconscious(or subconscious).

The UNCONSCIOUS is a set of mental processes, acts and states caused by the phenomena of reality, the influence of which the subject is not aware of.

The unconscious differs from the conscious in that the reality it reflects merges with the experiences of the subject, therefore voluntary control is impossible in the unconscious actions carried out by the subject and evaluation of their results. The unconscious manifests itself in the following forms: dreams, emotional contagion, panic, intuition, affect, hypnosis, involuntary memorization (forgetting), erroneous actions(misprints, reservations), etc., as well as in aspirations, feelings, deeds, the causes of which are not recognized by the individual.

Four stand out class manifestations unconscious:

1. Supraconscious Phenomena: creative intuition and other phenomena of individual scientific creativity.

2. Unconscious stimuli of activity(unconscious motives and semantic attitudes).

3. Unconscious Regulators of the Ways of Performing Activities(operational attitudes and stereotypes of automated behavior).

4. Manifestation of subsensory perception(superperception).

A great contribution to the development of the problem of the unconscious was made by the Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud(1856–1939). According to him theories of the unconscious in the human psyche there are three spheres, or areas: consciousness, preconscious and unconscious.

preconscious- this is hidden, latent knowledge that a person has, but which at the moment is not present in his mind.

At one time, Z. Freud compared the human consciousness with an iceberg that is 9/10 submerged by the sea of ​​the unconscious. Unconscious in a person's personality, these are those qualities, interests, needs, etc. that a person is not aware of in himself, but which are inherent in him and manifest themselves in a variety of involuntary reactions, actions, mental phenomena. The unconscious renders strong influence to our behavior,actions. They are hard to come to consciousness due to mechanisms such as crowding out and resistance.

According to 3. Freud, the mental life of a person is determined by his drives, the main of which is sexual attraction(libido). It already exists in the infant, although in childhood it passes through a series of stages and forms. In view of the multitude of social taboos, sexual experiences and the representations associated with them are forced out of consciousness and live in the realm of the unconscious. They have a large energy charge, but they are not allowed into consciousness: consciousness resists them. However, they break through into the conscious life of a person, taking a distorted or symbolic form.

Freud singled out three main forms manifestations of the unconscious dreams, erroneous actions(forgetting things, intentions, names; typos, reservations, etc.) and neurotic symptoms. Neurotic symptoms were the main manifestations with which Freud began to work. Here is one example from his medical practice.

A young girl fell ill with a severe neurosis after going to the bed of her dead sister, she thought for a moment about her brother-in-law (sister's husband): "Now he is free and can marry me." This thought was immediately repressed by her as completely inappropriate in the circumstances, and, falling ill, the girl completely forgot the whole scene at her sister's bed. However, during the treatment, with great difficulty and excitement, she remembered her, after which recovery came.

According to Freud's ideas, neurotic symptoms are traces of repressed traumatic experiences that form a highly charged focus in the unconscious and from there produce destructive work. The focus must be opened and discharged - and then the neurosis will lose its cause.

It is far from always that the symptoms are based on suppressed sexual desire. In everyday life there are many unpleasant experiences that are not related to the sexual sphere, and yet they are suppressed or repressed by the subject. They also form affective foci that "erupt" in erroneous actions.

Here are some cases from the observations of 3. Freud. The first refers to the analysis of the "failure" of his own memory. Once Freud argued with his acquaintance about how many restaurants in the countryside area, well known to both of them: two or three? An acquaintance claimed that three, and Freud - that two. He named these two and insisted that there was no third. However, this third restaurant still existed. It had the same name as the name of one of Freud's colleagues with whom he was at odds.

The following example is for reservations. 3. Freud believed that reservations do not arise by chance: the true (hidden) intentions and experiences of a person break through in them. One day, the chairman of the meeting, who for some personal reason did not want the meeting to take place, opened it and said: "Permit me to consider our meeting closed."

And here is an example of an erroneous action. When Freud was a young practicing doctor and went to the sick at home (and not they to him), he noticed that in front of the doors of some apartments, instead of ringing, he took out his own key. After analyzing his experiences, he found that this happened at the doors of those patients, where he felt "at home."

In psychoanalysis, a number of methods have been developed to identify unconscious affective complexes. Chief among them is the method free associations and method dream analysis. Both methods involve the active work of the psychoanalyst, which consists in the interpretation of words continuously produced by the patient (method of free association) or dreams. For the same purpose, the already partially familiar to you associative experiment.

In an associative experiment, the subject or patient is asked to quickly respond with any word that comes to mind to the words presented. And now it turns out that after several dozen trials, words associated with his hidden experiences begin to appear in the answers of the subject.

If you have read K. Chapek's story "The Experiment of Dr. Rose", then you can get an idea of ​​​​how it all happens. Brief summary of the story. An American professor of psychology, a Czech by birth, arrives in a Czech town. It is announced that he will demonstrate his professional skills. The public is going to know the city, journalists and other people. A criminal is brought in who is suspected of murder. The professor dictates words to him, offering to answer with the first word that comes to mind. At first, the criminal does not want to deal with him at all. But then the game "in words" fascinates him, and he is drawn into it. The professor first gives neutral words: beer, street, dog. But gradually it begins to include words related to the circumstances of the crime. The word “cafe” is suggested, the answer is “highway”, the word “spots” is given, the answer is “sack” (later it was found out that the blood stains were wiped off with a bag); to the word “hide” - the answer is “bury”, “shovel” - “pit”, “pit” - “fence”, etc. In short, after the session, on the recommendation of the professor, the policemen go to a certain place near the fence, dig a hole and find a hidden body.

Dreams are a special category of the unconscious. The content of dreams, according to Freud, is associated with the unconscious desires, feelings, intentions of a person, his unsatisfied or not fully satisfied important life needs. In a dream, unsatisfied needs receive a hallucinatory realization. If the corresponding motives of behavior are unacceptable for a person, then their obvious manifestation even in a dream is blocked by the learned norms of morality, the so-called censorship. The action of censorship distorts, confuses the content of dreams, making them illogical, incomprehensible and even strange. To decipher them, a special interpretation is required, called psychoanalysis.

Conscious and unconscious

Sigmund Freud(186 - 1939) - an Austrian psychiatrist and psychologist, was a staunch supporter of determinism, i.e. the doctrine of the universal causation of everything and everyone, including mental phenomena. In his teachings on the phases and stages of the development of consciousness, Freud considered the fact that the unconscious was not the subject of its study to be a significant omission of all previous philosophy. The subjects of study, as you know, were only the mind and consciousness.

In general, the human psyche is characterized by three of its qualitative states: consciousness, subconscious and unconscious. If people somehow figured out the first concept, then researchers have a lot of questions with the other two concepts. Consciousness, in the ordinary mind, it can be understood as the mental state of a person, thanks to which a person is able to perceive the surrounding reality, evaluate it, and control his actions. Unlike consciousness, unconscious or the unconscious, is also a set of mental processes in respect of which there is no subjective control, that is, everything that does not become an object of awareness for the individual. To subconscious one can attribute that (also a mental state) that is poorly realized, because it lies beyond the threshold of actual consciousness or is generally inaccessible to it. Thus, the subconscious is a more active mental process than the unconscious, which at a certain moment, not being the center of the semantic activity of consciousness, has a certain influence on the course of conscious processes. Thus, it is clear that the subconscious and the unconscious have much in common, that is, as mental processes, they are not subjectively recognized at the moment. But there are significant differences between them: to get to the unconscious, special methods are needed, but you can get to the subconscious if you try hard and concentrate. As you know, Z. Freud compares these three concepts with an iceberg. The top of the iceberg is what is visible on the surface. Unconscious (subconscious) - everything that is under water. Thus, it is clear that Z. Freud used the concepts of the unconscious and the subconscious as synonyms, but later he abandoned this approach in order to avoid ambiguity. The problem of the unconscious according to Z. Freud – it is the problem of the presence of hidden determinants of consciousness, i.e. the dependence of the content of consciousness on factors objective in relation to it, not represented in the experience of consciousness itself, and therefore unconscious. It seems to consciousness that it forms its content freely, while in fact this content is due to the influence of some reasons that the consciousness of the subject himself does not know about. Lack of clarity for the consciousness of its determinants creates the basis for the unconscious.

fundamental discoveries, made by Z. Freud:

BUT) there is an unconscious- a special psychic reality that is inherent in any person, exists along with consciousness and largely controls consciousness. A special form of life of the unconscious is dreams. According to Freud, dreams are the realization of a person's hidden aspirations, something that was not realized in reality.

B) a method of psychological protection - displacement reaction(from consciousness to the unconscious) negative emotions, negative experiences, everything that disturbs the balance and health of the psyche. Negative emotions, unfulfilled desires - this is all that is forced out into the unconscious. They, sooner or later, make themselves felt in the form of "random", spontaneous actions, deeds, reservations, slips of the tongue, "oddities".

Dynamic scheme of the psyche:("I and It" (1923)

The psyche is presented as a combination of three layers - "It", "I", "Super-I".

1. "It" (Id)- the most ancient, deepest, unconscious layer. The world of the unconscious, where the thoughts and desires of a person are contained. "It" lives in itself and for itself, not knowing the realities of the external world and not considering them.

2. "I" (Ego)- human consciousness, an intermediary between all components of the psyche, an intermediary between the world of emotions set by "It" and the real outside world, between attraction and its satisfaction.

3. "Super-I" (Super-Ego)- an external reality that presses and influences the personality, "external censorship": laws, prohibitions, morality, cultural traditions, an intermediary between "It" and "I".

It follows from this that the “I” of a person experiences powerful pressure and is most often suppressed by one of the parties: either the unconscious “It”, or the outside world, norms, prohibitions of the “Super-I”.

Freud deduces the determining factors of the human psyche:

pleasure- the psyche is like a compass, one way or another, looking for ways to pleasure;

crowding out- the psyche displaces unacceptable, forbidden desires and ideas (asocial, sexual) into the unconscious.

From this it follows that the desires forced out into the unconscious, which have not passed the “censorship”, thoughts are subjected to sublimation- transformation into other, "allowed" types of social activity and cultural creativity.

The doctrine of the unconscious was supplemented and developed.

The psyche, as a reflection of reality in the human brain, is characterized by different levels. The highest level of the psyche, characteristic of a person, forms consciousness. Human consciousness is an innate highest form of mental reflection of reality in the form of a generalized and subjective model of the surrounding world; it is a holistic form of the content of the psyche available at a given time. Consciousness is the highest, integrating form of the psyche, the result of the socio-historical conditions of the formation of a person in labor activity, with constant communication (using language) with other people. In this sense, consciousness, as the classics of Marxism emphasized, is a “social product”, consciousness is nothing but conscious being.

The lowest level of the psyche forms the unconscious. The unconscious is a set of mental processes, acts and states caused by influences, in the influence of which a person does not give himself a reference. Remaining mental (hence it is clear that the concept of the psyche is wider than the concept of "consciousness", "social"), the unconscious is a form of reflection of reality, in which the completeness of orientation in time and place of action is lost, speech regulation of behavior is violated. In the unconscious, in contrast to consciousness, it is impossible for a person to purposefully control those actions that he performs, and it is also impossible to evaluate their results.

Consciousness

Consciousness is the highest form of reflection of the real world; a function of the brain peculiar only to people and associated with speech, which consists in a generalized and purposeful reflection of reality, in a preliminary mental construction of actions and anticipation of their results, in reasonable regulation and self-control of human behavior. The "core" of consciousness, the way of its existence is knowledge. Consciousness belongs to the subject, to the person, and not to the surrounding world. But the content of consciousness, the content of a person's thoughts is this world, one or another of its aspects, connections, laws. Therefore, consciousness can be characterized as a subjective image of the objective world.

Human consciousness is inherent in such aspects as self-awareness, self-analysis, self-control. And they are formed only when a person distinguishes himself from the environment. self-awareness- the most important difference between the human psyche and the psyche of the most developed representatives of the animal world. It should be noted that reflection in inanimate nature corresponds to the first three forms of matter movement (mechanical, physical, chemical), reflection in living nature corresponds to a biological form, and consciousness corresponds to a social form of matter movement.

A person reflects the outside world not in passive contemplation, but in the process of practical, transformative activity. Consciousness is characterized not only as a reflection of the world, but also as such a spiritual activity, which is aimed at an active, creative transformation of reality.

The creative activity of consciousness is closely connected with the practical activity of man and with the needs that arise under the influence of the external world. Needs, reflected in the head of a person, acquire the character of a goal. Target- this is an idealized human need that has found its object, such a subjective image of the object of activity, in the ideal form of which the result of this activity is anticipated. Goals are formed on the basis of the total experience of mankind and rise to the highest forms of their manifestation in the form of social, ethical and aesthetic ideals. The ability to set goals- a specifically human ability, constituting a cardinal characteristic of consciousness. Consciousness would become an unnecessary luxury if it were deprived of goal-setting, that is, the ability to mentally transform things in accordance with social needs.

Thus, the relationship between the purposeful activity of man and nature cannot be reduced to a mere coincidence. The goal-setting activity of a person is based on dissatisfaction with the world and the desire to change it, to give it the forms necessary for a person and society. Consequently, the goals of a person are generated by social practice, the objective world and presuppose it.

But human thought is capable of not only reflecting the immediately existing, but also breaking away from it. The infinitely diverse objective world, with all its colors and forms, seems to glow, being reflected in the mirror of our “I” and forming a no less complex, diverse and surprisingly changeable world. In this bizarre realm of the spirit, its own spiritual space, human thought moves and creates. Both true and illusory representations arise in the minds of people. Thought moves along ready-made patterns and paves new paths, breaking outdated norms. She has a wonderful ability to innovate and create.

Recognition of the active, creative nature of consciousness is a necessary requirement for understanding the human personality: people are the products and creators of history. Communication with reality is carried out not by consciousness itself, but by real people who practically transform the world. The objective world, influencing a person and being reflected in his consciousness, turns into an ideal one. Being a consequence of the influence of the external world as a cause, consciousness, the ideal, in turn, acts as a derivative cause: consciousness through practice has a reverse effect on the reality that gave rise to it. Activity is characteristic not only of individual, personal, but also of public consciousness, above all, progressive ideas.

Consciousness is primarily a collection of knowledge about the world around us. The structure of consciousness includes the most important cognitive processes, with the help of which a person constantly enriches his knowledge. Violation, disorder, not to mention the complete disintegration of any of the mental cognitive processes, inevitably becomes a disorder of consciousness.

The second characteristic of consciousness is the distinct distinction between subject and object fixed in it, i.e. what belongs to the "I" of a person and his "not-I". Man, for the first time in the history of the organic world, having separated himself from it and opposing himself to it, retains this opposition and difference in his consciousness. He is the only one among living beings who is able to realize self-knowledge, i.e. turn mental activity to the study of oneself: a person makes a conscious self-assessment of his actions and himself as a whole. The separation of "I" from "not-I" - the path that every person goes through in childhood, is carried out in the process of forming a person's self-consciousness.

