alienation and the unconscious

Philip Reynor 9-12-06

The Unconscious and Alienation.

On Existentialist and Psychoanalytic approaches

Philip Thomas Reynor___________________________________________________________

I

Existential psychoanalysis undoubtedly owes a great debt to

Freudian psychoanalysis. However, can the notion of alienation be

articulated by both a purely conscious mind as opposed to one that

is driven by an unconscious? By pitting the existential

psychoanalytic model against that of the Freudian psychoanalytic

model, we may discover an answer to this question. For the

purposes of this part of the essay, I will utilise Cannons and

Isenberg’s studies in an attempt document the Freudian approach

in opposition to the Sartrean approach to metapsychology. I

believe Sartre’s enhancements on Freud’s psychobiological and

neurophysiological drives grants them a more real, humanistic and

accessible mode of thought as a pursuit of value through a

fundamental project of being in the world. Freud’s approach is

veiled in unconscious modes, such as the Id, the ego and the

superego, these modes, being unconscious, are a kind of thing-in-

itself, which is manifest through consciousness in manifold forms,

yet, these forms must always be interpreted regressively and

without concrete foundations, as they remain inaccessible to the

analyst in their pure form. For Freud, we must struggle with the

analysand in an attempt to make the unconscious conscious and

discover what lies beneath our choices as a motivation for our

choices, and also to facilitate change through this knowledge; for

Sartre, however, our aim or our fundamental project is manifest in

these choices, and change is facilitated in subjecting prereflective

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experience to reflective awareness, thus negating the need for a

wrestling match with the patient and simply taking the patients at

their word. Regardless of the presupposition that the ‘unconscious’

manifests itself in our actions or behaviour, in our conscious modes

of thought and that, at bottom, every decision in our daily being is

determinately thrust upon us by our unknowable, unconscious

masters; this so called ‘unconscious’ is however ‘owned’ by us and

as such must be accessible and malleable in its pure state; and that

is what Sartre attempts to facilitate through reflective knowledge.

Freud’s approach to a discovery of these faculties of the

unconscious was a regressive one, in other words, he infers

through analysis from certain behaviour patterns which pointed to

an underlying drive or instinct as behavioural motivation. Not only

does Freud engage in regressive inferences but he also uses the

regressively inferred, the unknown, as an explanation of the known.

Simply put, the known explains itself by way of an unnecessary

unknown. This is simply a blunder in logic, facilitating a

formulation of an ‘unconscious’; the hypothetical equilibrium for

which (Freud says) we strive is not in fact a striving on our part

but, conflictingly, a striving on the part of an unknown,

unconscious being, or a natural drive. This highlights some ‘bad

faith’ in Freud’s fundamental life project manifesting itself

reflectively in his need to justify psychoanalysis but reducing it to a

natural science (and forces of science). Freud is attempting to

unveil psychoanalysis by way of scientific metaphors resulting in a

misconstrual of the metaphysical side of psychoanalysis. Sartre, on

the other hand, uses a synthetic analysis which is both a reflective

and prereflective project for a future being in the world, a

movement in two directions, analysis and synthesis; for Sartre

there is no unknowable, determinate, natural instinct behind our

actions, instead, he grants us a wholly conscious motivation -

grounded in the world but not reducible to it – through a

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‘fundamental project of being’ which the patient, through reflection

and projection can radically alter. This incorporation of synthesis,

which Freud denied by way of his formulation of the unconscious, is

rendered possible by Sartre in his denial of the unconscious

motivations we see in Freud; also, this marks a distinct divergence

in methodology. However, Sartre does admit of the topographical

division of the unified personality (like Freud) but, for Sartre, the

division lies in the consciousness of the ‘subject’ alone and unlike

Freud, he disregards the unconscious influence.

The instincts or drives, the supposedly synthetic a priori

concepts of Freud, the unconscious that breaks forth, with whip in

hand, to master the conscious and recede stealthily back into

darkness are the concepts that facilitate our knowledge; they

mould our consciousness in their own form, hostility to power, with

the instinct to pleasure dominating all others. Yet these faculties

are all unconscious, known only for their work on conscious

thought, the tip of the iceberg, these hypothetical drives if manifest

would have an insatiable greed for their own survival, a careless

recklessness that cannot be conquered or mastered as these modes

of unconscious would determine our own approach to them; we can

mould the tip of the iceberg but we cannot attack or change any

foundations; leaving Freud’s patients open to a hypothetical

constant regression. Sartre and Freud both agree that knowledge

facilitates change; but how is change possible when the knowledge

that facilitates it is undermined and determined by that which gave

rise to the knowledge. The existentialist Sartrean formulation,

however, does not leave us open to a constant regression as, if we

can alter our ‘fundamental project of being’ we are participating in

this new change at a conscious level unhampered by instincts that

strive to philosophise for themselves and for their own survival.

