You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
This article is fifth in a series by Natsoulas examining Freud's ideas about consciousness—specifically, in this work, the relation of emotion to consciousness. Beginning with Freud's statement that feelings are conscious psychical processes produced in the perception-consciousness system by nonconscious processes, the author raises Freud's doubts about his theory of consciousness. For Freud, intrinsic consciousness consisted of three components: a) the occurrence is present to its owner's consciousness, b) the owner has direct, unmediated awareness of it, and c) the owner knows that he or she has this awareness. Natsoulas discusses two alternative theoretical accounts which divide this tripartite attribute of consciousness differently than Freud did. The first alternative model is presented by the work of Sandler and Joffe. They believe that unconscious feelings do exist and are experienced, but that the individual is either unaware of what has been experienced (similar to a "blind-sighted" patient), or the individual may be aware of the feeling unconsciously, but for psychodynamic reasons misidentify it on the conscious level.
In the second alternative model, presented by the work of Wollheim, unconscious emotions are characterized by lacking the second and third components of intrinsic consciousness. The emotions are experienced but kept from awareness. Natsoulas discusses Freud's ideas about an "unconscious sense of guilt"—the disposition or possibility of developing a feeling of guilt. He examines what happens when the possibility of an emotion is defensively blocked. Natsoulas discusses "substitute emotions" and misconstrued emotions to further demonstrate Freud's account of consciousness.