6. Unconscious mental processes

Summary

Unconscious mechanisms and actions. General characteristics of the problem of unconscious mental processes. Classification of unconscious processes. The concept of an unconscious installation D. N. Uznadze. Significance of vegetative components for psychological research.

Unconscious drivers of conscious action. Studies of unconscious processes 3. Freud. The theory of the unconscious. Mechanisms of repression and resistance. The value of the theory 3. Freud for the treatment of neurotic symptoms.

Superconscious processes. The ratio of conscious and superconscious processes. Illusions of perception, installation errors, Freudian phenomena.

6.1. General characteristics of the problem of unconscious mental processes

In previous chapters, we considered the problem of the emergence and development of consciousness as the highest form of mental reflection of objective reality. A person endowed with consciousness is able to perform motivated actions, achieve a goal, or perform a certain work, because he is aware of and controls his behavior or state. However, the human psyche is characterized by the presence of two large groups of mental processes and phenomena, which differ in the degree of their awareness by the subject himself. Some of the mental processes and phenomena are recognized by man, but there are a large number of mental processes and phenomena, the flow or manifestation of which is not reflected in the human mind. These processes belong to the group of so-called unconscious processes, or unconscious.

Unconscious mental processes were especially actively studied at the beginning of the 20th century. Various scientists were engaged in this problem, but already the results of the first studies showed that the problem of the unconscious is so extensive that all information realized by man is only the tip of the iceberg, most of which is not visible to the observer. The purpose of this chapter is to become familiar with the concept of the unconscious and with the facts of unconscious mental processes, as well as with the existing classification of manifestations of the unconscious and the results of research by a number of scientists.

In our opinion, the most successfully required educational material on the problem of unconscious processes is presented in the lectures of Yu. B. Gippenreiter in the book Introduction to General Psychology. They were the basis for the preparation of this chapter and consideration of the problem we are studying.

150 • Part I. Introduction to General Psychology

All unconscious mental processes can be divided into three classes:

unconscious mechanisms of conscious actions, unconscious drivers of conscious actions, “superconscious” processes (Fig. 6.1).

In turn, the first class — unconscious mechanisms of conscious action — consists of three subclasses: unconscious automatisms; phenomena unconscious installation; unconscious accompaniments of conscious actions.

Unconscious automatisms usually imply actions or acts that are performed without the participation of consciousness, as if by themselves. In these cases, they often speak of "mechanical work," of work, "in which the head remains free." This state - the state of the “free head” - means the absence of conscious control. It should be noted that the processes included in the subclass of unconscious automatisms are twofold. Some processes were never realized, while others were first conscious, but

Fig. 6.1. Classification of unknowable processes

Chapter 6. Unconscious mental processes • 151

those ceased to be fixed in the mind. The first processes make up a group of primary automatisms. This group of processes is sometimes referred to as automatic actions. This group includes actions that are congenital or were formed in the first year of a child’s life. These include: sucking movements, blinking and convergence of the eyes, the seizure of objects, walking and much more.

The second group of phenomena that are part of a subclass of unconscious automatisms is called automated actions or skills. This group of actions includes those that were initially conscious, that is, they were carried out with the participation of consciousness, but then, as a result of repeated repetition and improvement, their implementation ceased to require the participation of consciousness, they began to be performed automatically. The process of developing skills is fundamental to each individual, since it lies at the heart of the development of all our skills, knowledge and abilities.

For example, learning to play musical instruments. (This example is given by many researchers of the problems of unconscious processes.) It all starts with a simple one — learning how to properly fit, how to position the hands. Then the finger fingering is worked out and the technique of performance is formed. Constant training over time allows you to go to a higher level of performance of a musical work, which begins to sound expressive and sensual. So, by moving from simple movements to complex ones, thanks to the transfer of already mastered actions to unconscious levels, a person acquires mastery of performance.

Of course, one should not think that in the process of releasing actions from conscious control a person does not know at all what he is doing - control over the activity remains. The fact is that the field of consciousness (the field is this area of ​​information that is realized at a certain point in time) is not uniform. You can select the focus of consciousness, the periphery, as well as the border beyond which the region of the unconscious begins. When performing any activity, a part of the action, which is the most complex and requires constant monitoring, is the focus of our consciousness. More worked or more simple actions are pushed to the periphery of our consciousness, and the most mastered or most simple actions go beyond the boundaries of our consciousness to the unconscious. Thus, the control of consciousness over human activity as a whole is preserved.