The third characteristic of consciousness is the provision of goal-setting human activity. Starting any activity, a person sets certain goals for himself. At the same time, her motives are added up and weighed, strong-willed decisions are made, the progress of the actions is taken into account and the necessary adjustments are made to it, etc. The inability to carry out goal-setting activity, its coordination and direction as a result of an illness or for some other reason are considered as a violation of consciousness. The motivational-molar sphere of consciousness is represented by the motives, interests, needs of the subject in unity with the abilities to achieve goals.

Finally, the fourth characteristic of consciousness is the presence of emotional evaluations in interpersonal relationships. And here, as in many other cases, pathology helps to better understand the essence of normal consciousness. In some mental illnesses, a violation of consciousness is characterized by a disorder precisely in the sphere of feelings and relationships: the patient hates his mother, whom he previously loved passionately, speaks with malice about loved ones, etc.

Consciousness is responsible for building relationships, cognition and experience. Consciousness includes thinking (intellect), memory, attention, will, emotions. The main function of thinking is to identify objective relationships between the phenomena of the external world, and emotions are the creation of a subjective attitude of a person to objects, phenomena, people. In the structures of consciousness, these forms and types of relationships are synthesized and then determine both the organization of behavior and the deep processes of self-esteem and self-consciousness.

Really existing in a single stream of consciousness, an image and a thought can, being colored by emotions, become an experience. “Awareness of experience is always the establishment of its objective relation to the causes that cause it, to the objects to which it is directed, to the actions by which it can be realized” (S. L. Rubinshtein).

Consciousness controls the most complex forms of behavior that require constant attention and conscious control, and is activated in the following cases: (a) when a person faces unexpected, intellectually complex problems that do not have an obvious solution, (b) when a person needs to overcome physical or psychological resistance to the movement of a thought or a bodily organ, (c) when it is necessary to realize and find a way out of any conflict situation that cannot resolve itself without a volitional decision, (d) when a person suddenly finds himself in a situation containing a potential threat for him if no immediate action is taken.

Consciousness assumes that the acts “I think”, “I experience”, “I see”, etc., caused by the interaction of “I” and the external world, simultaneously give rise to the accompanying acts: “I think that I think”, “ I experience what I experience”, “I see what I see”, etc. These accompanying acts constitute the content of reflection and self-consciousness. In consciousness, a person not only experiences, but is aware of what he is experiencing and endows the experience with meaning. The mental procedure "I think" is not identical with consciousness. For its occurrence, it is necessary that a person take his thinking about anything under the control of thought itself, i.e. engaged in the procedure of understanding why he thinks about it, how he thinks, whether there is any goal in his mental attention to this subject, etc. Consciousness provides a person with a clarification of all the meaning-life problems: why does he live, does he live with dignity, is there a goal in his existence, etc. The focus on external objects is also inherent in the psyche of animals, but without acts of reflection and self-awareness, which involve the formation of the “I”, as a state of isolation of a person from nature, from the community of other people (other “I”). Without "I" there is no consciousness, therefore it is inherent only in people.

Objectively, consciousness manifests itself in the form of mental (mental) activity, which is expressed in the rational behavior of the subject. However, such a definition is not clear enough due to the vagueness of the reasonableness criterion.

Subjectively, consciousness manifests itself in the form of reflection, which is a kind of "interface" between the outside world and "I". Consciousness has a divergent structure - it is always directed away from itself towards the outside world. The sphere of the subjective lies outside our immanent "I", and in relation to it is also part of the external world. Then, reflection can be defined uniformly as the ability to realize one's own "I" - as something separate, not only from the external physical world, but also from one's inner mental content.

Any reflection or psychophysical act is preceded by the act of receiving information from the outside world by the subject. This act is nothing but a measurement carried out by means of his sensory system. The actions of the subject, aimed at obtaining information from the outside world, we will call cognitive activity. The only approach to the study of consciousness is the study of this activity, directed not only at the external world, but also inside the subjective sphere, as a part of this world.

Consciousness has structure. Enlarged structure of consciousness:

Sector 1. bodily-perceptual possibilities. Sensations, perceptions and ideas, primary information about the world, the body and interaction with other bodies. The main goal and regulator of the existence of this sphere is the usefulness and expediency of the behavior of the human body in the surrounding world.

Sector 2. Logical-conceptual components of consciousness. It goes beyond the limits of the sensuously given into the essential regions of objects. Truth is the main goal and regulator.

Sector 1 and 2 - external-cognitive component of consciousness.

Sector 3. Emotional component. Deprived of direct connection with the outside world, the sphere of personal, subjective-psychological experiences. Here are formed:

1. instinctive-affective states, i.e. premonitions, visions, hallucinations, stress;
2. emotions (anger, fear, delight);
3. feelings with greater distinctness and awareness, the presence of a reverse figurative-visual connection (pleasure, disgust, love, sympathy). The main goal and regulative principle of pleasure.

Sector 4. Value-motivational component. The highest motives of activity and spiritual ideals, the ability to form them and creatively understand them in the form of fantasies, productive imagination and intuition of any kind. The main goal and regulation is beauty, truth, justice.

Sector 3 and 4 is the value-emotional, humanitarian side of consciousness, where the subject of knowledge is one's own self and other selves, their creative self-realization in a humanitarian-symbolic form (music, painting, architecture, etc.).

Detailed structure of consciousness:

1. Cognitive processes (sensation, perception, thinking, memory). Based on them, a body of knowledge about the world around is formed.
2. Distinguishing subject and object (opposing oneself to the surrounding world, distinguishing between "I" and "not I"). This includes self-awareness, self-knowledge and self-esteem.
3. Relationships of a person to himself and the world around him (his feelings, emotions, experiences).
4. Creative (creative) component (consciousness forms new images and concepts that were not previously in it with the help of imagination, thinking and intuition).
5. Formation of a temporary picture of the world (memory stores images of the past, imagination forms models of the future).
6. Formation of the goals of activity (based on the needs of a person, consciousness forms the goals of activity and directs a person to achieve them).

The center of consciousness is the consciousness of one's own Self. Consciousness:

• born in being;
• reflects being;
• creates life.

Functions of consciousness:

• Reflective: Consciousness organizes cognitive processes (perception, representation, thinking), and also organizes memory.
• Regulatory-evaluative: Consciousness takes part in the formation of some of the emotions and most of the feelings. A person at the level of consciousness evaluates most events and himself.
• Generating (creative): Creativity is impossible without consciousness. Many arbitrary types of imagination are organized on a conscious level: invention, artistic creation.
• Reflective (introspection): basic, it characterizes the essence of consciousness. A kind of consciousness is self-consciousness - the process by which a person analyzes his thoughts and actions, observes himself, evaluates himself, etc. One of the meanings of the word "reflection" is the ability of a person's consciousness to focus on itself. In addition, this term also refers to the mechanism of mutual understanding, that is, a person’s understanding of how other people with whom he interacts think and feel.
• Transformative (goal-setting): A person consciously determines most of his goals and outlines the path to achieve them. At the same time, he is often not limited to performing mental operations with objects and phenomena, but also performs real actions with them, transforming the world around him in accordance with his needs.
• Time-forming: Consciousness is responsible for the formation of a holistic temporal picture of the world, in which there is a memory of the past, awareness of the present and an idea of ​​the future. This human consciousness differs from the psyche of animals.

The object of reflection can be:

• reflection of the world;
• thinking about it;
• ways of regulating a person's behavior;
• the processes of reflection themselves;
• your personal consciousness.

Consciousness is a reflection of objects in the form of ideal images. Objects are reflected in sensory-visual and logical-abstract images. The system of these images constitutes the content of consciousness. Consciousness as a reflection of reality is knowledge, information about objects.

The reflection of reality in the mind is not a simple mirror reflection, copying, but a very complex process during which newly emerging images are combined with the previous ones, processed, and comprehended. Representations and concepts about what is not there or what may appear can be created in the mind. But any, including the most fantastic representations and ideas, ultimately arise on the basis of data obtained in the process of reflection.

An important point of consciousness is memory - the ability of the brain to store and reproduce information. Consciousness without memory cannot exist, build complex images on the basis of simple ones, create abstract images and ideas.

Man not only reflects certain phenomena of reality; emotional experiences, evaluations of these phenomena arise in his mind. These experiences, assessments can be both positive (joy, satisfaction, etc.) and negative (sadness, anxiety, etc.). Emotional states differ in their strength and duration. Emotions, as it were, distinguish objects from the point of view of human needs, stimulate his actions, motivation.

Motivation is a set of goals, motivations of a person to certain actions. Motivation is related to goal setting; goal-setting is based on dissatisfaction with the world and oneself. An important role in motivation is played by creative imagination, an idea of ​​the results of one's activity, and the development of ideals. A person builds an ideal, some image of how the world should be arranged and how it should be, and then raises the question of how to achieve this ideal. The latter requires a will. Will - the ability to act consciously, achieving the realization of the goal. This requires a specific mental stress - an effort of will. Thanks to the will, consciousness is realized in practical action. Volitional effort, as it were, completes the dynamics of consciousness. Volitional control of human behavior is based on knowledge, emotions and motivation.

Thus, consciousness includes not only cognitive, but also emotional, motivational, volitional components:

• thinking (intelligence)
• emotions
• will
• Attention
• perception
• imagination
• performance
• memory.

Personification of consciousness is not a reduction of consciousness to "I". This is just a methodical technique with which you can better understand the life and properties of consciousness, a person's desire for freedom, understand the will and the path to power over oneself.

Table. properties of consciousness

Property	Description
Activity	Consciousness is associated with activity, with active interaction with the outside world.
Selective character	Consciousness is not directed at the whole world as a whole, but only at certain of its objects (most often associated with some unrealized needs).
Generalization and abstraction	Consciousness operates not with real objects and phenomena of the surrounding world, but with generalized and abstract concepts, devoid of some of the attributes of specific objects of reality.
Integrity	The consciousness of a mentally healthy person, as a rule, has integrity. Within this property, internal conflicts of values ​​or interests are possible. In some types of mental illness, the integrity of consciousness is violated (schizophrenia).
constancy	Relative stability, immutability and continuity of consciousness, determined by memory. The constancy of consciousness is determined by the properties of the personality.
Dynamism	Its variability and ability for continuous development, due to short-term and rapidly changing mental processes, which can be fixed in a state and in new personality traits.
distortion	Consciousness always reflects reality in a distorted form (part of the information is lost, and the other part is distorted by the individual characteristics of perception and attitudes of the individual).
individual character	The consciousness of each person is different from the consciousness of other people. This is due to a number of factors: genetic differences, upbringing conditions, life experience, social environment, etc.
The ability to reflect	Consciousness has the capacity for self-observation and self-assessment, and can also imagine how other people evaluate it.

The structure of consciousness according to V.P. Zinchenko. There are two layers of consciousness:

1. Existential consciousness (consciousness concerning being) is:

• biodynamic properties of movements, experience of actions;
• sensual images.

2. Reflective consciousness (consciousness relating to consciousness), including:

• meaning
• meaning.

Meaning is the content of social consciousness, assimilated by a person. These can be operational, subject, verbal, worldly and scientific meanings.

Meaning is a subjective understanding of the situation, information and attitude towards it. Misunderstanding is associated with difficulties in understanding meanings. The processes of mutual transformation of meanings and meanings (comprehension of meanings and meaning of meanings) act as a means of dialogue and mutual understanding.

On the existential layer of consciousness, very complex tasks are solved, since for effective behavior in a given situation, it is necessary to actualize the image that is needed at the moment and the required motor program. The mode of action must fit into the image of the world. The existential layer contains the origins and beginnings of the reflective, since meanings and meanings are born in it.

The world of ideas, concepts, worldly and scientific knowledge correlates with the meaning (of reflective consciousness). The world of human values, experiences, emotions - with meaning (reflective consciousness). The world of industrial, subject-practical activity - with the biodynamic fabric of movement and action (existential layer of consciousness). The world of ideas, imagination, cultural symbols and signs - with a sensual fabric (existential consciousness). Consciousness is related to all these worlds and is present in all of them.

In the reflective layer, in the meanings and senses, of course, there are traces, reflections, echoes of the existential layer. These traces are connected not only with the fact that meanings and meanings are born in the existential layer. They contain it and are relevant. The meaning expressed in the word contains not only the image. As its internal form, it contains operational and objective meanings, meaningful and objective actions. Therefore, the word itself is seen as an action.

The existential layer of consciousness bears the traces of developed reflection, contains its origins and beginnings. Semantic evaluation is included in the biodynamic and sensory fabric; it is often carried out not only during but also before the formation of an image or an action. It is obvious.

Thus, the reflective layer of consciousness is simultaneously eventful, existential. In turn, the existential layer not only experiences the influence of the reflexive, but also possesses the rudiments or initial forms of reflection. Therefore, the existential layer of consciousness can rightfully be called co-reflexive. It cannot be otherwise, because if each of the layers did not bear the stamp of the other, they could not interact and even recognize each other.

The root cause of the relationship between the existential and reflexive layers is their common cultural and historical genetic code, which is embedded in the social (cumulative) objective action, which has generative properties. Of course, images, meanings, and meanings born in action acquire their own properties, become autonomous from action, and begin to develop according to their own laws. They are derived from the action, but not reducible to it, which gives grounds to consider them as relatively independent and participating in the formation of consciousness. But, due to the presence of a common genetic source in them, due to the close interaction of each component of the structure in the processes of its development and functioning with all others, they are all not homogeneous, but heterogeneous formations.

The commonality of the genetic code for all generators creates a potential, although not always realized, possibility of a holistic consciousness. The same commonality underlies the mutual transformations of the components (formers) of consciousness not only within each layer, but also between layers. The image is comprehended, the meaning is embodied in the word, in the image, in the deed, although it is hardly exhausted by this. Action and image are signified, etc.

The above description of the work of the proposed structure of consciousness did not require us to refer to the subconscious or the unconscious. It describes the work of consciousness, in which observable and unobservable, spontaneous and determined are fancifully mixed.

