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{{Top}}[[inconscient]]]]'', |-|| [[German]]: ''[[Unbewußte{{Bottom}}

Although the term "[[unconscious]]" had been used by writers prior to [[Freud]], it acquires a completely original [[meaning ]] in his [[Sigmund Freud:Bibliography|work]], in which it constitutes the single most important [[concept]]. [[Freud]] distinguished between two uses of the term "[[unconscious]]."<ref>{{F}} "[[Works of Sigmund Freud|The Unconscious]]." 1915e. [[SE]] XIV, 161</ref> The adjective it is very widely used to refer to any element of [[mental ]] or [[psychic ]] [[activity ]] that is not [[present ]] within the field of [[consciousness]]; as an ''adjective'', it simply refers to mental or psychic [[processes ]] that are not the subject of, that occur in the [[absence ]] of, [[consciousness|conscious awareness, thought, attention, perception or control]]. As a ''noun'', the ''noun-[[form]]'' designates one of the ''[[psychical ]] systems'' described by [[Freud]] in his [[topology|topographical model]] of the [[psyche]], his first [[theory ]] of [[psyche|mental]] [[structure]].

The "'''[[topographical model]]'''" [[divides ]] the [[mind]] or [[psyche]] into [[three ]] [[separate ]] component parts -- or "[[scene|psychical localities]]":

The [[unconscious|unconscious system]] is not merely that which is ''[[outside]]'' the field of [[consciousness]] at a given [[time]], but that which has been radically [[separation|separated]] from [[consciousness]] by [[repression]] and thus cannot enter the [[conscious|conscious-preconscious system]] without [[distortion]].

[[Freud]]'s second [[model ]] of the [[mind]] or [[psyche]] -- the "'''[[Structural theory]]'''" -- consisted of three "'''[[agencies]]'''":

In this model, no one '''[[agency]]''' is identical to the [[unconscious]], since even the [[ego]] and the [[superego]] have [[unconscious]] parts.

[[Lacan]], before 1950, uses the term "[[unconscious]]" principally in its ''adjectival form'', making his early [[work ]] seem particularly strange to those who are more familiar with [[Freud]]'s [[Sigmund Freud:Bibliography|writings]].

<blockquote>"A large [[number ]] of psychical effects that are quite legitimately designated as unconscious, in the [[sense ]] of excluding the characteristics of consciousness, are nonetheless without any relation whatever to the unconscious in the [[Freudian ]] sense."<ref>{{E}} p.163</ref></blockquote>

[[Lacan]] argues that the concept of the [[unconscious]] was badly misunderstood by most of [[Freud]]'s followers, who reduced it to [[being ]] "merely the seat of the [[instincts]]."<ref>{{E}} p. 147</ref> Against this [[biology|biologistic]] mode of [[thought]], [[Lacan]] argues that "the unconscious is neither primordial nor [[instinctual]];"<ref>{{E}} p. 170</ref> it is primarily [[linguistic]].

This is summed up in [[Lacan]]'s famous [[formula]], "[[unconscious|the unconscious is structured like a language]]."<ref>{{S3}} p.167</ref> [[Lacan]]'s analysis of the [[unconscious]] in [[terms ]] of [[synchronic]] [[structure]] is supplemented by his [[idea ]] of the [[unconscious]] opening and closing in a [[time|temporal pulsation]].<ref>{{S11}} p. 143, 204</ref>

[[Lacan]] himself qualifies his [[linguistic]] approach by arguing that the [[reason ]] why the [[unconscious]] is [[structure]]d like a [[language]] is that "we only grasp the unconscious finally when it is explicated, in that part of it which is articulated by passing into [[words]]."<ref>{{S7}} p. 32</ref>

[[Lacan]] also describes the [[unconscious]] as a [[discourse]]: "[[unconscious|The unconscious is the discourse of the Other]]."<ref>{{Ec}} p. 16</ref> This enigmatic formula, which has become one of [[Lacan]]'s most famous dictums, can be [[understood ]] in many ways. Perhaps the most important meaning is that "one should see in the unconscious the effects of speech on the subject."<ref>{{S11}} p. 126</ref> More precisely, the [[unconscious]] is the effects of the [[signifier]] on the [[subject]], in that the [[signifier]] is what is [[repressed]] and what returns in the [[formation]]s of the [[unconscious]] ([[symptom]]s, [[jokes]], [[parapraxes]], [[dream]]s, etc.).

All the references to [[language]], [[speech]], [[discourse]] and [[signifier]]s clearly locate the [[unconscious]] in the [[order ]] of the [[symbolic]]. <blockquote>Indeed, "the unconscious is [[structured ]] as a function of [[the symbolic]]."<ref>{{S7}} p. 12</ref></blockquote>

The [[unconscious]] is not interior: on the contrary, since [[speech]] and [[language]] are [[intersubjective]] phenomena, the [[unconscious]] is "transindividual."<ref>{{E}} p.49</ref> The [[unconscious]] is, so to [[speak]], "outside."

<blockquote>"This exteriority of the symbolic in relation to man is the very [[notion ]] of the unconscious."<ref>{{Ec}} p.469</ref></blockquote>

If the [[unconscious]] seems interior, this is an effect of the [[imaginary]], which blocks the [[relationship ]] between the [[subject]] and the [[Other]] and which [[invert]]s the [[message]] of the [[Other]].

Although the [[unconscious]] is especially [[visible ]] in the [[formation]]s of the [[unconscious]], "the unconscious leaves none of our actions outside its field."<ref>{{E}} p. 163</ref> The [[law]]s of the [[unconscious]], which are those of [[repetition]] and [[desire]], are as ubiquitous as [[structure]] itself. The [[unconscious]] is irreducible, so the aim of [[analysis]] cannot be to make [[conscious]] the [[unconscious]]. In addition to the various [[linguistic]] [[metaphor]]s which [[Lacan]] draws on to conceptualize the [[unconscious]] ([[discourse]], [[language]], [[speech]]), he also conceives of the [[unconscious]] in other terms.

The [[unconscious]] is also a kind of [[memory]], in the sense of a [[symbolic]] [[history]] of the [[signifier]]s that have determined the [[subject]] in the course of his [[life]].