The ratio of the individual components of activity and consciousness is not stable. This is because the actions that are in the focus of our consciousness are constantly changing. When the level of skills is reached, individual actions performed by a person are pushed to the periphery and then to the unconscious, but when a person begins to make many mistakes, for example, when tired or feeling unwell, he again begins to control his simplest actions. A similar phenomenon can be observed after a long break in the performance of any activity.

It should be noted that it is precisely in the change in the degree of representation of actions in consciousness that the skills differ from automatic actions, which under any circumstances cannot be conscious. It is also necessary to emphasize that, considering the unconscious mechanisms of conscious action,

we are confronted with the problem of skill formation. In psychology, the problem of skill formation has always attracted close attention because of its high practical importance. Representatives of behaviorism have paid much attention to this problem, arguing that the skill is developed through the “beating” of paths in the brain centers as a result of mechanical memorization, or “memorization” of the same action. In Soviet psychology, this problem was also given the closest attention. A great contribution to its development was made by the famous Russian scientist N. A. Bernstein, who believed that the development of skills is a process that proceeds, as it were, from two opposite sides: from the side of consciousness and from the side of the organism. If we speak in a generalized form about the relationship between subject and consciousness within the framework of the problem of the mechanisms of formation of skills, it is necessary to note the following: before performing any action, its execution must be worked out at the level of consciousness. Therefore, we arbitrarily and consciously isolate individual elements from complex movements and work out their correct implementation. At the same time, already without the participation of our will and consciousness, the process of automation of action is underway.

Considering the problem of automatism, we must ask ourselves the question: are there automatisms in other, non-body movements, spheres of mental life and human activity? Yes, there are, and you are well acquainted with many of them. For example, skimming through any text, we, without thinking about the meaning of individual letters, immediately perceive the meaning of the read. Transformation of graphic symbols (in this case, letters) into logical concepts passes for us completely unnoticed. Similarly, a radio operator working with Morse code, perceiving the sound of short and long signals, completely free translates them into a logical combination of letters and words. However, all this becomes possible only as a result of a long workout.

Now we will move to the second subclass of unconscious mechanisms of conscious action - the phenomena of an unconscious installation. The concept of “installation” occupies a very important place in psychology, because the phenomena behind it permeate practically all spheres of a person’s psychological life. In Russian psychology, there was a whole direction, developing the problem of installation on a very wide scale. This direction was created by the founder of the Georgian school of psychologists Dmitry Nikolayevich Uznadze (1886-1950), who for many years developed it with his students.

According to D. N. Uznadze, the installation is the readiness of the organism or subject to perform a certain action or reaction in a certain direction. This definition emphasizes readiness for action or response. It can be assumed that the speed and accuracy of a person’s response to some stimulus depends on the skill to perform certain actions, therefore skill and attitude are one and the same. However, it should be emphasized that the concepts of “skill” and “installation” are absolutely not identical. If the skill is manifested during the implementation of the action, then readiness refers to the period preceding the implementation of the action.

There are various types of installation: motor installation - ready to perform a specific action; mental installation, consisting in the willingness to solve intellectual problems using known and accessible to you

ways; perceptual attitude — readiness to perceive what you expect to see, etc.

Installation is very important for a person, because it provides in the event of a sudden need for a pre-planned action. Such a readiness, even under the influence of another, not expected stimulus, can cause the execution of a presumed action, which, of course, is very often an error. This phenomenon is called "installation errors".

For example, the experience of determining the taste of porridge conducted among children of preschool age is widely known. Sweet porridge on one side of the plate sprinkle with salt. Children are given to try it, and the first six to seven test subjects are offered sweet porridge, and the last is salted. Under the influence of the opinion of the first test subjects that the porridge is sweet, the latter is sure that the porridge will be sweet, and even having felt salt in the mouth, still says that the porridge is sweet. How to explain it? On the one hand, the fear of not looking like everyone else, but on the other, that during the experiment, while the subject waited for his turn to try porridge, an installation was formed in his mind that the porridge was sweet (as everyone says it), and when he will be asked about what kind of porridge, he will have to answer that the porridge is sweet. Therefore, even having tasted salted porridge, he, following the group setting, still says that porridge is sweet. In this example, we are faced with the phenomenon of a conscious installation. The subject, to a certain extent consciously, gives the wrong answer.

