A debate between Lynne Segal and Juliet Mitchell is the starting point of this inquiry into different notions about the nature of the unconscious. The paper argues that unconscious conflict derives both from universal sources and from historical contingencies, but that it is largely the latter that is the origin of neurotic misery (as opposed to “common” human unhappiness). Using clinical examples, the paper elaborates a relational perspective on unconscious processes and analytic treatment, at the center of which is the repetition compulsion. After discussing different theories about the relation between the psychic and the social, the paper proposes that the concept of normative unconscious processes provides a useful way to think about the link between social norms and subjective psychic reality.