Intentionality. Despite the exceptional role of reflection in our mental life and all its progressive function, at present the most influential concept is the intentionality of consciousness. In the most general terms, it is argued that the property that most clearly reflects the essence of consciousness is intentionality, that is, the ability of consciousness to be directed to any object, to make it its content. A characteristic feature of this concept is a specific theory of intentional objects, which may not be real physical objects, but imaginary, illusory or generally hallucinatory. We give examples that fit into this concept. If one constructs a theory of superstrings, then his intentional object is mathematical objects and, perhaps, the strings themselves, which he imagines. If someone looks at a stump, but sees a goblin, then such an object is a goblin, and not a stump. If one hears the voices of aliens seeking to make contact over a transgalactic connection, then these objects, respectively, are voices. There are many disagreements regarding the scope and content of the concept of intentionality and the status of intentional objects. There are substantive and referential intentionality, genuine and derivative. Some consider intentional objects to be real, others to be unreal, and still others to be unreal. The study of these disagreements is a separate task and only indirectly to the topic of this article. It is much more important for us to clarify the concept of intentional states. What are these states? In the analytic philosophy of mind, they are usually distinguished from qualitative states (qualia) - the perception of color, texture, tonality, pain, itching, etc., although there are radical intentionalists who argue that even these states hide a certain directionality. Intentional states are such mental acts in which the nature of the relation of the subject to the object is manifested. These are reflections, beliefs, hopes, desires, fears. Let's take such an object as a bombing strike on the territory of a Middle Eastern state. Some may wish for it, others may be afraid and believe that it will “carry over”, others may be convinced that this cannot be avoided, and the fourth may be distantly reflecting on the possibility of this event. Such states are inherently relative. The behavioral criterion for distinguishing between these states is quite popular. According to Kim, intentional states are propositional attitudes or relations to some proposition that constitutes the content of propositional attitudes. They are also “intensional” (here “with”) or “content-filled” (contenful) states. One can agree with the direct identification of propositional attitudes and intentional states only if we are talking about conditional or secondary (make-believe or derived), and not about genuine or primary (genuine or intrinsic) intentionality. Some intentions of people can be discovered objectively by analyzing their behavior; the behaviorist is completely indifferent to whether the subject himself is aware of these intentions or not. According to this criterion, intentionality can be found even in the behavior of ants, moreover, in general, in any device capable of homeostasis.

Indeed, for analysts of everyday consciousness, this mental property is more convenient than reflection, since it is believed that intentions do not have to be reflexive. This is an analysis of the "surface" of the psyche. M. Mamardashvili expressed this point of view most radically: “Thus, intention differs from reflection. In reflexive consciousness, we, duplicating consciousness, know the state of mind, and intention is precisely that which does not know about itself at all (or that which is always known only after the fact, in hindsight). Mamardashvili's position is overly radical. Intention can be reflexive.

Aiming at an object is by no means always accompanied by a concentration of attention on it, direct and conscious reflection. Indeed, a reasonable individual can perceive, imagine something, desire, be afraid of something, think about something, but not give an account of the nature of his mental attitude to the subject. Let us take such a favorite subject of psychoanalysts as a person of the opposite sex. A person may not realize whether he desires it or fears it, perceives it or imagines it to a greater extent. There are more striking examples from the field of psychiatry, when a person is not at all able to understand whether he is perceiving something real or hallucinating.

The reverse, we note incorrectly. Every reflexive act is intentional. Moreover, it is possible that in the phenomenological conception the concept of intentionality is genetically derived from the concept of reflection. What unites the concepts of intentionality and reflection is the attitude towards the meaning of a mental act. According to Husserl, when we perform a non-reflective mental act, we do not possess it as an intentional object, since the act itself is the intention.

It can become such only under the condition of a “reflective turn of the gaze”. “Sense data are given as materials for intentional formation or meaning-making at various levels,” writes Husserl. Otherwise, we can say that reflexive acts are the so-called "secondary intentions" in scholasticism. It was about them that Husserl wrote, and not at all about simple perception. From the point of view of reflection as a “universal method”, primary intentions turn out to be secondary. The situation is strikingly reminiscent of Berkeley's controversy with Locke about primary and secondary qualities. Husserl admits that not in every experience one can find the representing, thinking, evaluating conversion of the subject, "while the experience can still hide intentionality in itself." Intentionality, according to phenomenology, is "a pervasive structure of consciousness", that which "characterizes consciousness in a distinct sense, which justifies the characterization of the entire stream of experience as a whole as a stream of consciousness and as a unity of one consciousness."

Thus, we can conclude that the set of intentional states includes a subset of reflexive states. Every reflexive state is intentional, but not vice versa. It is only thanks to intentionality that the phenomenon of consciousness splitting in reflection is possible. The very phenomenon of intentionality can be successfully classified according to the reflexive criterion. It is in deep reflection that the phenomenon of intentionality manifests itself in all its strength, it appears not as a simple effect of switching attention from one fragment of reality to another, but as a never-ending act of primary turning of consciousness to the world. Only due to the existence of intentionality as some kind of ontological phenomenon, the so-called splitting of consciousness in reflection turns out to be temporary and imaginary. If we return to the beginning of the article and try to combine the original metaphors into one image, then the reflective consciousness can be compared to an ideal superconducting light guide with a zero light absorption coefficient, capable of closing on itself. Once launched into it, the light is able to circulate forever.

Consciousness and language

Mimic-gestural and sound means of mutual communication, first of all, of higher animals, served as a biological prerequisite for the formation of human speech. The development of labor contributed to the close rallying of the members of society. People have a need to say something to each other. The need created an organ - the corresponding structure of the brain and peripheral speech apparatus. The physiological mechanism of speech formation is conditioned reflex: the sounds uttered in a given situation, accompanied by gestures, were combined in the brain with the corresponding objects and actions, and then with the ideal phenomena of consciousness. The sound from the expression of emotions has turned into a means of designating the images of objects, their properties and relationships.

The essence of language is revealed in its dual function: to serve as a means of communication and an instrument of thought. Language is a system of meaningful meaningful forms. Consciousness and language form a unity: in their existence they presuppose each other as an internal, logically formed ideal content presupposes its external material form. Language is the immediate reality of thought, consciousness. He participates in the process of mental activity as its sensual basis or tool. Consciousness is not only revealed, but also formed with the help of language. The connection between consciousness and language is not mechanical, but organic. They cannot be separated from each other without destroying both.

Through the language there is a transition from perception and ideas to concepts, the process of operating with concepts takes place. Speech is an activity, the very process of communication, the exchange of thoughts, feelings, etc., carried out with the help of language as a means of communication. But language is not only a means of communication, but also an instrument of thinking, a means of expressing and shaping thoughts. The fact is that a thought, a concept is devoid of imagery, and therefore to express and assimilate a thought means to clothe it in a verbal form. Even when we think to ourselves, we think by casting thought into linguistic forms. The fulfillment of this function by the language is ensured by the fact that the word is a sign of a special kind: as a rule, there is nothing in it that would remind of the specific properties of the designated thing, phenomenon, which is why it can act as a sign - a representative of a whole class similar items, i.e. as a symbol of the concept.

Finally, the language plays the role of an instrument, the accumulation of knowledge, the development of consciousness. In linguistic forms, our ideas, feelings and thoughts acquire a material existence and thanks to this they can become and become the property of other people.

In speech, a person fixes his thoughts, feelings and, thanks to this, has the opportunity to subject them to analysis as an ideal object lying outside him. Expressing his thoughts and feelings, a person more clearly understands them himself. He understands himself only by testing the intelligibility of his words on others. Language and consciousness are one. In this unity, the determining side is consciousness, thinking: being a reflection of reality, it “sculpts” forms and dictates the laws of its linguistic existence. Through consciousness and practice, the structure of language ultimately expresses, albeit in a modified form, the structure of being.

But the unity of language and thinking does not mean their identity. Indeed, a thought, a concept as the meaning of a word is a reflection of objective reality, and a word as a sign is a means of expressing and fixing a thought, a means of transmitting it to other people. It should be added to this that thinking is international in its logical laws and forms, and the language is national in its grammatical structure and vocabulary.

Finally, the lack of identity of language and thinking is also seen in the fact that sometimes we understand all the words, and the thought expressed with their help remains inaccessible to us, not to mention the fact that people with different life styles can use the same verbal expression. experiences invest far from the same semantic content.

These features in the relationship between language and thinking must be taken into account both in live speech and in written speech. Natural languages ​​are the main and decisive means of communication between people, a means of organizing our thinking. At the same time, with the development of knowledge and social practice, along with languages, non-linguistic signs and sign systems are beginning to be used more and more widely. Ultimately, all of them, one way or another, are connected with natural language, complementing it and expanding its range and possibilities. Such non-linguistic sign systems include systems of signs used in mathematics, chemistry, physics, musical notation, traffic signs, etc. Moreover, artificial languages ​​are being formed - the language of mathematics, other sciences, and, more recently, formalized programming languages.

Language and consciousness form a contradictory unity. Language affects consciousness: its historically established norms, specific to each nation, shade different features in the same object. However, the dependence of thinking on language is not absolute. Thinking is determined mainly by its connections with reality, while language can only partially modify the form and style of thinking.

Language (not speech) is defined as a social product, as well as a set of necessary conventions adopted by the team to ensure the implementation, functioning of the ability to speech activity. Language exists only by virtue of a kind of contract concluded by the members of the collective. So, language has to be thought of as some kind of legislation in the spirit of the theoretical model of the social contract, and the existence of this unwritten legislation makes it possible for speech activity to take place as such.

But this actually means that language is a rule or a system of rules in accordance with which speech is recognized and practiced as a social action, that is, a norm and nothing else. In some way, language has to be recognized, therefore, as a norm of reflection, theoretical and practical (moral). As well as in general the spheres of consciousness and social life, constituted by this reflection.

The linguistic norm, whatever it may be, acts as a prototype of all possible social norms and orders, or, if you like, a privileged, initiating point in a series or family of possible norms and norms.

Will as a characteristic of consciousness

All human actions can be divided into two categories: involuntary and arbitrary.

involuntary actions are committed as a result of the emergence of unconscious or insufficiently clearly perceived motives (inclinations, attitudes, etc.). They are impulsive and lack a clear plan. An example of involuntary actions is the actions of people in a state of passion (amazement, fear, delight, anger).

Arbitrary actions involve awareness of the goal, a preliminary presentation of those operations that can ensure its achievement, their sequence. All actions performed, performed consciously and having a purpose, are named so because they are derived from the will of man.

Will is a person's conscious regulation of his behavior and activities, associated with overcoming internal and external obstacles. Will as a characteristic of consciousness and activity appeared along with the emergence of society, labor activity. Will is an important component of the human psyche, inextricably linked with cognitive motives and emotional processes.

Volitional actions are simple and complex. Simple volitional actions include those in which a person goes to the intended goal without hesitation, it is clear to him what / in what way he will achieve, i.e. the urge to act passes into the action itself almost automatically.

For complex Volitional action is characterized by the following stages:

1. struggle of motives and choice;
2. implementation of the decision;
3. overcoming external obstacles, objective difficulties of the business itself, all kinds of obstacles until the decision made and the goal set are achieved, realized.

Will is needed when choosing a goal, making a decision, when carrying out an action, overcoming obstacles. Overcoming obstacles requires volitional effort- a special state of neuropsychic tension that mobilizes the physical, intellectual and moral forces of a person. Will manifests itself as a person's confidence in his abilities, as the determination to perform the act that the person himself considers appropriate and necessary in a particular situation. Free will means the ability to make informed decisions.

The need for a strong will increases in the presence of: 1) difficult situations of the “difficult world” and 2) a complex, contradictory inner world in the person himself.

Performing various activities, while overcoming external and internal obstacles, a person develops volitional qualities in himself: purposefulness, determination, independence, initiative, perseverance, endurance, discipline, courage. But the will and volitional qualities may not be formed in a person if the conditions of life and upbringing in childhood were unfavorable:

1) the child is spoiled, all his desires were implicitly fulfilled (easy peace - no will required)
2) the child is depressed by the hard will and instructions of adults, unable to make decisions on his own.

Parents seeking to nurture the will of a child must observe the following rules:

1) not to do for the child what he needs to learn, but only to provide conditions for the success of his activities;
2) to intensify the independent activity of the child, to arouse in him a sense of joy from what has been achieved, to increase the child's faith in his ability to overcome difficulties;
3) it is useful even for a small child to explain what is the expediency of those requirements, orders, decisions that adults present to the child, and gradually teach the child to make reasonable decisions on his own. Do not decide anything for a school-age child, but only lead him to rational decisions and seek from him adamant implementation of the decisions made.

Volitional actions, like all mental activity, are associated with the functioning of the brain. An important role in the implementation of volitional actions is played by the frontal lobes of the brain, in which, as studies have shown, the result achieved each time is compared with a previously compiled goal program. Damage to the frontal lobes leads to abulia- Painful weakness.

Volitional structure

Volitional activity always consists of certain volitional actions, which contain all the signs and qualities of the will. Volitional actions are simple and complex.

To simple include those in which a person without hesitation goes to the intended goal, it is clear to him what and in what way he will achieve. For a simple volitional action, it is characteristic that the choice of a goal, the decision to perform an action in a certain way, is carried out without a struggle of motives.

In complex volitional action distinguish the following stages:

1. awareness of the goal and the desire to achieve it;
2. awareness of a number of opportunities to achieve the goal;
3. the appearance of motives that affirm or deny these possibilities;
4. struggle of motives and choice;
5. accepting one of the possibilities as a solution;
6. implementation of the decision.

The stage of “awareness of the goal and the desire to achieve it” is not always accompanied by a struggle of motives in a complex action. If the goal is set from the outside and its achievement is obligatory for the performer, then it remains only to cognize it, having formed in oneself a certain image of the future result of the action. The struggle of motives arises at this stage when a person has the opportunity to choose goals, at least the order of their achievement. The struggle of motives that arises when goals are realized is not a structural component of volitional action, but rather a certain stage of volitional activity, of which action is a part. Each of the motives, before becoming a goal, goes through the stage of desire (in the case when the goal is chosen independently). Wish- these are the ideally existing (in the human head) content needs. To wish for something is, first of all, to know the content of the stimulus.

Since a person at any moment has various significant desires, the simultaneous satisfaction of which is objectively excluded, then there is a clash of opposing, non-coinciding motives, between which a choice has to be made. This situation is called struggle of motives. At the stage of understanding the goal and striving to achieve it, the struggle of motives is resolved by choosing the goal of the action, after which the tension caused by the struggle of motives at this stage weakens.

The stage “realization of a number of possibilities for achieving the goal” is actually a mental action, which is part of a volitional action, the result of which is the establishment of cause-and-effect relationships between the ways of performing a volitional action under existing conditions and possible results.

At the next stage, possible ways and means of achieving the goal are correlated with the person's system of values, including beliefs, feelings, norms of behavior, leading needs. Here, each of the possible paths is discussed in terms of the correspondence of a particular path to the value system of a given person.

The stage of the struggle between motives and choice turns out to be central in a complex volitional action. Here, as at the stage of choosing a goal, a conflict situation is possible, connected with the fact that a person accepts the possibility of an easy way to achieve the goal (this understanding is one of the results of the second stage), but at the same time, due to his moral feelings or principles, he cannot accept it. Other ways are less economical (and this is also understood by a person), but following them is more in line with a person's value system.