But there are phenomena of a different kind, when the installation is unconscious, which for us is of the greatest interest now in the context of the problem under consideration. For example, when conducting one experiment, the subject was asked to estimate the volumes of the balls. The balls of different volumes were given to the subject at the same time - one ball to the right hand, the other to the left. Suppose that 15 times in a row the subject was given a larger ball to the subject’s left hand and a smaller one to the right hand. Then, for the sixteenth time, he is asked to rate balls of the same volume, but he cannot notice this and still claims that the volume of the balls is different. At the same time, different subjects gave one of two answers: a) the ball is smaller in the left hand and more in the right hand; b) continued to assert that in the left hand the ball is larger. Here we are faced with the phenomenon of the illusion of installation. In the first case, this is a contrasting illusion of installation, which consists in the fact that the subject expected that sooner or later he would be asked to take a smaller ball in his left hand. Therefore, feeling the change in the volume of the ball, he, without hesitation, began to argue that in his left hand was a smaller ball. In the second case, we are confronted with the assimilative illusion of the installation, which consists in the fact that the subject, after fifteen identical experiments, expects a repetition of experience.

As a result of a whole series of similar experiments, D. N. Uznadze and his collaborators concluded that the device is truly unconscious. This is confirmed by one of the variants of the experiment on estimating the volumes of the balls. This experiment was conducted using hypnosis. Previously, the subject was administered in a hypnotic state and in this state he was offered to do the first fifteen installation samples. Then he was told that it was necessary to forget everything he did. After exiting hypnotic

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the subject did not remember what he was doing, but when he was asked to estimate the volume of the balls already in the waking state, he made a mistake by stating that the balls were different in volume, although in fact their volume was the same.

Thus, unconscious installations really exist and are of great importance for the formation of conscious actions. We now turn to the third class of unconscious mechanisms - unconscious accompaniments of conscious actions. There are a large number of unconscious processes that simply accompany the action. For example, you could see a person listening to music swinging his foot to the beat. Or a person operating a pair of scissors simultaneously moves his jaws. The face of a person who looks at the other who has cut the arm often acquires a sympathetic expression, while the person himself does not notice this. And there are a lot of such examples. All these phenomena are unconscious accompaniment of conscious actions. Следовательно, к неосознаваемым сопровождениям сознательных действий мы относим непроизвольные движения, тоническое напряжение, мимику и пантомимику, а также большой класс вегетативных движений, сопровождающих действия и состояния человека.

Многие из этих процессов, особенно вегетативные компоненты, являются классическим объектом изучения физиологии. Однако все они чрезвычайно важны и для психологии. Во-первых, эти неосознаваемые процессы могут рассматриваться как дополнительные средства коммуникации между людьми. В некоторых случаях такие средства не только придают речи эмоциональную окраску, но и заменя-

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ют саму речь. Во-вторых, они могут быть использованы как объективные показатели различных психологических характеристик человека.

Приведем пример, взятый из книги Ю. Б. Гиппенрейтер «Введение в общую психологию». В нем описывается выступление известного эстрадного артиста В. Мессинга, который был способен «читать мысли». Артист предлагал любому присутствующему в зале человеку спрятать куда-нибудь какой-либо предмет или задумать какое-либо действие, которое необходимо совершить артисту. После чего В. Мессинг брал человека за руку и предлагал мысленно приказывать ему двигаться в направлении спрятанного предмета или совершать задуманное действие. В большинстве случаев В. Мессинг безошибочно выполнял все задуманные зрителем действия или находил спрятанный предмет, что всегда приводило публику в восторг. В реальности его номер основывался на хорошо развитой способности улавливать различные идеомоторные акты, т. е. тончайшие мышечные напряжения и микродвижения, которые сопровождают усиленное представление какого-либо действия. Данную информацию артист получал при контакте своей руки с рукой «индуктора» — зрителя, который мысленно давал ему команды.

