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His studies of schizophrenic thinking lead Matte-Blanco to believe that all unconscious mentation conforms to two principles, the first in agreement with Aristotelian logic, the second contrary to it. Unconscious thought follows either the second principle or a mixture of the two, never the first alone. According to the first (Aristotelian) principle, an individual thing is treated as if it were a member of a class. This class is treated as a subclass of a more general class, and so forth. According to the second principle, the converse of any relation may be treated as identical or symmetrical with the relation. For example, if John is the brother of Peter, the converse is: Peter is the brother of John. The relation which exists between them is symmetrical, because the converse is identical with the direct relation. But if John is the father of Peter, the converse is: Peter is the son of John. In this case, the relation and its converse are not identical. In symbolic logic, this type is called asymmetrical. The unconscious tends to treat any relation as if it were symmetrical.
In displacement, we witness the simultaneous action of these two principles. The primal object and the object onto which displacement takes place are treated as elements of a class. For example, all father figures are treated as if they were dangerous. This would not suffice without the action of the second principle. The unconscious not only treats them as possessors of something in common but also as if they were identical.