The result of resolving this situation is the next stage - the adoption of one of the possibilities as a solution. It is characterized by a drop in tension as the internal conflict is resolved. Here the means, methods, sequence of their use are specified, i.e. detailed planning is being carried out. After that, the implementation of the decision planned at the implementation stage begins.

The stage of implementation of the decision, however, does not relieve a person from the need to make strong-willed efforts, and sometimes no less significant than when choosing the goal of an action or methods for its implementation, since the practical implementation of the intended goal is again associated with overcoming obstacles.

The results of any volitional action have two consequences for a person: the first is the achievement of a specific goal; the second is connected with the fact that a person evaluates his actions and draws appropriate lessons for the future regarding the ways to achieve the goal, the efforts expended.

Motives and consciousness

motive- this is an impulse to commit a behavioral act, generated by the system of human needs and, to varying degrees, realized or not realized by him at all. In the process of performing behavioral acts, motives, being dynamic formations, can be transformed (changed), which is possible at all phases of an act, and a behavioral act often ends not according to the original, but according to the transformed motivation.

The term "motivation" in modern psychology denotes at least two mental phenomena: 1) a set of motives that cause the activity of the individual and determine its activity, i.e. a system of factors that determine behavior; 2) the process of education, the formation of motives, the characteristics of the process that stimulates and maintains behavioral activity at a certain level.

There are several concepts of the relationship between the motivation of activities (communication, behavior). One of them - causal attribution theory.

Under causal attribution is understood the interpretation by the subject of interpersonal perception of the causes and motives of the behavior of other people and the development on this basis of the ability to predict their future behavior. Experimental studies of causal attribution have shown the following: a) a person explains his behavior differently than he explains the behavior of other people; b) the processes of causal attribution are not subject to logical norms; c) a person is inclined to explain the unsuccessful results of his activity by external factors, and the successful ones - by internal factors.

The theory of motivation to achieve success and avoid failure in various activities. The relationship between motivation and achievement of success in activities is not linear, which is especially pronounced in the connection between motivation for achieving success and the quality of work. This quality is best at an average level of motivation and, as a rule, worsens at too low or too high.

Motivational phenomena, repeated many times, eventually become traits of a person's personality. These features include, first of all, the motive for achieving success and the motive for avoiding failure, as well as a certain locus of control, self-esteem, and the level of claims.

Motivation for success- the desire of a person to achieve success in various activities and communication. Motivation to Avoid Failure- a relatively stable desire of a person to avoid failures in life situations related to the assessment by other people of the results of his activities and communication. Locus of control- a characteristic of the localization of reasons, on the basis of which a person explains his behavior and responsibility, as well as the behavior and responsibility of other people observed by him. Internal(internal) locus of control - the search for the causes of behavior and responsibility in the person himself, in himself; external(external) locus of control - the localization of such causes and responsibilities outside the person, in his environment, fate. Self-esteem- assessment by the individual of himself, his capabilities, qualities, advantages and disadvantages, his place among other people. Claim level(in our case) - the desired level of self-esteem of the individual (the level of "I"), the maximum success in one or another type of activity (communication), which a person expects to achieve.

Personality is also characterized by such motivational formations as the need for communication (affiliation), the motive of power, the motive of helping people (altruism) and aggressiveness. These are motives of great social significance, since they determine the attitude of the individual towards people. Affiliation- the desire of a person to be in the company of other people, to establish emotionally positive good relationships with them. The antipode of the affiliation motive is rejection motive, which manifests itself in the fear of being rejected, not accepted personally by familiar people. Power motive- the desire of a person to have power over other people, to dominate, manage and dispose of them. Altruism- the desire of a person to selflessly help people, the opposite - selfishness as the desire to satisfy selfish personal needs and interests, regardless of the needs and interests of other people and social groups. Aggressiveness- the desire of a person to cause physical, moral or property harm to other people, to cause them trouble. Along with the tendency of aggressiveness, a person also has a tendency to inhibit it, a motive for inhibiting aggressive actions, associated with the assessment of one's own such actions as undesirable and unpleasant, causing regret and remorse.

Motives are not separated from consciousness, even when the motive is not realized and the subject is not aware of what prompts him to this or that activity. They always enter consciousness, but only in a special way. They give subjective coloring, express the meaning of the action situation for the subject himself, its personal meaning.

According to A.N. Leontiev, the function of motives in relation to consciousness is that they, as it were, “evaluate” the vital importance for the subject of objective circumstances and his actions in these circumstances, give them a personal meaning. Thanks to personal meaning, human consciousness acquires partiality, or subjectivity.

To understand the meaning, the relation of the motive to the goal and to the conditions of the action plays an important role. Meaning is presented to a person in the form of an emotion. Emotion is a mental reflection of the state of need, as well as the meaning, result and conditions of action in relation to the motive. Emotions evaluate events, having, like motives, the function of motivation.

Elementary forms of human behavior - reactive - are emotional processes, more complex - purposeful - are carried out due to motivation. The motivational process can be considered as a special form of emotional. Thus, motivation is emotion plus direction of action. Emotional behavior is expressive, not goal-oriented, and therefore changes direction as the situation changes. Between these two forms of behavior are actions, the purpose of which is to discharge emotions.

Human behavior in most cases contains both emotional and motivational components, so in practice they are not easy to separate from each other. Nevertheless, within the framework of the constructed model of the human psyche, awareness of motives (understanding the direction of action) is always fundamentally possible due to their belonging to consciousness. Otherwise, it will no longer be motives, but emotions.

Unconscious and subconscious

Consciousness is not the only level at which mental processes, properties and states of a person are represented, and far from everything that is perceived and controls a person’s behavior is actually realized by him. Along with conscious forms of reflection and activity, a person is also characterized by those that are, as it were, beyond the “threshold” of consciousness. The terms "unconscious", "subconscious", "unconscious" are often found in scientific and fiction literature, as well as in everyday life. They say: "He did it unconsciously", "He didn't want it, but it happened" and so on. Everyday experience acquaints us with the thoughts that pop up in our head, and it is not known where and how they arise. So, in addition to consciousness, a person has an unconscious and subconscious. These are those phenomena, processes, properties and states that, in their effect on behavior, are similar to conscious mental ones; they are not reflected by a person, i.e. are not recognized. According to the tradition associated with conscious processes, they are also called mental.

Mental activity may be in the focus of consciousness, and sometimes does not reach the level of consciousness (preconscious or preconscious state) or falls below the threshold of consciousness (subconscious). The totality of mental phenomena, states and actions that are not represented in the mind of a person, lying outside the sphere of his mind, unaccountable and not amenable, at least at the moment, to control, is covered by the concept of the unconscious. The unconscious acts either as an attitude, instinct, attraction, or as sensation, perception, representation and thinking, or as intuition, or as a hypnotic state or dream, a state of passion or insanity. The unconscious phenomena include both imitation and creative inspiration, accompanied by a sudden “enlightenment” with a new idea, born as if from some kind of push from within, cases of instantaneous solution of problems that have not succumbed to conscious efforts for a long time, involuntary memories of what seemed to be firmly forgotten, and other.

The unconscious forms the lowest level of the psyche. The unconscious is an automatic set of mental processes, acts and states caused by influences, in the influence of which a person does not give himself an account. Being mental, the unconscious is such a form of reflection of reality, in which the completeness of orientation in time and place of action is lost, speech regulation of behavior is violated. In the unconscious, unlike consciousness, purposeful control over the actions performed is impossible, and it is also impossible to evaluate their results.

The unconscious principle is one way or another represented in almost all mental processes, properties and states of a person. There are unconscious sensations, which include sensations of balance, proprioceptive (muscular) sensations. There are unconscious visual and auditory sensations that cause involuntary reflexive reactions in the visual and auditory centers of the nervous system. In other words, it is a manifestation of the biological component of a person. He is characterized by reflexes and instincts, fears and desires, aggression and depression.

It would be wrong to say that the unconscious is the opposite of consciousness, to equate it with the animal psyche. The unconscious is just as specific a human mental manifestation as consciousness, it is determined by the social conditions of human existence, acting as uncontrolled, fully or partially unconscious actions.

There are several words that characterize the innocence of consciousness to what is happening. For example, supraconscious, subconscious, preconscious - different prefixes in them mean the influence of the unconscious on different aspects of life. There are some differences between these terms, which will be mentioned when they are used.

Allocate:

1) subconscious: those ideas, desires, actions, aspirations that have now left consciousness, but can then return to it;

2) the unconscious proper: such a psychic that under no circumstances becomes conscious.

The unconscious is a concept that has a very wide range of interpretations, ranging from the automatic actions of a person (not reflected in his consciousness) to a special sphere of mental reality that largely determines the life and actions of people. Unconscious actions arise under the influence of instinct and learned actions. For example, when we walk, we practically don’t notice it, it doesn’t give us any work, we get it unconsciously (automatically). Automatism is an action implemented without the direct participation of consciousness, occurring as if “by itself”, without conscious control.

The subconscious is a psychological system that is located in the deep layers of the human psyche and manifests itself only in extraordinary cases and with the help of special techniques. Under the deep layers of the psyche is meant that which is “under” consciousness, that is, it is located in the depths of the psyche directly behind consciousness.

Thus, at present, the subconscious is distinguished from the unconscious in connection with the possibility of returning to consciousness. The subconscious can be brought back to consciousness through special techniques, but the unconscious cannot. If you do not pay attention to this circumstance, then you can not make a division into the unconscious and the subconscious, and everything that is not reflected by a person, i.e. not conscious, called unconscious.

The unconscious, by definition:

1. The totality of mental processes, acts and states caused by the phenomena of reality, which are not fixed in the mind of the subject.

2. A form of mental reflection in which the image of reality and the attitude of the subject to it do not act as an object of special reflection, constituting an undivided whole. The subconscious differs from consciousness in that the reality it reflects merges with the experiences of the subject, his relationship to the world, therefore, arbitrary control of the actions carried out by the subject and evaluation of their results are impossible in the subconscious. In the subconscious, the past, present and future often coexist, uniting in one mental act (for example, in a dream). There are four classes of manifestations of the subconscious: supraconscious phenomena; unconscious stimuli of activity (unconscious motives and semantic attitudes), determined by the desired future that has personal meaning; unconscious regulators of the ways of performing activities (operational attitudes and stereotypes of automated behavior), which ensure the directed and stable nature of its course; manifestations of subsensory perception.

Freud believed that the unconscious is not so much the processes to which attention is not directed, but the experiences suppressed by consciousness - those against which consciousness erects powerful barriers.

The term subconsciousness was introduced by Jeannot Pierre to refer to mental processes that occur without displaying them in consciousness and in addition to conscious control.

The term "subconscious" was used in Freud's early work on psychoanalysis, but over time he replaced it with the term "unconscious", intended by him mainly to designate the area of ​​repressed content. The followers of Freud, for example, Jacques Lacan, completely abandoned the opposition "over-/under-" in the description of mental life.

It stood out as a separate concept of "unconscious", denoting usually automatic actions that are not controlled by consciousness, as well as "preconsciousness" - that which can be perceived when focusing attention, but is currently not realized.

Subconscious

The subconscious includes:

1. Mental phenomena that occur in a dream (dreams). If you look at the definition of sleep in biology, you can read that this state is characterized by a disconnected consciousness. A lot of people were engaged in the interpretation of dreams - from fortune-tellers to psychoanalysts, since dreams contain the undistorted essence of a person, however, veiled by various images. The psychoanalysis of dreams was carried out by Z. Freud. In his books, he considered almost any dreams as a result of sexual disharmony. With such an unconventional approach, he was not understood during his lifetime, but over time, interest in his work began to grow, and today his theory is one of the most famous.

2. Responses that are caused by imperceptible, but really affecting stimuli ("subsensory" or "subceptive" reactions). For example, some react with headaches to magnetic storms, while others depend on solar cycles for their health.

3. Subconscious memorization of facts and events, accompanied by a strong emotional resonance. As well as the unconscious forgetting of indifferent and useless information to us.

4. Movements that were conscious in the past, but due to repetition have become automated and therefore more unconscious. This includes the complex professional movements of a typist, painter or pianist.

5. Some motivations for activity in which there is no consciousness of the goal. For example, the influence of hypnosis has been repeatedly proven as a powerful factor in inducing seemingly useless action.

6. Subconscious phenomena also include some pathological phenomena that occur in the psyche of a sick person: delirium, hallucinations, etc. They can occur with strong effects on the nervous system - a disease, a psychotropic or hallucinogenic substance.

7. Conditions not associated with serious mental disorders, such as obsessive thoughts (obsessions). Every person has experienced this state. They say about such states that "thoughts themselves climb into the head." For example, before an exam, you constantly think about the possible course of events; everyone can say that sometimes “melodies are attached to us”, etc.

Subconscious phenomena include intuition, imitation, creative inspiration, accompanied by a sudden "enlightenment", a new idea, born as if from some kind of push from the inside (cases of instantaneous solving of problems that have not succumbed to conscious efforts for a long time, involuntary memories of what seemed to be firmly forgotten And so on).

The subconscious manifests itself in the so-called impulsive actions when a person is not aware of the consequences of his actions.

The subconscious finds its manifestation in information. It accumulates throughout life as an experience and settles in memory. Of the total amount of knowledge available, at the moment only a small fraction of them shines in the focus of consciousness. Some of the information stored in the brain is not even known to people.

The cardinal form of manifestation of the subconscious is the attitude - a mental phenomenon that directs the flow of thoughts and feelings of the individual. An attitude is a holistic state of a person, expressing the certainty of mental life, orientation in any type of activity, a general predisposition to action, a stable orientation in relation to certain objects. A stable orientation to the object is maintained as expectations are met. Sometimes the set takes on an inflexible, extremely stable, painfully obsessive character, called fixation (a person may experience an overwhelming fear of a mouse, realizing the absurdity of this feeling).

Imagination: mental activity consisting in the creation of representations and mental situations that have never been generally perceived by a person in reality. Imagination is based on operating with specific sensual images or visual models of reality, but at the same time it has the features of mediated, generalized cognition that combines it with thinking. The departure from reality, which is characteristic of the imagination, allows us to define it as a process of transformative reflection of reality.

The main function of the imagination is to ideally present the result of an activity before it is actually achieved, to anticipate what does not yet exist. Connected with this is the ability to make discoveries, find new ways, ways to solve problems that arise before a person. Guess, intuition leading to discovery is impossible without imagination.

Distinguish between recreative and creative imagination. Recreating imagination consists in creating images of objects that were not previously perceived in accordance with their description or image.

Creative imagination consists in the independent creation of new images, embodied in the original product of scientific, technical and artistic activity. It is one of the psychological factors that unite science and art, theoretical and aesthetic knowledge.

