Editing Unconscious mind (section)

===Freud===
[[File:Structural-Iceberg.svg|thumb|right|240px|The iceberg metaphor proposed by G. T. Fechner is often used to provide a visual representation of Freud's theory that most of the human mind operates unconsciously.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Green |first=Christopher D. |date=2019 |title=Where did Freud's iceberg metaphor of mind come from? |url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31633371 |journal=History of Psychology |volume=22 |issue=4 |pages=369–372 |doi=10.1037/hop0000135_b |issn=1939-0610 |pmid=31633371|s2cid=204815187 }}</ref>]]
[[Sigmund Freud]] and his followers developed an account of the unconscious mind. He worked with the unconscious mind to develop an explanation for mental illness.<ref>Freud, S. (1940). An outline of psycho-analysis. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 21, 27–84.</ref>

For Freud, the unconscious is not merely that which is not conscious. He refers to that as the ''descriptive unconscious'' and it is only the starting postulate for real investigation into the psyche. He further distinguishes the unconscious from the ''pre-conscious'': the pre-conscious is merely latent – thoughts, memories, etc. that are not present to consciousness but are capable of becoming so; the ''unconscious'' consists of psychic material that is made completely inaccessible to consciousness by the act of [[Repression (psychoanalysis)|repression]]. The distinctions and inter-relationships between these three regions of the psyche—the conscious, the pre-conscious, and the unconscious—form what Freud calls the ''topographical'' model of the psyche.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Freud |first1=Sigmund |title=The Unconscious |url=https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Freud_Unconscious.pdf |publisher=University of Pennsylvania |access-date=30 April 2025}}</ref> He later sought to respond to the perceived ambiguity of the term "unconscious" by developing what he called the [[Id, ego and superego|''structural'' model]] of the psyche, in which unconscious processes were described in terms of the ''id'' and the ''superego'' in their relation to the ''ego''.

In the psychoanalytic view, unconscious mental processes can only be recognized through analysis of their effects in consciousness. Unconscious thoughts are not directly accessible to ordinary introspection, but they are capable of partially evading the censorship mechanism of repression in a disguised form, manifesting, for example, as dream elements or neurotic [[symptom]]s. Such symptoms are supposed to be capable of being "interpreted" during psychoanalysis, with the help of methods such as [[free association (psychology)|free association]], dream analysis, and analysis of verbal slips and other unintentional manifestations in conscious life.<ref>{{cite web |title=Psychoanalysis |url=https://dictionary.apa.org/psychoanalysis |website=APA Dictionary of Psychology |publisher=American Psychological Association |access-date=23 April 2025}}</ref>