Sartre thus abandons this type of determinism in favour of a free

consciousness, which he mistakenly attempts to define, as a search

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for an objective value that imbibes our conscious choices with

meaning.

The synthesis which is unavailable to the strict Freudian is

just so as a result of his adoption of a deterministic formula, if

instead Freud had attributed us with freedom, intentionality and

our own free choice, synthesis would have been possible. Finally, in

Sartrean reflection there appears to be a cause and effect structure

at work, but this is mere appearance and not actuality,

prereflection does not have any basis in science and conversely is,

for Sartre, based on the world as a motivator (as opposed to a

cause) for our prereflective choices. Reflection on our prereflective

choices seems to reveal ‘a world of things which consciousness

grasps’ as a non-scientific cause, while the motive lies in

prereflective ‘intentional consciousness’ thus when I reflect

consciously on causes I discover motive.

II

Now, with this basis of knowledge from Freudian to existentialist

psychoanalysis it is time to initiate an argument regarding

alienation. For the purposes of this argument, I wish to adopt the

Sartrean view of the conscious unity and meaning of self as

grounded in the world, simultaneously with his denial of the

unconscious and Freud’s determinism in order to establish freedom

and intentionality. The theory of ‘free will’ has the charm of

refutability, which keeps it afloat, and to which it owes its

endurance through time; here I have chosen to accept free will in

the Sartrean sense and to utilise this concept to facilitate this

discussion on alienation.

To begin with, I am going to discuss alienation as arising in

something and as alienation from something. At first glance it may

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appear that the ‘in something’ and ‘from something’ views of

alienation are referring to the same thing i.e. the world, a kind of

subjected objective alienation in the world that you are a part of

and, as a result, a shrinking from that world receding into self and

accepting a kind of paranoia. This however does not do justice to

the whole picture. We should look at alienation as a serpents

tongue, in that one of those prongs is an objective type of

alienation and the other a subjective type, but both are attached to

the very same tongue belonging to the one serpent. I wish to

assert here that in order for alienation to occur there must be a

significant Other, as something from or in which alienation can

take place, this Other must be understood as a something (or a

nothing which is in fact a something) meaningful or substantial,

regardless of whether this meaningfulness or substantiality are just

mental attitudes. If the ‘subject’ believes him or herself to be

alienated, what they are alienated from must have significance for

the ‘subject’ if only on a subjective level.

The in something and the from something can be either

mental or physical phenomena. For instance, the idealist must hold

that we are alienated from the physical world completely by our

own faculties of attempting to know that physical world. To expand

this a little, we are alienated from the world in our minds and our

sensory experience. Similarly, the Lacanian psychoanalyst may

hold that due to the functioning of the ‘mirror phase’ in our

development the ‘subject’ may become alienated by the adoption of

language thus becoming alienated from the self in language. The

influence of the Other leads us to the development of a

‘fundamental life project’ which motivates our choices, but this

Other is an interpretation on our behalf and in that sense is not in

any way physical. Furthermore, from the outset, we are alienated

from the physical world by our own conditioning and interpretation

of it. We interpret this influence as coming from outside of us when

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in fact the influence on us is decided by solely mental processes

from within us.

In addition, the physical world, which we are alienated from

at the outset, is meaningless and insubstantial and alienation

occurs from it for this very reason. That which we are alienated

from and in has meaning only on a purely subjective mental level.

Thus, our alienation from and in the world in itself is valid only on

the basis that we presuppose knowledge of this world as inference

from the senses and accordingly furnish it with substance and

meaning when, in truth it can have no substance or meaning

besides that which we subjectively grant it; therefore, we are not

alienated from or in it, no, instead we must be separated from it, in

totality. It follows that alienation is a purely mental phenomenon,

which our consciousness may thrust upon the apparent, if our

‘fundamental life project’ facilitates it.