A special kind of creative imagination - a dream - is the creation of images of a desired future that are not directly embodied in certain products of activity.

The activity of the imagination can have varying degrees of arbitrariness, from spontaneous childhood fantasies to a long, purposeful search for an inventor.

Dreaming is an involuntary activity of the imagination. However, they can be determined by a goal set in the waking state; these are well-known examples of solving scientific problems in a dream.

The richest sphere of subconscious mental life is the illusory world of dreams. In it, the pictures of reality, as a rule, are torn apart, not linked by links of logic; from a philosophical and psychological point of view, a dream acts as a temporary loss by a person of a sense of his own being and the world. The psychological purpose of sleep is to rest. Some people have the ability to learn in their sleep. Moreover, this ability can be developed through self-hypnosis and suggestion in the waking state, as well as with the help of hypnotic suggestion. This phenomenon is called hypnopedia. With its help, they repeatedly tried to teach people, for example, foreign languages.

We also refer to the subconscious those manifestations of intuition that are not associated with the generation of new information, but involve only the use of previously accumulated experience. Intuition is the ability to comprehend the truth by direct observation of it without foundation with the help of evidence. The process of scientific knowledge, as well as various forms of artistic development of the world, is not always carried out in a detailed, logically and factually evident form. Often a person grasps a difficult situation in his mind (for example, during the perception of a battle, when determining a diagnosis, when establishing the guilt or innocence of the accused, etc.).

The role of intuition is especially great where it is necessary to go beyond the limits of the methods of cognition in order to penetrate into the unknown. But intuition is not something unreasonable or superreasonable; in the process of intuitive cognition, all the signs by which the conclusion is made and the methods by which it is made are not realized.

Intuition does not constitute a special path of cognition leading bypassing sensations, ideas and thinking. It is a peculiar type of thinking when individual links of the thinking process are carried through in the mind more or less unconsciously, and it is the result of the thought - the truth - that is most clearly realized.

Intuition is enough to perceive the truth, but it is not enough to convince others and oneself of this truth. This requires proof. It's like a twisted logic of thought. Intuition is also related to logic, as external speech is to internal, where a lot is omitted and fragmentary.

A characteristic feature of unconscious mental activity is that it can be used to achieve what cannot be achieved by relying on rational, logical, verbalized and therefore conscious experience. This “anticipation” of the subconscious randomness of consciousness arises with particular clarity when we are faced with the need to comprehend the most complex aspects of reality, phenomena, events that are so multifaceted, so multicomponent and polydetermined, embodied in an intricate interweaving, in networks of such heterogeneous interconnections and relationships that attempts to reveal their nature on the basis of an analytical and rational approach, on the basis of the division of the “global”, integral “continuums” into their discrete components, recede in impotence. And then, in the presence of certain psychological conditions, the power of "non-segmenting" cognition, which never ceases to amaze us, may manifest itself.

Non-segmenting, intuitive, based on unconscious mental activity, is represented in our mental life exceptionally widely. It makes itself felt even in the most rationalized analytical and logical differentiated forms of mental activity (suffice it to recall the classical disputes about the role of intuition in mathematics). But a special privileged place is assigned to him, of course, in artistic creativity.

"Superconscious", following K.S. Stanislavsky, they call that unconscious mental, which is directly connected with creativity.

The functioning of the superconsciousness, which generates new, previously non-existent information by recombining the traces of previously received impressions, is not controlled by a conscious volitional effort: only the results of this activity are submitted to the judgment of consciousness.

The sphere of superconsciousness includes the initial stages of any creativity - the generation of hypotheses, conjectures, creative insights. Let us immediately note that the functions of superconsciousness are not reduced to the mere generation of “psychic mutation”, i.e. to random recombination of traces stored in memory. According to some laws still unknown to us, the superconsciousness performs the primary selection of emerging recombinations and presents to consciousness only those of them that have a known probability of their correspondence to reality. That is why even the most "crazy ideas" of a scientist are different from the pathological madness of the mentally ill and the phantasmagoria of dreams.

Unconscious urges have been investigated in situations of so-called post-hypnotic states. For experimental purposes, a hypnotized person was suggested that after coming out of hypnosis, he must perform certain actions; for example, approach one of the employees and untie his tie. The subject, feeling obvious embarrassment, followed the instructions, although he could not explain why it occurred to him to commit such a strange act. Attempts to justify his action by saying that the tie was badly tied, not only for those around him, but also for himself, looked clearly unconvincing. However, due to the fact that everything that happened during the hypnotic session fell out of his memory, the impulse functioned at the level of the unconscious, and he was sure that he acted purposefully and correctly to some extent.

In the course of a long evolution, the subconscious mind arose as a means of protection from unnecessary work and unbearable loads ... The subconscious mind always stands guard over the acquired and well-learned, whether it is a skill brought to automatism or a social norm. Conservatism is one of the most characteristic features of the subconscious. Thanks to the subconscious, what is individually assimilated (conditioned reflex) acquires the imperativeness and rigidity inherent in unconditioned reflexes.

The sphere of the subconscious also includes social norms deeply assimilated by the subject, the regulatory function of which is experienced as the “voice of conscience”, “call of the heart”, “order of duty”, etc.

The variety of forms and manifestations of the subconscious is exceptionally great. In some cases, one can speak not only of the subconscious, but also of the supraconscious in human behavior and activity. The assimilation of social experience, culture, spiritual values ​​and the creation of these values ​​by an artist or a scientist, being accomplished in reality, do not always become the subject of reflection and in fact turn out to be a combination of consciousness and the subconscious. Therefore, at different times and in different countries there are many trends in the visual arts and poetry. Each new historical epoch is uniquely reflected in the consciousness of its contemporaries, and with the change in the historical conditions of people's existence, their unconscious and subconscious changes. There are many examples regarding science, religion and their mutual influences. For example, in the XIV-XVI centuries, during the Renaissance, the scientist Nicolaus Copernicus lived and worked. They say about him, "Having stopped the sun, he moved the earth." Despite a qualitatively new approach in science, it was not recognized as a religion that preached the theory of the Earth as the center of the universe. Over the long centuries of existence of this advantageous point of view, it simply did not cause doubts and was taken for granted. Since religion at that time had much more authority, Nicholas, true to his discovery, was burned at the stake. Naturally, over time, views have changed, and today this story sounds more than absurd, although at that time it could not have been otherwise. “The true religious position depends on an unshakable sense of its value, and not on logical arguments” (Joseph Henderson). And Copernicus, with his scientific theory, tried to undermine it.

A similar situation was with the change of religions (the baptism of Russia, the change of paganism to Christianity), the ruling dynasty, politics or system. In such cases, everything was done according to the principle "We will destroy the old world to the ground." After that, the period of education of another generation of people with different cultural and worldview values ​​began. This approach is characterized by cruelty towards people, barbarism towards cultural values, because thousands and millions of people were killed, architectural monuments were destroyed, libraries were burned. Everything that could carry at least a grain of the supraconscious was destroyed.

The same approach was applied not only to destruction in the physical sense. For example, in America there was a period when the first task of one of the generations was to destroy the decadent forms of the culture of the middle class of the twentieth century, highlighting the unconscious (repressed) elements of the personality, or, as C. Jung would put it, "the collective unconscious." Since the struggle was literary, short stories were used as means of mass destruction. One of the representatives of such writers was Thomas Mann. His works were perceived only by people whose “place” for culture in their minds was “empty”. Older people with established cultural values ​​rejected all the writers of his cohort. You can also meet with this in psychiatry, when a doctor inadvertently offends a patient for his “superconscious”. As Joseph Henderson writes, “when the degree of importance of a cultural position is neglected, it is the individual who suffers first.” Hence the importance of the subconscious cultural base for conscious perception.

The idea of ​​the multi-layered human psyche already existed in ancient Eastern philosophy. The concept of unconsciousness was first clearly formulated by Leibniz (Monadology, 1720), who interpreted unconsciousness as the lowest form of mental activity, lying beyond the threshold of conscious representations, rising like islands above the ocean of dark perceptions (perceptions). In the European tradition, Kant also wrote about this; E. Hartmann and J. F. Herbert created their concept of the unconscious. In the theory of Z. Freud, the unconscious is presented as a powerful irrational force that determines human behavior. C. G. Jung introduced the concept of the “collective unconscious”, which is characteristic of every people and ethnic group and forms its creative spirit, feelings and values. In modern depth psychology, this concept is widely used to interpret all mental forms of human life - it is a set of mental processes, states and patterns of behavior that are not clearly represented in the minds of people. The term "unconscious" is also used to characterize group behavior as a collective unconscious that controls the crowd. The features of the crowd have long been revealed and used as its weaknesses. The psychology of the crowd was studied by the French sociologists Lebon, Tarde and Taine. They identified such features of the crowd as:

• Tendency to sensual rather than analytical perception;
• Intolerance of criticism;
• conservatism;
• Contempt for weak power, submission to strong;
• Submission to the charm of a person and idea;
• Simultaneous distrust of the chosen one;
• And the larger the crowd, the stronger these features are expressed in it.

All these qualities, little by little, grains are embedded in each of us, and when accumulated, they can form a real avalanche, waiting for their shot. This theory was developed by our contemporary A. Avtorkhanov in his work "The Political Life of Society". The use of the unconsciousness of the crowd has been used more than once by orators of the last two centuries, who have told many revolutions, wars and upheavals. These methods are not outdated to this day.

Sigmund Freud - the father of psychoanalysis - developed a theory of personality, according to which the latter is divided into three instances: I (Ego), It (Id) and Super-I (Super Ego), where the first is consciousness, the second is a huge layer of the unconscious, and the third is the voice of conscience. If we compare this concept with the theory of subjectivity, the instance of the Self can be identified with the subject, since it is characterized by at least conscious behavior (however, subjectivity includes not only awareness, but also such qualities as self-determination and worldview integrity). It is something that is not realized, and therefore cannot claim the role of a subject. The Super-I, on the other hand, is a rather complex phenomenon, with respect to which it is difficult to give an unambiguous assessment of whether it can enter the sphere of subjectivity or whether it should be denied this. The superego is presented as an externally internalized, rather than internally constructed, phenomenon, which does not give us the opportunity to allocate a place for it within subjectivity. The super-ego in this case is the inner one, it would be expedient to call it only a fold of the outer. However, it is unlikely that this instance should be considered in full measure the result of the child “swallowing” external influences, without first “chewing” them and throwing out what is not “chewed”. Surely the Superego is formed in two stages: 1) the assimilation of influences coming from the external environment, 2) the assignment of the result of these influences. But as for the second stage, it is appropriate to recall the famous Rubinstein principle “external through internal”, according to which external requirements are refracted through the formations present in the child’s psyche, which act as a kind of filter, “deciding” what should be allowed inside and what should not.

However, if we go even further, it is worth asking the question: where did these very intrapsychic formations come from? Isn't it the result of those notorious external influences? After all, a child, being born, is an immoral being. He learns (and assigns) moral norms and prescriptions in the process of socialization, that is, entering the social environment, which has an educational impact on him. It turns out that the intrapsychic formations that we are now talking about are the Super-I - perhaps not yet fully formed, but still the Super-I. Thus, this instance, being formed under the influence of society (in the person of parents, first of all), takes on the function of “filtering” subsequent external influences, despite the fact that it itself was created thanks to them. It is the Superego that evaluates what comes from without, and not the I; at least, according to orthodox psychoanalytic logic, this is so. This means that we cannot include the structure of the Superego in the field of subjectivity because of its internalized nature.

Interiorization (from French interiorisation - transition from outside to inside and Latin interior - internal) - the formation of internal structures of the human psyche through the assimilation of external social activity, mastery of external sign means (for example, the formation of internal speech from external speech), the appropriation of life experience, the formation of mental functions and development in general. Any complex action, before becoming the property of the mind, must be implemented outside. Thanks to internalization, we can talk about ourselves, and actually think, without disturbing others. For the first time, this term was used in the works of French sociologists (Durkheim and others), where internalization was considered as one of the elements of socialization, meaning the borrowing of the main categories of individual consciousness from the sphere of social experience and public ideas. The concept of internalization was introduced into psychology by representatives of the French psychological school (J. Piaget, P. Janet, A. Vallon, and others) and by the Soviet psychologist L. S. Vygotsky. According to L. S. Vygotsky, any function of the human psyche is initially formed as an external, social form of communication between people, as labor or other activity, and only then, as a result of internalization, does it become a component of the human psyche. F. Nietzsche had a peculiar understanding of interiorization. In his work The Genealogy of Morals (1887), he wrote that “All instincts that are not allowed to go out, manifest themselves inside. This is exactly what I call internalization.”

If we unfoundedly reject the Super-I, then automatically we reject any morality, and conscience, and morality. In this case, the true subject will appear before us the one who is deprived of the Super-I, the prototype of the superman in the person of the barbarian. But there is a dead end in the course of such reasoning, since we cannot endow the barbarian with subjective properties a priori. It seems absolutely unthinkable that the development of subjectivity in an individual isolated from society: a person isolated from society is not able to develop at all. A postmodern schizophrenic who does not feel the shackles of civilization can hardly be a subject.

The inevitable question arises: what is inside the subject that is not internalized? Is there something in the human psyche that is not a product of society? And when such a question arises, the researcher cannot give an exact answer to it. The fact is that the very formulation of the question, the very presentation of the problem is not distinguished by clarity and specificity. Therefore, it is not an unequivocal answer that is important, but the answer that fits a certain aspect of the problem. Of course, to the question “what is not internalized inside the subject?” we can unequivocally answer - "nothing". But then we call upon ourselves the accusation of primitivism or reductionism. In addition, then we will simply close the circle and destroy the very problem of our research as a problem. With such an answer, we also recognize the complete absence of the subject and subjectivity, and hence the futility of attempts to introduce them - these concepts - into scientific circulation. Then the very problem of the subject, which originated from the new European era (if its roots did not appear even earlier), turns out to be untenable, unscientific and useless. So - as a final conclusion - we will cross out the need for the work of many prominent philosophers and, like extremely radical postmodernism, put an end to what has been studied for many centuries. Nevertheless, it is difficult to find something inside the individual psyche that appeared initially, from birth, and is not a consequence of appropriation, except for the unconscious It.

Returning again to psychoanalysis, according to which both the id and the super-ego exert unbearable pressure on the ego, it is possible to give the first two instances an antisubjective character that suppresses subjectivity. Comparing the action of the id and the action of the super-ego, it is easy to notice their multi-vector orientation. If It calls for the satisfaction of instincts and needs - the lowest, but the most natural - then the Super-I calls for refraining from this satisfaction. And the I, thus, turns out to be constantly torn apart by two ruling structures, standing steadfastly between two fires, between Scylla and Charybdis. It and the Super-I do not act together, but, on the contrary, compete with each other.