В качестве иллюстрации значения неосознаваемого сопровождения сознательных действий для изучения психологических характеристик человека воспользуемся еще одним примером из той же книги. А. Р. Лурия в 1920-х гг. проводил опыты, в которых изучались феномены, сходные с теми, которые проявляются при использовании современных «детекторов лжи». Для этого он использовал применявшийся для выявления скрытых аффективных комплексов ассоциативный

эксперимент К. Юнга. Этот эксперимент основывался на предъявлении испытуемому перечня слов, на каждое из которых испытуемый должен был ответить первым пришедшим в голову словом. А. Р. Лурия внес изменение в данную методику, предложив испытуемому вместе с называнием ответного слова нажимать на очень чувствительный датчик — мембрану пневматического барабанчика. В результате словесный ответ сочетался, или сопрягался, с моторной ручной реакцией, что позволяло учитывать не только произнесенное слово, но и то, как оно было произнесено. Этот эксперимент показал, что человеку легче контролировать внешние действия (слова, движения) и гораздо труднее — мышечный тонус (позу, мимику, интонацию). Так, на различные по значимости для испытуемого слова, произносимые исследователем в качестве стимула, фиксировалась разная моторная реакция при сохранении нейтральной внешней реакции. Подобную методику А. Р. Лурия назвал сопряженной моторной методикой. Ее валидность и надежность была успешно подтверждена при работе с лицами, находящимися под следствием и подозреваемыми в совершении преступлений.

Современная техника позволяет проводить подобные эксперименты на еще более высоком уровне, с учетом объективных индикаторов, практически не поддающихся контролю со стороны сознания. К таким индикаторам относятся пульс, частота дыхания, артериальное давление, электрическая активность мозга, микродвижения глаз, зрачковая реакция и др. Таким образом, малоосознаваемые реакции могут быть весьма информативными и наиболее действенными как при общении и передаче информации, так и при изучении человека.

6.2. Неосознаваемые побудители сознательных действий

Следующий большой класс неосознаваемых процессов — неосознаваемые побудители сознательных действий. Исследования процессов, входящих в этот класс, прежде всего связаны с именем одного из самых известных психологов XX в., современником В. Вундта, У. Джемса, Э. Титчепера, — Зигмундом Фрейдом.

После окончания медицинского факультета Венского университета Фрейд некоторое время работал в клинике известного парижского психиатра Ж. Шарко, а затем вернулся в Вену и стал работать в качестве практикующего врача. Специализируясь на лечении неврозов, Фрейд увлекся теоретическими проблемами личности, в результате чего разработал особый метод лечения психических заболеваний, названный им психоаналитическим. Следует отметить, что, несмотря на популярность, которую приобрел психоанализ, отношение к этому методу всегда было и остается двойственным. Это вызвано тем, что Фрейд, предлагая детально изучать и анализировать любые факты, связанные с жизнью пациента, многие свои теоретические положения ничем не обосновывает. Подобное отношение к фактам со стороны Фрейда, по мнению людей достаточно хорошо знавших его, объясняется тем, что многие рассматриваемые им проблемы были свойственны

лично ему. Между тем Фрейд внес большой вклад в изучение неосознаваемых причин некоторых действий человека и психических явлений.

Толчком к глубокому изучению бессознательного явилось для Фрейда присутствие на одном из сеансов гипноза, когда пациентке, находящейся в гипнотическом состоянии, было произведено внушение, в соответствии с которым она после пробуждения должна была встать и взять зонтик, стоящий в углу и принадлежащий одному из присутствующих. Причем перед пробуждением ей была дана установка на то, чтобы она забыла о том, что это внушение было проведено. После побуждения пациентка встала, подошла и взяла зонтик, а затем раскрыла его. На вопрос, зачем она это сделала, она ответила, что хотела проверить, исправен зонтик или нет. Когда ей заметили, что зонтик не ее, она крайне смутилась.

Этот эксперимент привлек внимание Фрейда, которого заинтересовал ряд феноменов. Во-первых, неосознаваемость причин совершаемых действий. Во-вторых, абсолютная действенность этих причин: человек выполняет задание, несмотря на то, что сам не знает, почему он это делает. В-третьих, стремление подыскать объяснение своему действию. В-четвертых, возможность иногда путем длительных расспросов привести человека к воспоминанию об истинной причине его действия. Благодаря этому случаю и опираясь на ряд других фактов, Фрейд создал свою теорию бессознательного.

