Discussion

LANGS' (1986A), (1986B) NEW MODEL OF THE MIND fills an urgent need for models and theories which are consistent with clinical observations and congruent with contemporary knowledge of information processing in the brain. Today there is a special need for information processing models which take into account what Langs calls "emotionally charged messages and information" (p. 1). Gardner's (1985) book, The Mind's New Science, describes the neglect of affectivity by cognitive scientists in the disciplines of psychology, linguistics, anthropology, and the neurosciences. Gardner writes:

"Though mainstream cognitive scientists do not necessarily bear any animus against the affective realm, against the context that surrounds any action or thought, or against historical or cultural analyses, in practice they attempt to factor out these elements to the maximum extent possible." (p. 41, italics mine.)

Psychoanalysis can make a unique contribution to understanding human behavior by its discoveries about the role of affect in cognition and action.

Support for Langs' model comes from many investigations in the fields of cognitive psychology and neuropsychology. Langs' concepts of a synthesizing center and a message analyzing center which operate outside of awareness and give meaning to incoming stimuli is supported by numerous experimental studies. Cognitive psychologists demonstrate that individuals unconsciously and, for the most part automatically, monitor, evaluate and respond to incoming stimuli. The brain unconsciously performs a constant "meaning analysis" in which the world is being interpreted and appropriate schemas are automatically activated (Mandler, 1984). Though high-level meaning analysis includes conscious evaluations, lower levels of meaning analyses proceed automatically and unconsciously.

Langs' model emphasizes the "intelligence" of the Deep Unconscious System. This view is in striking contrast to prior psychoanalytic theories of the unconscious and the