If the subject succumbs to the power of the id and, forgetting about social morality and morality, “dives” into the abyss of unconscious impulses, he meets his true nature, becomes himself, desiring and satisfying desires, desocialized and immoral. Here it is - the nature of man, his self, not "polluted" by any social norms and stereotypes: self, identified with the shadow. However, this naturalness, this naturalness does not allow a person to live in society, since it completely contradicts social life. That is, human naturalness is not able to get along with other people and recognize moral conventions, prescriptions and social contracts. The barbarian is free from the public... but at the same time he is free from himself.

If the Self succumbs to the power of the Super-I, it no longer dissolves in the individual unconscious, but in public morality, this time on the contrary, moving away from its naturalness to the most remote point. And then already a person becomes a hyperconformal, superobedient person of the crowd.

Separate consciousness and subconsciousness that's why. Consciousness, unlike the subconscious, can reflect, and in reflection there is a feedback function. This function of reflection is connected, at least with the fact that, like any self-organizing system, a person needs “feedback”. For self-management and self-regulation, one cannot do without a well-functioning feedback system. However, reflection is not feedback itself, just as an ordinary mirror reflecting a person's appearance is not feedback in itself, but only a means, method or mechanism by which this feedback can be obtained. Reflection as a feedback mechanism in human life is not only a certain result (an image in a mirror), but also a process that is associated with internal transformations - understanding and rethinking stereotypes of thinking and their heuristic overcoming, up to the formation of new creative and innovative contents of consciousness , although the role of reflection itself is by no means limited to this.

Naturally, there are also feedbacks at the subconscious level, but we are not aware of them, as it happens during reflection. Thus, conscious feedbacks that we can control are one of the main criteria for distinguishing consciousness in the human psyche - and everything that we cannot control is referred to as the subconscious.

However, by consciously influencing the subconscious, we receive from it a response that manifests itself in consciousness. So, it turns out that we can still consciously control the subconscious. We come to a contradiction. On the one hand, by definition, we cannot control our subconscious, and on the other hand, there is a practice of directed influence on the subconscious. To get rid of this contradiction, it is necessary to abandon the idea of ​​dividing the psyche into consciousness and subconsciousness. This, in fact, is implicit and is done in the methods of programming and reprogramming the subconscious. The very word "subconscious" in them no longer has the meaning that traditional psychologists put into it.

As soon as the means of controlling something appear in our hands, this something ceases to be a mystery to us. Of course, the human psyche is an incredible phenomenon, which we are never destined to fully understand. But we have already removed the veil of mystery from it - we have found approaches to how it can be consciously controlled.

Unconscious Processes

All unconscious processes can be divided into three large classes:

1) unconscious mechanisms of conscious actions
2) unconscious stimuli of conscious actions
3) "superconscious" processes.

The first class - unconscious mechanisms of conscious actions - includes, in turn, three different subclasses:

a) unconscious automatisms;
b) the phenomena of an unconscious attitude;
c) unconscious accompaniments of conscious actions.

Let's take a look at each of these subclasses.

Unconscious automatisms usually mean actions or acts that are performed “by themselves”, without the participation of consciousness. Sometimes they talk about "mechanical work", about work in which "the head remains free." "Free head" means the absence of conscious control.

An analysis of automatic processes reveals their dual origin. Some of these processes were never realized, while others passed through consciousness and ceased to be realized.

The former constitute the group of primary automatisms, the latter, the group of secondary automatisms. The first are otherwise called automatic actions, the second - automated actions, or skills.

The group of automatic actions includes either congenital acts or those that are formed very early, often during the first year of a child's life. Examples are sucking, blinking, grasping objects, walking, eye convergence, and many others.

The group of automated actions, or skills, is especially extensive and interesting. Thanks to the formation of a habit, a two-fold effect is achieved: first, the action begins to be carried out quickly and accurately; secondly, as already mentioned, there is a release of consciousness, which can be directed to mastering a more complex action. This process is fundamental to the life of every individual. It would not be a big exaggeration to say that it underlies the development of all our skills, knowledge and abilities.

Consider an example. Take learning to play the piano. If you yourself have gone through this process or watched how it happens, then you know that everything begins with the mastery of elementary acts. First you need to learn how to sit correctly, put your legs, arms, fingers on the keyboard in the correct position. Then, strokes with each finger, raising and lowering the hand, etc. are practiced separately. Elements of piano technique proper are built on this most elementary basis: a beginner pianist learns to “guide” a melody, take chords, play staccato and legato ... And all this is just the basis that is necessary in order to sooner or later move on to expressive play, i.e. to artistic performance.

So, by moving from simple actions to complex ones, thanks to the transfer to unconscious levels of actions already mastered, a person acquires mastery. And in the end, outstanding pianists reach a level where, in the words of Heine, "the piano disappears, and only music is revealed to us."

Why is there only “music” left in the performance of master pianists? Because they have perfected their pianistic skills.

Speaking about the liberation of actions from conscious control, of course, one should not think that this liberation is absolute, i.e. that the person does not know what he is doing. This is not true. Control, of course, remains, but it is carried out in the following interesting way.

The field of consciousness is heterogeneous: it has a focus, a periphery and, finally, a border beyond which the area of ​​the unconscious begins. And this heterogeneous picture of consciousness is, as it were, superimposed on a hierarchical system of complex action. At the same time, the highest floors of the system - the latest and most complex components of the action - are in the focus of consciousness; the next floors fall on the periphery of consciousness; finally, the lowest and most developed components go beyond the border of consciousness.

It must be said that the relation of the various components of actions to consciousness is unstable. In the field of consciousness, there is a constant change in the contents: one or another "layer" of the hierarchical system of acts that make up a given action is represented in it.

Movement in one direction, we repeat, is the departure of the learned component from the focus of consciousness to its periphery and from the periphery - beyond its border, into the area of ​​the unconscious. Movement in the opposite direction means the return of some components of the skill to consciousness. Usually it occurs when difficulties or mistakes arise, with fatigue, emotional stress. This return to consciousness may also be the result of arbitrary intention. The property of any component of a skill to become conscious again is very important, since it provides the flexibility of the skill, the possibility of its additional improvement or alteration.

By the way, skills differ from automatic actions in this property. Primary automatisms are not realized and cannot be realized. Moreover, attempts to become aware of them usually frustrate the action.

This latter circumstance is reflected in the well-known parable of the centipede. The centipede was asked: "How do you know which of your forty legs you need to take a step now?" The centipede thought deeply - and could not move!

Let us ask ourselves, are there automatic processes in the mental sphere? Of course have. There are so many of them that it is even difficult to choose a simple example right away. It is probably best to turn to the field of mathematics. It is there that the process of sequential layering of more and more complex actions, skills or knowledge on the automated previous “layers” is most obvious to us. The departure of more elementary actions to the unconscious level is accompanied by an instant “discernment” of what initially required an extended process of thinking.

This is where we end our acquaintance with the first subclass of unconscious mechanisms and move on to the second - the phenomena of an unconscious set.

concept "installation" occupied a very important place in psychology, probably because the phenomena of attitude permeate almost all spheres of a person’s mental life.

In Soviet psychology, there was a whole trend - the Georgian school of psychologists - which developed the problem of set on a very large scale. This direction was headed by the outstanding Soviet psychologist Dmitry Nikolayevich Uznadze (1886-1950), who created the theory of set and organized the development of this problem by a large team.

First of all, what is a setup. By definition, it is the readiness of an organism or subject to perform a certain action or to react in a certain direction. Note that we are talking about readiness for the upcoming action. If the habit refers to the period of the action, then the setting refers to the period that precedes it.

There are extremely many facts demonstrating the readiness or preliminary adjustment of the organism for action, and they are very diverse. They belong to different spheres of the mental life of the individual. For example, a child long before the age of one, trying to take an object, adjusts the hand to its shape: if it is a small crumb, then he brings his fingers together and stretches them out, if it is a round object, he rounds and spreads his fingers, etc. Hand posture presets like this illustrate a motor setup. The sprinter at the start is in a state of readiness for a jerk - this is also a motor installation. If you sit in a dark room and wait with fear for something threatening, then sometimes you really begin to hear footsteps or suspicious rustles. The saying “fear has big eyes” reflects the phenomena of a perceptual attitude. When you are given some mathematical example expressed in trigonometric symbols, then you are set to solve it using trigonometry formulas, although sometimes this solution comes down to simple algebraic transformations. This is an example of a mental attitude.

The state of readiness, or installation, has a very important functional significance. A subject prepared for a certain action has the ability to carry it out quickly and accurately, i.e. more effective. But sometimes the installation mechanisms mislead a person (an example of unreasonable fear). I will give you another example, this time borrowing it from an ancient Chinese literary monument.

“One person lost an axe. He thought about his neighbor's son and began to look at him: he walks like someone who has stolen an axe, looks like someone who has stolen an axe, and talks like someone who has stolen an axe. In a word, every gesture, every movement betrays a thief in him. But soon that man began to dig up the earth in the valley and found his axe. The next day, he looked at the son of a neighbor: neither by gesture nor movement does he look like a thief.

It is the "setting errors" that manifest themselves in erroneous actions, perceptions or assessments that are among its most expressive manifestations and attracted the attention of psychologists first of all.

It should be said that not every attitude is unconscious. One can consciously wait for the terrible - and really see the terrible, one can consciously suspect a person of stealing an ax - and really see that he walks "like someone who has stolen an ax." But the manifestations of the unconscious attitude are of the greatest interest. It was with them that experimental and theoretical research began at the school of D. N. Uznadze (Uznadze D. N. Psychological research. M., 1966).

The main experiments, which were the starting point for the further development of the concept of D. N. Uznadze, were as follows. The subject was given two balls of different sizes in his hands and asked to evaluate which hand had the largest ball. A larger ball, suppose, was given to the left hand, a smaller one to the right. The subject correctly estimated the volumes of the balls, and the test was repeated: again a larger ball was given to the left hand, and a smaller one to the right, and the subject again correctly estimated the volumes. The test was repeated again, and so fifteen times in a row (Repetition of tests served the purpose of strengthening, or fixing, the set, respectively, the described experiments were called experiments with a fixed set). Finally, in the next, sixteenth, test, unexpectedly for the subject, two identical balls were given with the same instruction: "compare their volumes." And it turned out that in this last, control trial, the subject evaluated the balls erroneously: he again perceived them as different in volume.

The fixed attitude that a larger ball would be given to the left hand determined, or directed, the perceptual process: the subjects, as a rule, said that the ball was smaller in the left hand. True, sometimes the answers were the same as in the installation tests, i.e. that the ball is larger in the left hand. Errors of the first type were called contrasting attitude illusions, errors of the second type - assimilative illusions of attitude.

D. N. Uznadze and his collaborators studied in detail the conditions for the emergence of illusions of each type, but I will not dwell on them now. Another thing is important - to make sure that the installation in this case was really unconscious.

This is not directly obvious. Moreover, it can be assumed that in the preparatory trials, the subjects were fully aware that the same type of presentations were going on, and began to consciously wait for the same trial again. This assumption is absolutely correct, and in order to test it, D. N. Uznadze conducts a control experiment with hypnosis.

The subject is put to sleep and in a state of hypnosis, preliminary installation tests are carried out. Then the subject wakes up, but before that he is suggested that he will not remember anything. After awakening, he is given only one, control, test. And it turns out that in it the subject gives an erroneous answer, although he does not know that before that he had been presented with balls of different sizes many times. The attitude was formed in him and now manifested itself in a typical way for her.

Thus, the described experiments proved that the processes of formation and operation of the installation of the type being studied are not realized.

D. N. Uznadze, and after him his followers, attached fundamental importance to these results. They saw in the phenomena of an unconscious attitude evidence of the existence of a special, "pre-conscious" form of the psyche. In their opinion, this is an early (in the genetic and functional sense) stage in the development of any conscious process.

It is possible to relate differently to one or another theoretical interpretation of the phenomena of an unconscious set, but the absolute fact is that these phenomena, like the automatisms discussed above, reveal the multilevel nature of mental processes.

Let's move on to the third subclass of unconscious mechanisms - unconscious accompaniments of conscious actions.

Not all unconscious action components have the same functional load. Some of them implement conscious actions - and they are assigned to the first subclass; others prepare actions - and they are described in the second subclass.

Finally, there are unconscious processes that simply accompany actions, and they are singled out by us in the third subclass. There are a large number of these processes, and they are extremely interesting for psychology.

Let's give examples. You have probably seen how a person wielding scissors moves his jaws in the rhythm of these movements. What are these movements? Can they be classified as motor skills? No, because the movements of the jaws do not realize the action; they also do not prepare him in any way, they only accompany him.

Another example. When a billiards player lets the ball past the pocket, he often tries to "correct" his movement with completely useless movements of his hands, body or cue.

Students in exams often hold their pen very hard or break their pencil when asked to draw a graph, for example, especially if they are not very confident in this graph.

A person who looks at another who has cut, for example, a finger, makes a sad grimace, empathizing with him, and does not notice this at all.

So, the group of processes of the third subclass includes involuntary movements, tonic tensions, facial expressions and pantomimics, as well as a large class of vegetative reactions that accompany actions and human states. Many of these processes, especially the vegetative components, constitute the classical object of physiology. However, they are extremely important for psychology. This importance is determined by two circumstances.

First, the discussed processes are included in communication between people and represent the most important additional (along with speech) means of communication.

Secondly, they can be used as objective indicators of various psychological characteristics of a person - his intentions, attitudes, hidden desires, thoughts, etc. It is with these processes in mind that experimental psychology is actively developing the so-called objective indicators (or physiological correlates) of mental processes and states.

To clarify both points, we again give examples. The first example will be a detailed illustration of how you can involuntarily and unconsciously transfer information to another person. We will talk about the "mysterious" phenomenon of "reading thoughts" with the help of muscle feelings. You have probably heard about the sessions given by some faces from the stage. The essence of their art lies in a truly unique ability to perceive in another person the so-called ideomotor acts, i.e. the finest muscle tensions and micro-movements that accompany an enhanced representation of some action.

Unconscious stimuli of conscious actions. According to Freud, the psyche is wider than consciousness. Hidden knowledge is also a mental formation, but it is unconscious. To understand them, however, it is only necessary to strengthen the traces of past impressions. Freud considers it possible to place these contents in a sphere immediately adjacent to consciousness (in the preconscious), since they are easily transferred into consciousness if necessary.

As for the area of ​​the unconscious, it has completely different properties. First of all, the contents of this area are not recognized, not because they are weak, as is the case with latent knowledge. No, they are strong, and their strength is manifested in the fact that they influence our actions and states. So, the first distinguishing feature of unconscious representations is their effectiveness. Their second property is that they hardly pass into consciousness. This is explained by the work of two mechanisms that Freud postulates - the mechanisms of repression and resistance.

