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Psychoanalysts usually agree about the necessity of using the term ‘unconscious’ for describing different expressions of mental life. But they disagree about the exact meaning of the term. Two pairs of positions are generally considered: one distinguishes between the unconscious as latent thought and consciousness, and the second distinguishes between what may become conscious and what has no access to becoming conscious. From ‘The interpretation of dreams’ (1900) to ‘An outline of psycho-analysis’ (1940), both distinctions have been made by Freud, but not always in precisely the same sense.
One can make clear the distinction in accordance with the descriptive, dynamic, and topical or systematic points of view. From the descriptive point of view, ‘virtual’ or ‘latent’ representations that are susceptible to becoming conscious at any moment (the preconscious proper) may be considered unconscious. From the dynamic point of view, ‘psychical process’, which is temporarily or permanently repressed by the ‘second censorship’ (Freud 1915:193), ‘however complicated it may be’, can, on occasion, ‘remain preconscious, even though as a rule it will, as we say, push its way forward into consciousness’ (Freud 1940:160) and may be qualified as ‘unconscious’. Finally, from the topical or systematic point of view, ‘unconscious proper’ may be reserved for material that cannot gain ‘easy access to becoming conscious but must be inferred, recognized and translated into conscious form’ (Freud 1940:160).
If the distinction between these three forms of thinking is not so easy to make, it is probably due to some confusion about their differing metapsychological criteria. For many years, Joseph Sandler has pursued a metapsychological reflection on the distinction between the descriptive and the structural unconscious. This distinction has not always been granted the same attention as that paid to it by Sandler, because the unconscious-preconscious has often been considered to be all of the p