Not until we have passed through the furnace are we made to know how much dross there is in our composition. Discussions of the unconscious have largely focused on the concept, not on theory. The original problems have thus been obscured and our perspective of psychoanalysis distorted. In order to clarify the problem, we must concentrate on the phases of the problem facing the theories proposed to solve it. To understand hysterical manifestations, under hypnosis patients recounted tales of trauma, which made their physical disorders understandable—but only on the hypothesis that these symptoms were motivated. The traumatic situations the patients described distressed them and their motives were also distressing and were forgotten to avoid the distress. It seems that memories of forgotten events remain somewhere in the mind and their sole function is to fill gaps between conscious events. The forgotten motive and the distress connected with it actually produce the nervous complaint. When the unconscious motive and the distress it would give to consciousness together give rise to symptoms or inhibitions. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7

However, if a patient could be persuaded or educated out of a sense of shame, one should be able to recover the memory of the motive, and the physical disorders should cease—but the test could probably not be carried out. Another possibility is to force the patient to re-experience the motive and the distress connected with it the trauma under hypnosis, the accustoming one to the situation and enabling the individual to recover the lost memory, so that the physical symptoms would cease. This theory worked on many patients who experiences paralysis in 1900, 1912, and 1915. Whereas only controlled experiment may persuade orthodox experimentalist that a hypothesis is testable, the clinical method of testing is, methodologically speaking, equally valid, provided it is carried out with predicted end that will refute the hypothesis if it fails to materialize. Nonetheless, when transition from hypnosis to psychoanalysis, one must remember that hypnosis for purely practical reasons does not work on everyone. And forcing and hypnosis is not always successful since they both involve making a patient conscious of an idea that was greatly distressing. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7

We are always in the forge, or on the anvil; by trials God is shaping us for higher things. Forcing and free association are the same: one could work from a conscious idea to an unconscious, distressing idea by focusing attention progressively on the links of a chain of intermediate ideas of which the first few are conscious. This hypothesis was sometimes fruitful, for at the times unconscious ideas were recovered in this way. Methodologically, this means the theory is testable. On the one hand, the theory of unconscious remains broadly unchanged; it still contains the hypothesis that there is a motive, that the motive is distressing, that there is forgetting, and that all these together cause the disturbance complained of. However, the degree of unconscious ideas varies in how far it is removed from the threshold. The unconscious is dynamic and rooted in the emotions and this gives rise to all the richness of conscious life. It is also possible to recover unconscious phantasy. These traumas have nothing to do with trauma because these phantasies were never conscious in the first place, and it implies that a motive, the distress it causes, and the repressing factors have all been at times unconscious.  #RandolphHarris 3 of 7

Storms make oaks take deeper roots. Repression is a way that the unconscious superego acts both as control and defense. To psychoanalysts it is so familiar as to be accepted as fact. However, the facts are simply that people forget things and that there is an ascertainable motive for forgetting them. The theory of repression conjectures a mechanism by which a force is exerted to produce this result. Thus, the fact of repression is hardly in doubt, but there is no knowledge of its mechanism. This is not unreasonable; we do not question the factual certainty of many familiar mechanisms whose workings are nevertheless mysterious, for example, the clutch mechanism of a car. Thus, we may work with a clutch or the fact of repression while only conjecturing the existence of a mechanism that requires investigation. Repression is the force of pushing some idea out of consciousness and to defense in general. Distressing ideas are also sometimes unconsciously projected onto somebody else. Distressing ideas, then, are perfectly conscious but are ascribed to another person because some do not want to face the blame for their poor decisions, or want to protect an individual by placing the blame on someone who had nothing to do with the situation. For instance, a woman may take the pain of domestic violence out on her brother to protect the image of her husband and that way she can release her anger and also victimized someone else, which may make her feel powerful or vindicated. Misery loves company. This phenomenon suggests an altogether different topological structure of the mind suggested by repression. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7

The mind is divided horizontally, with the conscious above and the unconscious below, whereas in the phenomenon of splitting the mind is divided by a vertical plane into two segments, both felt to be inside the body unless projection take place. The two models, however, have something in common—in each case, something is felt to be lost to the personality: either consciousness is deprived of something repressed or the projected part of the personality is lost. Of course, both could occur, but it may also be that splitting process are more fundamental, in the sense that repression may be explained as the outcome of a certain kind of splitting. The motive is to split off and project because the distress it gives rise to, and in this way it is not accessible to consciousness in the ordinary sense of feeling owned, even though its existence is recognized, and this situation leads to symptoms and inhibitions. The first phase involved the structure of preconscious motivation and preconscious distress, the combination of which constitutes a dynamism producing a neurotic disorder. “As the Heavens are higher than Earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than yours,” says God. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7

The unconscious seeks pleasure, and that in them there was no awareness of objects and therefore no object relationship. Wisdom has pointed out that the splitting can be maintained in the face of any apparent exceptions, just as physicists can always postulate a new form of energy when the principle of the conservation of the energy has apparently been violated. Thus, by retraining the natural inclinations, they do not break out into sinful practices. However, we must also restrain from gratifications that are not simply unlawful, and that, not only that we may secure our innocence, which would be in continual hazard, if we should strain our liberty to the utmost point; but also, that thereby we may weaken the force of nature, and teach our appetites to obey. We must do with ourselves as prudent parents with their children, who cross their wills in many little indifferent things, to make them manageable and submissive in more considerable instances. The natural life is not spiritual, and it can be made spiritual only through sacrifice. If we do not purposely sacrifice the natural, the supernatural can never become natural to us. We have to perform God’s will. #RandolpHarris 6 of 7

One who would mortify the price and vanity of one’s spirit, should stop one’s ears to the most deserved praises, and sometimes forbear one’s just vindication from the censures and aspersions of others, especially if they reflect only upon one’s prudence and conduct, and not on one’s virtue and innocence. One who would check a revengeful humour, would do well to deny oneself the satisfaction of representing unto others the injuries which one hath sustained; and if we would so take heed to our ways, that we sin not with our tongue, we must accustom ourselves much to solitude and silence, and hold our peace even from good, till once we have gotten some command over that unruly member. Thus, I say, we may bind up our natural inclinations, and make our appetites more moderate in their cravings, by accustoming them to frequent refusals; but it is not enough to have them under violence and restraint. Do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. However, rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7