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Wakefield views Freud's theory that emotions cannot be unconscious not as an arbitrary semantic exercise, but rather as a way to protect two of his fundamental ideas. The first idea is that unconscious mental states exist, and the second, that the pathogen behind all neurotic symptoms is the patient's sexual instincts. The author tries to shed light on the "essentialistic nature" of Freud's theories, why his theory of emotions remained undeveloped, and the cognitive nature of Freud's approach to the mind. Wakefield's analysis relies on recent philosophical views regarding scientific concepts which distinguish meaning from essence. Freud believed that the essence of an emotion was that it was discharged instinctual energy which was perceived as a feeling. Suppressed emotion could not be unconscious because in the suppressed state it would merely be instinctual energy and thus have no property that would identify it as emotion, or any specific emotion. Also, for Freud, the characteristic that made anything mental was its representability. Bodily discharge which is not perceived is therefore not mental because it has not achieved representation. According to Wakefield, the nature of Freud's thinking about the mind is commensurate with a modern cognitivist view of mental processes dominant in academic psychology at this time.