The unconscious mind is said to be made up of 3 areas, The ID, The EGO and the SUPEREGO
How many times have you known the logical step to take and yet actively done something else? How many of your friends, family or acquaintances wreck your head because they keep making the same mistakes (repetition compulsion) or because they ignore all advice and seem to repeat the illogical behaviour.
Have you ever wanted something and not wanted it at the same time?
Have you ever loved and hated somebody at the same time?
Have you ever really wanted something and felt disappointed when you achieved it?
These are all due to unconscious processes which fly in the face of the logic of conscious thought.
When there is a conflict between unconscious desires and conscious thought processes we experience anxiety.
In other words, when you find yourself doing what you feel you ‘should’ do.
For example the student who is studying law because that is what their parents want, he feels ‘he should keep his parents happy’
Or the person in a relationship with a person who they feel they ‘should’ love.
These are imperatives of the SUPEREGO and largely what cause problems for the individual when they are in conflict with their unconscious desires.
Cognitive therapies often reinforce the conscious beliefs and give more reasons to support the should system.
“I should be happy because I have everything”, “I should take the job offer because it pays better and has more security”, “I should work on my marriage because I have so much invested in it”. “I should be grateful for what I have when there are so many people who have nothing”
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy on the other hand does not try and make us artificially happy and grateful.
Sigmund Freud was the first to highlight that when we have unresolved psychical conflict the symptom can appear on the body, that is we can have physical symptoms. These can take many forms including but not limited to headaches, pains and aches, nausea and vomiting.
Although 100 years ago he had no way of verifying such an apparently outlandish idea, neuroscience has managed to identify and verify the links which Freud first alluded to.
Scholarly References that show that Trauma indeed has an effect on the body.
