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ROBBINS EVOLVED the theory that to understand an individual dynamically, one must become aware of that person's consciousness. He defines consciousness as the sum total of an individual's attitudes, desires, needs regarding himself and others—in other words, his characterological systems of value. (4)(10)(11)(13) In his conceptualizations, conciousness represents the ever-evolving result and reflection of a person's total social and cultural experiences, and his interactions with these experiences. Also
to Robbins [as well as Masserman, Rado, and others] the term 'unconscious' referred to those aspects of the individual's value system that remained expediently unknown at a conceptual level, but which betrayed their presence in activity. (13)
A standard psychoanalytic approach might view this orientation as ahistorical and undynamic since the manipular aspect of mental disorders and the resulting secondary gain had more significance to Robbins and others than the early life experiences in the genesis of a neurosis.1 To the author, however, these premises are most historical and dynamic. A system of value does not simply come into being. It has to have a history. It is also dynamic because, on the basis of these characterological systems of value, the neurotic patient functions in his everyday life; they determine his present-day activities, experiences, and consequent suffering. Unless changed to a more constructive,