According to Z. Freud, the mental life of a person is determined by his desires, the main of which is sexual desire (libido). It already exists in the infant, although in childhood it passes through a series of stages and forms. In view of the multitude of social taboos, sexual experiences and the representations associated with them are forced out of consciousness and live in the realm of the unconscious. They have a large energy charge, but they are not allowed into consciousness: consciousness resists them. However, they break through into the conscious life of a person, taking a distorted or symbolic form.

Freud singled out three main forms of manifestation of the unconscious: these are dreams, erroneous actions (forgetting things, intentions, names; typos, slips of the tongue, etc.) and neurotic symptoms.

Neurotic symptoms were the main manifestations with which Freud began to work. Here is one example from his medical practice.

A young girl fell ill with a severe neurosis after going to the bed of her dead sister, she thought for a moment about her brother-in-law (sister's husband): "Now he is free and can marry me." This thought was immediately repressed by her as completely inappropriate in the circumstances, and, falling ill, the girl completely forgot the whole scene at her sister's bed. However, during the treatment, with great difficulty and excitement, she remembered her, after which recovery came.

According to Z. Freud, neurotic symptoms are traces of repressed traumatic experiences that form a highly charged focus in the area of ​​the unconscious and from there produce destructive work. The focus must be opened and discharged - and then the neurosis will lose its cause.

Let us turn to cases of the manifestation of unconscious causes of actions in everyday life, which Z. Freud collected and described in large numbers in the early period of his scientific activity (S. Freud. Psychopathology of everyday life // Reader in general psychology. Psychology of memory. M. 1978).

It is far from always (and you will see it now) that the symptoms are based on suppressed sexual desire. In everyday life there are many unpleasant experiences that are not related to the sexual sphere, and yet they are suppressed or repressed by the subject. They also form affective foci that "erupt" in erroneous actions. Here are a few cases from the observations of Z. Freud. The first refers to the analysis of the "failure" of his own memory. Once Freud argued with his acquaintance about how many restaurants in the countryside area, well known to both of them: two or three? An acquaintance claimed that three, and Freud - that two. He named these two and insisted that there was no third. However, this third restaurant still existed. It had the same name as the name of one of Freud's colleagues with whom he was at odds.

Another example. An acquaintance of Freud's took an exam in philosophy (like a candidate's minimum). He got a question about the teachings of Epicurus. The examiner asked if he knew any of the later followers of Epicurus, to which the examiner replied: "Yes, Pierre Gassendi." He gave this name because two days ago he had heard in a cafe talking about Gassendi as a student of Epicurus, although he himself had not read his works. The satisfied examiner asked how he knew this name, and the acquaintance lied, answering that he was specifically interested in the works of this philosopher. After this, the name of P. Gassendi, according to a friend of Freud, constantly fell out of his memory: “Apparently, my conscience is to blame,” he remarked, “even then I should not have known this name, and now I constantly forget it "(Z. Freud. Psychopathology of everyday life // Reader in general psychology. Psychology of memory. M. 1978. p. 112).

The following example is for reservations. Z. Freud believed that reservations do not arise by chance: the true (hidden) intentions and experiences of a person break through in them. One day, the chairman of the meeting, who for some personal reason did not want the meeting to take place, opened it and said: "Permit me to consider our meeting closed."

And here is an example of an erroneous action. When Freud was a young practicing doctor and went to the sick at home (and not they to him), he noticed that in front of the doors of some apartments, instead of ringing, he took out his own key. After analyzing his experiences, he found that this happened at the door of those patients where he felt “at home” (S. Freud. Psychopathology of everyday life // Reader in general psychology. Psychology of memory. M. 1978. p. 147).

In psychoanalysis, a number of methods have been developed to identify unconscious affective complexes. The main ones are the method of free association and the method of dream analysis. Both methods involve the active work of the psychoanalyst, which consists in the interpretation of layers continuously produced by the patient (method of free association) or dreams.

For the same purpose, an associative experiment is used. In an associative experiment, the subject or patient is asked to quickly respond with any word that comes to mind to the words presented. And now it turns out that after several dozen trials, words associated with his hidden experiences begin to appear in the answers of the subject. If you have read K. Chapek's story "The Experiment of Dr. Rose", you could get an idea of ​​​​how it all happens.

Here is a summary of the story. An American professor of psychology, a Czech by birth, arrives in a Czech town. It is announced that he will demonstrate his professional skills. The public is going to know the city, journalists and other people. A criminal is brought in who is suspected of murder. The professor dictates words to him, offering to answer with the first word that comes to mind. At first, the criminal does not want to deal with him at all. But then the game "in words" fascinates him, and he is drawn into it. The professor first gives neutral words: beer, street, dog. But gradually it begins to include words related to the circumstances of the crime. The word “cafe” is suggested, the answer is “highway”, the word “spots” is given, the answer is “sack” (later it was found out that the blood stains were wiped off with a bag); to the word “hide” - the answer is “bury”, “shovel” - “pit”, “pit” - “fence”, etc. In short, after the session, on the recommendation of the professor, the police go to a certain place near the fence, dig a hole and find a hidden corpse (Chapek K. Stories. M., 1981).

Let us turn to the third class of unconscious processes, which are conditionally designated as "superconscious" processes. If we try to briefly characterize them, we can say that these are the processes of formation of some integral product of a great conscious work, which then "intrudes" into a person's conscious life and, as a rule, radically changes its course.

To understand what is at stake, imagine that you are busy solving a problem that you think about day after day for a long time, calculated in weeks and even months or years. This is a vital issue. You are thinking about some question, or about some person, or some event that was not fully understood and which for some reason greatly affected you, caused painful reflections, hesitations, doubts. While thinking about your problem, you sort through and analyze various impressions and events, make assumptions, test them, argue with yourself and with others. And then one fine day everything clears up - as if a veil is falling from your eyes. Sometimes this happens unexpectedly and as if by itself, sometimes the reason is another ordinary impression, but this impression is like the last drop of water that has overflowed the cup. You suddenly get a completely new view of the subject, and this is no longer an ordinary view, not one of those options that you went over before. It is qualitatively new; it stays with you and sometimes leads to an important turn in your life.

Thus, what has entered your consciousness is indeed an integral product of the preceding process. However, you did not have a clear idea about the course of the latter. You only knew what you were thinking and experiencing at any given moment or for a limited period of time. The whole great process, which by all indications was taking place in you, was not at all traced by you.

Why should such processes be placed outside consciousness? Because they differ from conscious processes in at least two important respects.

First, the subject does not know the final result to which the "supraconscious" process will lead. Conscious processes, on the other hand, presuppose the purpose of the action, i.e. clear awareness of the result to which the subject aspires. Secondly, the moment when the "superconscious" process will end is unknown; often it ends suddenly, unexpectedly for the subject. Conscious actions, on the contrary, involve control over the approach to the goal and a rough estimate of the moment when it will be achieved.

Judging by the phenomenological descriptions, the discussed class of "superconscious" processes should include the processes of creative thinking, the processes of experiencing great grief or great life events, crises of feelings, personality crises, etc.

One of the first psychologists who paid special attention to these processes was W. James. He collected a lot of vivid descriptions on this subject, which are set out in his book "The Variety of Religious Experience" (W. James. Variety of Religious Experience. M., 1910). As later works on this topic (in Russian), one can name small articles by Z. Freud (S. Freud. Sadness and melancholy // Psychology of emotions. Texts. M., 1984), E. Lindemann (Lindemann E. Clinic of acute grief // Psychology of emotions. Texts. M., 1984), a relatively recently published book by F.E. Vasilyuk (Vasilyuk F. E. Psychology of experience. M., 1984), etc.

Let us give two detailed examples, which are analyzed by W. James. James borrows the first example from L.N. Tolstoy.

“S. told me,” writes L. N. Tolstoy, “an intelligent and truthful person, how he stopped believing. About 26 years old already, once at a lodging for the night during a hunt, according to an old habit adopted from childhood, he got up in the evening to pray. The older brother, who was with him on the hunt, lay on the hay and looked at him. When S. finished and began to lie down, his brother said to him: “Are you still doing this?” And they said nothing more to each other. And S. ceased from that day to pray and go to church ... And not because he knew the convictions of his brother and joined them, not because he decided something in his soul, but only because this word, spoken by the brother, was like a push with a finger into a wall that was ready to fall from its own weight; the word was only an indication that where he thinks that there is faith, there has long been an empty place, and that because the words that he says, and the crosses, and bows that he makes while standing at prayer, are completely meaningless actions . Realizing their senselessness, he could not continue them ”(cited by W. James. Variety of religious experience. M., 1910, p. 167).

Note that exactly what I described in the abstract example happened to the person on whose behalf the story is being told: one fine day he found that he had lost his faith; that his faith is like a wall that is no longer supported by anything, and it is enough to touch it with a finger to make it fall, in the role of this “finger” and the brother’s indifferent question acted. Thus, as it were, it is emphasized that it was not so much the question of the brother as the previous process, which was not fully realized by the hero of the story, prepared him for this decisive turn.

Another example from James relates to the crisis of feeling.

“For two years,” says one person, “I experienced a very difficult condition, from which I almost went crazy. I passionately fell in love with a girl who, despite her youth, was a desperate coquette ... I burned with love for her and could not think of anything else. When I was alone, I conjured up all the charm of her beauty, and, sitting at work, I lost most of the time, remembering our dates and imagining future conversations. She was pretty, cheerful, lively. My adoration flattered her vanity. The most curious thing is that at the time I was seeking her hand, I knew in the depths of my soul that she was not created to be my wife, and that she would never agree to this ... And this state of affairs, combined with jealousy for one of her fans upset my nerves and robbed me of sleep. My conscience resented this unforgivable weakness on my part. And I almost went insane. However, I couldn't stop loving her.

But most remarkable of all is the strange, sudden, unexpected and irreversible end that ended it all. I went to work in the morning after breakfast, as usual full of thoughts about her and my unfortunate fate. Suddenly, as if some powerful external force had taken possession of me, I quickly turned back and ran to my room. There I immediately began to destroy everything that I kept in memory of her: curls, notes, letters and photo miniatures on glass. From curls and letters I made a fire. I crushed the portraits under my heel with a cruel and joyful ecstasy of vengeance... And so I felt myself, as if freed from a heavy burden, from an illness. It was the end. I did not speak to her anymore, did not write to her, and not a single thought of love aroused in me her image.

<...>On this happy morning, I returned my soul to me and never again fell into this trap ”(W. James. Variety of religious experience. M., 1910, p. 169).

W. James, commenting on this case, emphasizes the words: "as if some powerful external force had taken possession of me." In his opinion, this "power" is the result of some "unconscious" process that went along with the conscious experiences of the young man.

W. James could not foresee that the term "unconscious" would acquire too special a meaning as a result of the emergence of psychoanalysis. Therefore, in order to emphasize the very special type of processes he first described, we used another term - "supraconscious". It seems to me that it adequately reflects their main feature: these processes take place above consciousness in the sense that their content and time scales are larger than anything that consciousness can accommodate; passing through consciousness in their separate sections, they as a whole are outside of it.

Let's sum up what has been said. At one time, Z. Freud compared the human consciousness to an iceberg, which is nine-tenths immersed in the sea of ​​the unconscious. You know that under the unconscious, Freud meant repressed desires, drives, experiences. Consideration of the entire topic “Unconscious Processes” leads to the conclusion that, if consciousness is surrounded by the “waters” of the unconscious, then the composition of these “waters” is much more diverse.

In fact, let's try to depict human consciousness as an island immersed in a sea of ​​unconscious processes. At the bottom should be placed the unconscious mechanisms of conscious action (I). These are technical executors, or "laborers", consciousnesses. Many of them are formed by transferring the functions of consciousness to unconscious levels.

Along with the processes of consciousness, one can place unconscious stimuli of conscious actions (II). They have the same rank as conscious stimuli, only they have different qualities: they are repressed from consciousness, emotionally charged and from time to time break through into consciousness in a special symbolic form. And finally, the processes of "superconsciousness" (III). They unfold in the form of work of consciousness, long and intense. Its result is a kind of integral result, which returns to consciousness in the form of a new creative idea, a new attitude or feeling, a new life attitude, changing the further course of consciousness.

Unconscious motivation

Motives give rise to actions, i.e. lead to the formation of goals, and goals, as you know, are always realized. The motives themselves are not always understood. As a result, all motives can be divided into two large classes: the first includes conscious motives, the second - unconscious ones.

Motivational phenomena can have different levels of awareness from deeply conscious to unconscious involuntary urges. However, unawareness of a motive is still understood as a small awareness, and awareness of a motive can occur in various forms and at various levels of the psyche.

The awareness of motives depends on what is taken as a motive. It is one thing to take for a motive an inclination, an inclination, an attitude that is poorly or not at all realized. Then the motive in the view of such a psychologist becomes unconscious or poorly conscious. It is another matter to take for a motive the end and the means of achieving it; then the motive can only be conscious. A person performs an action only when he was able to verbally formulate a motive, i.e. goal and means to achieve it.

Unlike goals, motives based on inclination, attraction, attitude are not actually recognized by the subject: when we perform certain actions, at that moment we usually do not realize the motives that induce them. Motives are not separated from consciousness, but are presented in it in a special form - the emotional coloring of actions. S.L. Rubinstein interprets unconscious actions not as phenomena that are not at all represented in consciousness, but as phenomena that have not received a more or less broad semantic connection with other motives, have not been correlated, integrated with them.

In a motive, as a complex multicomponent formation, some motivators can and should be recognized (for example, if there is no awareness of a need, then a person will not do anything to satisfy it), while others are not. But in general (completely) the structure of the motive cannot but be realized, even with impulsive actions. Another thing is that this awareness does not receive a detailed verbal designation.

An attempt to accurately calculate the number of motives operating in each given case must be recognized in advance as untenable. The difficulty is further increased by the fact that each motive is not something simple, indecomposable, but very often is a complex complex, which includes a whole group of feelings and drives, more or less closely related to each other.

The reason for the disagreement in the interpretation of the awareness of the motive may also lie in the fact that some psychologists understand the awareness of the sensation and experience of the need state, while others understand the motive as the basis of an action or deed, which, of course, is not the same thing. You can be aware - feel, experience - the presence of need and not understand what exactly is needed. The subject content of the motive is somehow perceived, the goal, the means to achieve it, and more distant results are presented. But the meaning of actions is not always understood. It is possible not to understand not only the meaning, but also the main reason for one's action, for example, one of the components of the "internal filter" block (inclination, preference, attitude).

Thus, in itself, the awareness of the individual components of the motive does not yet provide an understanding of it as the basis of an act or action. To do this, a person needs to analyze the perceived and bring to a common denominator.

