Psychic Reality And Unconscious Belief

The unconscious is the true psychical reality; in its innermost nature it is as much unknown to us as the reality of the external world, and it is as incompletely presented by the data of consciousness as is the external world by the communications of our sense organs (1900, p. 613).

In this passage in The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud anticipates his later concept of an ‘internal world’ and the notion of the ego as ‘a frontier creature’ (Freud, 1923, p. 36 and p. 56).

Taking the ego to be a creature of the frontier between the internal and external world, I suggest that belief is to psychic reality what perception is to material reality. Belief gives the force of reality to that which is psychic, just as perception does to that which is physical. Like perception, belief is an active process and like perception it is influenced by desire, fear, and expectation; and just as perceptions can be denied, so beliefs can be disavowed. Beliefs have consequences. They arouse feelings, influence perceptions and promote actions, unlike ideas and phantasies to which belief is not attached. Subjective belief precedes objective evaluation. Objective evaluation may use external perception, usually described as reality-testing, or it may involve correlation internally with known facts or related beliefs. The internal objective evaluation of a subjective belief is particularly crucial in situations where direct perceptual confirmation is not available. It depends on two processes, both of which provoke resistance. One is the correlation, internally, of subjective and objective points of view and the other is the relinquishment of an existing belief: the former involves the oedipal triangle and the latter mourning.

Freud wrote about belief in 1897, but subsequently he rarely used the term. He asserted that,

Belief (and doubt) is a phenomenon that belongs wholly to the system of the ego (the Cs.) and has no counterpart in the Ucs. In the neuroses belief is displaced; it is refused to th