To digress a little, Sartre’s ‘mind’ is made up of

consciousness only as a unified (yet divided) personality much like

the serpents tongue, the division is between prereflective and

reflective consciousness. Now, within this mental mould we seem

to be un-alienated, unlike in Freud’s model where we are distinctly

alienated from the driving force of our own minds – the

unconscious. If we bring in Sartre’s model of freedom of

intentionality at this point, there is in fact no room for alienation;

for, if we become alienated it must be from and in something i.e. in

our own minds. Thus, we must become alienated from either

prereflective or reflective consciousness and if this was the case

then the whole of our life project would be compromised to the

extent that it could be erased as the benchmark from which we pro-

ject and that benchmark would disappear, negating synthesis and

returning to Freudian determinism. Therefore, if alienation is an

essentially mental phenomenon the mentality requires an

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unconscious in order to facilitate the alienation. Consciousness

cannot become alienated in and from itself as the divide is not total

and unity remains at bottom implying that to become removed from

an aspect of consciousness is to become removed from the whole of

consciousness forcing the self into a zombie like state of

unconsciousness. Furthermore, since the unconscious has been

denied its place in the ‘mind’ this zombie like state of unconscious

alienation must also be denied.

Looking at the favourite maxim of Karl Marx we find,

summed up in a single sentence, the point at hand: Marx says:

‘Nihil humani a me alienum puto’1. So far, we have established that

if alienation is possible it must be a subjective human phenomenon.

This implies that the alienation must take place within the ‘subject’.

In the case of alienation from an object the objective alienation is

merely apparent and actually takes place on a subjective level.

Thus, alienation is a purely human occurrence. Therefore, the

validity and applicability of the concept of alienation hinges on

what we believe constitutes the ‘subject’. If we take the broad

sense of Marx’s maxim, we can understand the word ‘human’ as

including our mental functioning along with all the other aspects

we consider when we think of ourselves and others like us. If this

were so, then Marx would have sided with Sartre on this issue

agreeing that the unconscious, as alienated from the conscious, is

inaccessible and thus he would be agreeing that alienation within a

human ‘subject’ is articulated most successfully within a theory of

mind that contains the unconscious. He would have considered, like

Sartre, that the hidden deterministic unconscious of Freud had to

be exorcised. In his confession, Marx wrote that his idea of misery

was submission and that the vice he detests most was servility and

the unconscious of Freud necessities both in the human ‘subject’. If

we consider, like Marx, that nothing about a particular human can

1 McLellan, D; “Karl Marx: His life and Thought”; p.457. The maxim reads: ‘I consider that nothing human is alien to me’.

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be alien to that human we realise that in order to give some

credence to the concept of alienation at all it is necessary to

propose something in and from which we can be alienated. In the

formulation of Marx, like that of Sartre, there can be no alienation

in and from the human ‘subject’. The manifold ways in which we

constitute what it means to be a human strongly affect the outcome

of this discussion. The views of Freud, Sartre, Lacan and finally

(however briefly) Marx have been forwarded and it has become

clear that the concept of alienation is dependent on the concept of

a human and can only be applied thereafter. The thinker who

leaves the most room for alienation within his formulation of the

‘subject’ is the one who successfully articulates the notion.

This makes it clear that the only place for the concept of

mental alienation is within an unconscious mind model. Conscious

alienation at this point must be denied its place. Actual alienation

can only occur in and from something that is inaccessible to the

mind instead of in and from something that is the mind. I would

therefore conclude that the traditions which facilitate an

unconscious articulate the problem of alienation more distinctly as

alienation has no real place in a purely conscious being. We have

documented the existentialist attitude towards psychoanalysis

however briefly yet concerns arise even from a brief and light

comparison such as this one. A simple shift from unconscious

determinism to conscious intentionality carries with it a diverse

new meaning for ideas such as alienation. Alienation has been

transferred to the plane of the in-itself objective world from which,

with the advent of the senses followed by language, mathematics,

logic and science, etc we misinterpret the real from which we

become alienated.

Bibliography:

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Cannon, B; ‘Sartre and Psychoanalysis: an Existentialist Challenge

to Clinical Metatheory’; University Press of Kansas (Kansas 1991).

Fink, B; ‘The Lacanian Subject’; Princeton University Press

(Chester 1995).

Freud, S; ‘The Ego and the Id’; ‘Complete Works’, standard ed,

Trans: Strachey, J; Volume XIX, Hogarth Press (London 2001).

Freud, S; ‘The Dissolution of the Oedipus Complex’; ‘Complete

Works’, standard ed, Trans: Strachey, J; Hogarth Press (London

2001).

Izenberg, G.N; ‘The Existentialist Critique of Freud: The Crisis of

Autonomy’; Princeton University Press (Princeton 1976).

Lacan, J; ‘Ecrits’, Trans: Sheridan, A; Norton (New York 1977).

McLellan, D; ‘Karl Marx: His Life and Thought’; Paladin, (Herts,

1977).

Sartre, J.P; ‘Being and Nothingness’; Philosophical Library (New

York 1985).

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