However, such an analysis may be hindered by a number of points. Firstly, in many cases a person does not need to delve into such an analysis, since the situation is obvious to him and the behavior in it has already been worked out for him. In this case, many components of the motive, especially those from the “internal filter” block, are implied rather than realized and verbally indicated. Therefore, X. Hekhauzen, for example, writes that the causes of actions, their goals and means are often obvious to contemporaries belonging to the same cultural environment, therefore, with normative behavior, it is unlikely that anyone, excluding psychologists, would like to raise the question “Why?” As a last resort, he writes, by way of explanation one can answer that everyone does or is forced to do it.

And when asked: “Why did you help him?” on the surface of the consciousness of the questioner, there is often one common reason, mainly related to the assessment of the situation: “He feels bad”, “There is no one else”, “One is sad”, etc. In reality, the situation was only an external impetus, and the undeclared morality of the subject was the internal stimulus. But you can get to the bottom of this reason only by putting a number of questions before a person that would make him understand more deeply the reasons for his act.

Secondly, in the mind of a person, one motivator (reason) can be replaced by another. For example, most often, the need is replaced in consciousness by the object of its satisfaction, and therefore the person says that he went to the kitchen because he needs bread, and not because he is hungry.

Thirdly, a person may have no desire to get to the bottom of the true reason for his act because of his unwillingness to look immoral in his own eyes. He will bring to the surface of consciousness another, more plausible reason that can justify his act, and it is really relevant, but not the main, not decisive one.

Although the goals that a person sets for himself are conscious, they are not always completely clear to him. In this regard, O.K. Tikhomirov singles out the goals of search samples (“let's see what happens ...”), which he refers to the class of indefinite anticipations. The consequences of achieving the goal are not always thought through. Especially often, such not fully justified decisions and intentions arise in a person when he has passion, emotions of struggle, or when he does not have time to think (decisions made in a hurry).

Thus, in the question of the awareness of motives, three aspects can be distinguished: actual awareness (sensation, experience), understanding and deliberation, which can be more or less complete, which is why there are moments of conscious and unconscious, deliberate and thoughtless actions (the latter - due to for uncritical, “on faith”, acceptance of advice, due to lack of time for reflection, as a result of affect).

Understanding "what" I want to achieve means understanding the goal; understanding, "why" - understanding the need, and understanding "for what" - the meaning of the action or deed.

Some psychologists argue that the true motive (reason) can only be known after the fact, when the activity has already begun or, moreover, has ended. This statement may be true if we keep in mind the understanding of the true (decisive) reason, and then not for all cases (after all, often the result does not coincide with the expectations inherent in the motive, i.e. with the goal). When it comes to understanding the components of a motive, this point of view is hardly applicable to them. If the main components of the motive (need, goal) are not realized, then what will induce a person to voluntary activity? It is no coincidence that V.S. Merlin emphasized that human actions are determined mainly by conscious goals. A motive is a verbalized and, consequently, a conscious stimulus to human activity.

A.N. Leontiev believes that in the course of performing actions, the motive is not realized, only the goals of actions are realized. One can partially agree with this: after all, at each specific moment a person does not think why he performs this action, but thinks about what should happen, what happens. True, we must take into account that the goal is also part of the motive, so the motive is still partially recognized, as well as the meaning of the activity as a whole, that is, the ultimate goal, the foreseeable result.

Discussion about attraction as an unconscious motivation. The understanding of drives as properties close to instincts, which is manifested by different authors to one degree or another, is obviously not accidental. The spirit of bondage, poor awareness constantly “hovers” over the drives. As A.S. Pushkin: "If it weren't for the vague attraction of a thirsty soul for something." The only question is what happens involuntarily, what is poorly realized or not realized at all. In instincts, an involuntary moment is a motor activity aimed at satisfying a need. In drives, the appearance of a craving for an object, impulses, but not movement, not a reaction to satisfy a need, is involuntary. This idea is expressed by a number of scientists. V. S. Deryabin speaks of an internal force independent of the will of a person, moving towards an object, N. D. Levitov - of an involuntary or not quite arbitrary state, when a person feels as if chained to an object (“Involuntarily, I am drawn to these sad shores unknown force,” wrote A. S. Pushkin, or in the poem “Sounds” by A. N. Pleshcheev: “And it seems to me that I hear a familiar voice, dear to my heart; by force"). Thus, we are talking about the mechanisms of the emergence of drives, which can also be associated with involuntariness (“an unknown force”, “some kind of wonderful force”). However, understanding this, one should not "go too far" and assume that drives are of hereditary origin. Congenital, hereditary and genetically determined are different concepts. The genetic conditionality of biological drives (for example, sexual, associated with hormonal changes in the body during puberty) is beyond doubt. But in a person, these drives are controlled and do not cause activity aimed directly at satisfying the need. They go through the "censorship" of personal formations, i.e. "internal filter".

As for the poor awareness of drives, the point here is not in the unconsciousness of the object of attraction, but in the incomprehensibility of what this object attracts, beckons to itself. It is in the identification of understanding with awareness that, in our opinion, lies the cause of conflicting views on the essence of drives. For example, in textbooks on psychology it is said that one can speak of attraction when inner motives are not realized, i.e. their personal and social significance is not weighed, their consequences are not taken into account (especially with passion). But is it really just about the awareness of sensations, experiences? Therefore, in our opinion, the question of the awareness of drives is most accurately expressed in the "Psychological Dictionary", which says that the drive can be well conscious, and its insufficient awareness is associated not so much with a lack of understanding of its object, but with a misunderstanding of the essence of the need. in it, i.e. with a lack of understanding why and for what it is needed. A person usually knows to some extent what he is attracted to, but often does not realize the reason for this attraction.

Of course, the attraction of adolescents and young men to the opposite sex is recognized by them as a need of the individual, but the reason for this attraction is not always understood, i.e. those hormonal changes and related organic needs that occur during the onset of puberty and are felt by them. At the same time, what attracts in the object of attraction is also poorly understood. An attractive object becomes a target, but its characteristics (attractive aspects) are either not distinguished at all or are realized very dimly.

Following K.K. Platonov can consider attraction as a primitive emotional (or predominantly emotional) form of personality orientation.

So, unconscious motivation is unconscious impulses that cause the activity of the organism and determine its direction, i.e. choice of specific behavior (actions and deeds).

Of course, unconscious motives are inherent in everyone. Whatever unconscious forces urge us to draw or write, we are unlikely to worry about it if we can sufficiently express ourselves in drawing or in literary creation. Whatever unconscious motives lead us to love or devotion, they do not interest us as long as love or devotion fills our lives with constructive content. But we really need to think about unconscious factors if apparent success in creative work or in establishing normal relationships with other people, the success that we longed for, leaves only emptiness and discontent in us, or if all attempts to succeed are futile and, despite all resistance, we vaguely feel that we cannot fully attribute the failures to the circumstances.

In short, we need to analyze our unconscious motivations if it turns out that something inside us is preventing us from achieving our goals. Since the time of Freud, unconscious motivation has been one of the basic facts of human psychology.

Knowledge of the existence and effect of such unconscious motivations is a useful guide in any attempt at analysis, especially if it is undertaken not in words but in deeds. It may even turn out to be a sufficient tool to identify a particular causal relationship. However, for a systematic analysis, it is necessary to have a slightly more accurate understanding of the unconscious factors hindering development. In trying to understand the human personality, it is important to uncover its underlying forces.

It is important to note the following. If, when studying human motivation, we limit ourselves to extreme manifestations of the actualization of physiological urges, then we run the risk of ignoring the highest human motives, which will inevitably give rise to a one-sided idea of ​​​​human capabilities and his nature. Blind is the researcher who, speaking about human goals and desires, bases his arguments only on observations of human behavior under conditions of extreme physiological deprivation and considers this behavior as typical. To paraphrase the saying already mentioned, we can say that a person really lives on bread alone, but only when he does not have this bread.

Nemov R.S. Psychology: In 3 books. Book 1. - M.: Vlados, 1999

Consciousness and the unconscious. The concept of the unconscious. Manifestations of the unconscious principle in mental processes, properties and states of a person. The unconscious in the human personality. Dreams are manifestations of the unconscious. Relationship between conscious and unconscious regulation of human behavior. Types of unconscious mental phenomena.

CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

Consciousness is not the only level at which mental processes, properties and states of a person are represented, and far from everything that is perceived and controls a person’s behavior is actually realized by him. In addition to consciousness, a person also has an unconscious. These are those phenomena, processes, properties and states that, in their effect on behavior, are similar to conscious mental ones, but are not actually reflected by a person, i.e. are not recognized. According to the tradition associated with conscious processes, they are also called mental.

The unconscious principle is one way or another represented in almost all mental processes, properties and states of a person. There are unconscious sensations, which include sensations of balance, proprioceptive (muscular) sensations. There are unconscious visual and auditory sensations that cause involuntary reflexive reactions in the visual and auditory central systems.

Unconscious images of perception exist and manifest themselves in phenomena associated with the recognition of what was previously seen, in the feeling of familiarity that sometimes arises in a person when perceiving an object, object, situation.

Unconscious memory is the memory that is associated with long-term and genetic memory. This is the memory that controls thinking, imagination, attention, determining the content of a person’s thoughts at a given moment in time, his images, objects to which attention is directed. Unconscious thinking appears especially clearly in the process of solving creative problems by a person, and unconscious speech is inner speech.

There is also unconscious motivation that influences the direction and nature of actions, many other things that a person is not aware of in mental processes, properties and states. But the main interest for psychology is the so-called personal manifestations of the unconscious, in which, in addition to the desire, consciousness and will of a person, it manifests itself in its deepest features. Z. Freud made a great contribution to the development of the problems of the personal unconscious.

The unconscious in a person's personality is those qualities, interests, needs, etc. that a person is not aware of in himself, but which are inherent in him and manifest themselves in a variety of involuntary reactions, actions, mental phenomena. One of these phenomena is erroneous actions : reservations, typos, errors in writing or listening to words. The basis of the second group of unconscious phenomena is involuntary forgetting names, promises, intentions, objects, events and other things that are directly or indirectly associated with unpleasant experiences for a person. The third group of unconscious phenomena of a personal nature belongs to the category of representations and is associated with perception, memory and imagination: dreams, daydreams, dreams.

Reservations are unconsciously determined articulatory speech actions associated with the distortion of the sound basis and the meaning of spoken words. Such distortions, especially their semantic nature, are not accidental. Z. Freud argued that they manifest motives, thoughts, experiences hidden from the consciousness of the individual. Reservations arise from the collision of a person's unconscious intentions, his other motives with a consciously set goal of behavior, which is in conflict with a hidden motive. When the subconscious wins over the conscious, there is a caveat . This is the psychological mechanism underlying all erroneous actions: they "arise due to the interaction, or rather, the opposition of two different intentions"1. 1Freud 3. Introduction to psychoanalysis. Lectures. - M, 1991. - S. 25.

Forgetting names is another example of the unconscious. It is associated with some unpleasant feelings of the forgetter in relation to the person who bears the forgotten name, or to the events associated with this name. Such forgetting usually occurs against the will of the speaker, and this situation is typical for most cases of forgetting names.

A special category of the unconscious are dreams. The content of dreams, according to Freud, is associated with the unconscious desires, feelings, intentions of a person, his unsatisfied or not fully satisfied important life needs.

The explicit, conscious content of a dream does not always, with the exception of two cases, correspond to the hidden, unconscious intentions and goals of the person to whom this dream belongs. These two cases are childhood dreams of preschool children and infantile dreams of adults, which arose under the influence of the emotional events of the past day immediately preceding sleep.

In their plot-thematic content, dreams are almost always associated with unsatisfied desires. and are a symbolic way of eliminating the disturbing impulses generated by these desires. In a dream, unsatisfied needs receive a hallucinatory realization. If the corresponding motives of behavior are unacceptable for a person, then their explicit manifestation even in a dream is blocked by the learned norms of morality, the so-called censorship. The action of censorship distorts, confuses the content of dreams, making them illogical, incomprehensible and strange. Thanks to the unconscious shifting of emphasis, the replacement and rearrangement of elements, the explicit content of the dream, under the influence of censorship, becomes completely different from the hidden thoughts of the dream. To decipher them, a special interpretation called psychoanalysis is required.

Censorship itself is an unconscious mental mechanism and manifests itself in omissions, modifications, regrouping of memory material, dreams, ideas. Subconscious thoughts, according to Freud, turn into visual images in dreams, so that in them we are dealing with an example of unconscious figurative thinking.

Unconscious phenomena, together with preconscious ones, control behavior, although their functional role is different. Consciousness controls the most complex forms of behavior that require constant attention and conscious control, and is activated in the following cases: (a) when a person faces unexpected, intellectually complex problems that do not have an obvious solution, (b) when a person needs to overcome physical or psychological resistance to the movement of a thought or a bodily organ, (c) when it is necessary to realize and find a way out of any conflict situation that cannot resolve itself without a volitional decision, (d) when a person suddenly finds himself in a situation containing a potential threat for him if no immediate action is taken.

Situations of this kind arise in front of people almost continuously, therefore consciousness as the highest level of mental regulation of behavior is constantly present and functioning. Along with it, many behavioral acts are carried out at the level of pre- and unconscious regulation, so that in reality many different levels of its mental regulation are simultaneously involved in the management of behavior.

At the same time, it should be recognized that in the light of the available scientific data, the question of the relationship between the conscious and other levels of mental regulation of behavior, in particular the unconscious, remains complex and is not resolved quite unambiguously. The main reason for this is the fact that there are different types of unconscious psychic phenomena that relate differently to consciousness. There are unconscious mental phenomena that are in the area of ​​preconsciousness, i.e. which are facts associated with a lower level of mental regulation of behavior than consciousness. Such are unconscious sensations, perception, memory, thinking, attitudes.

Other unconscious phenomena are those that were previously conscious of a person, but eventually went into the realm of the unconscious. These include, for example, motor skills and habits, which at the beginning of their formation were consciously controlled actions (walking, speech, the ability to write, use various tools).

The third type of unconscious phenomena are those that Z. Freud speaks of in the above judgments concerning the personal unconscious. These are desires, thoughts, intentions, needs, ousted from the sphere of human consciousness under the influence of censorship.

Each of the types of unconscious phenomena is associated in different ways with human behavior and its conscious regulation. The first type of the unconscious is simply a normal link in the general system of mental behavioral regulation and arises on the path of information moving from the sense organs or from memory storages to consciousness (the cerebral cortex). The second type of the unconscious can also be considered as a certain stage on this path, but when moving, as it were, in the opposite direction along it: from consciousness to the unconscious, in particular to memory. The third type of the unconscious relates to motivational processes and arises from the collision of differently directed, morally conflicting motivational tendencies.