Согласно теории Фрейда, в психике человека существует три сферы, или области: сознание, предсознание и бессознательное. К категории сознания он относил все, что осознается и контролируется человеком. К области предсознания Фрейд относил скрытые, или латентные, знания. Это те знания, которыми человек располагает, но которые в данный момент отсутствуют в сознании. Они инициируются при возникновении соответствующего стимула. Например, все вы прекрасно знаете теорему Пифагора. Но до того момента, пока я не упомянул ее, она не присутствовала в вашем сознании. Таким образом, можно сделать вывод о том, что психика значительно шире сознания. Сознание — это лишь видимая часть айсберга, а его большая часть скрыта от осознанного контроля человеком.

Область бессознательного, по Фрейду, обладает совершенно другими свойствами. Первое свойство заключается в том, что содержание этой области не сознается, но оказывает чрезвычайно существенное влияние на наше поведение. Область бессознательного действенна. Второе свойство заключается в том, что информация, находящаяся в области бессознательного, с трудом переходит в сознание. Объясняется это работой двух механизмов: вытеснения и сопротивления. Что же за знания, или феномены, находятся в области бессознательного и при этом оказывают огромное влияние на поведение человека?

По мнению Фрейда, психическая жизнь человека определяется его влечениями, главное из которых — сексуальное (либидо). Оно есть уже у младенца, но из-за существования множества социальных запретов сексуальные переживания вытесняются из сознания и живут в сфере бессознательного. Они (влечения) имеют большой энергетический заряд, однако в сознание не пропускаются, поскольку сознание оказывает им сопротивление. Тем не менее они периодически прорываются в сознательную жизнь человека, принимая искаженную или символическую форму.

Freud Sigmund (1856-1939) - Austrian psychologist, psychiatrist and neuropathologist, creator of psychoanalysis. Since the 80s XIX century. worked in the field of practical medicine. Having begun my research as a physiologist and neuropathologist, I came to the conclusion that the source of many diseases are not conscious complexes of patients. One of the first serious scientific works he published together with I. Breuer in 1895. This work was devoted to the problem of the origin of hysteria and the possibility of its treatment with hypnosis. Later Freud refused to use hypnosis and created his own method of treating patients with the help of psychoanalysis, based on the interpretation of associations, dreams, and erroneous actions of the patient. Based on the received material, he created the concept of personality structure, highlighting three levels in it: consciousness, preconscious, and unconscious. The teachings of Freud became widely known at the beginning of the 20th century. He had many students and followers who later themselves created a number of concepts and theories known in our time.

However, some moments in the theory of Freud caused a denial even among his students. In

Freud’s excessive enthusiasm for the problem of sexuality in a person’s life caused a lot of criticism and served as a pretext for criticism.

In his theory, Freud identified three main forms of manifestation of the unconscious: dreams, erroneous actions, neurotic symptoms. To study the manifestations of the unconscious within the framework of the theory of psychoanalysis, methods were developed for studying them - the method of free association and the method of analyzing dreams. The method of free association involves the psychoanalyst interpreting words continuously produced by the patient. The psychoanalyst must find a pattern in the words produced by the patient and draw an appropriate conclusion about the causes of the condition that has arisen in the person who has applied for help. An associative experiment is used as one of the variants of this method in psychoanalysis, when the patient is asked to quickly and without hesitation call words in response to a word spoken by a psychoanalyst. As a rule, after several dozen samples, the words associated with his hidden experiences begin to appear in the answers of the subject.

Similarly, the analysis of dreams. The need to analyze dreams, according to Freud, is due to the fact that during sleep, the level of consciousness control decreases and dreams appear to a person due to a partial breakthrough into the sphere of consciousness of his drives, which are blocked by the mind in wakefulness.

Freud paid special attention to neurotic symptoms. According to his ideas, neurotic symptoms are traces of repressed traumatic circumstances that form a highly charged focus in the unconscious and from there do destructive work to destabilize a person’s mental state. In order to get rid of neurotic symptoms, Freud considered it necessary to open this focus, that is, to make the patient aware of the causes of his condition, and then the neurosis will be cured.

The basis of the occurrence of neurotic symptoms, Freud considered the most important biological need of all living organisms - the need for procreation, which manifests itself in man in the form of sexual attraction. Depressed sexual desire is the cause of neurotic disorders. However, such disorders can be caused by other reasons that are not related to human sexuality. This is a variety of unpleasant experiences that accompany everyday life. As a result of repression into the sphere of the unconscious, they also form strong energy foci, which are manifested in the so-called “erroneous actions”. Freud attributed forgetting certain facts, intentions, names, as well as clerical errors, reservations, etc. to these erroneous actions. These phenomena were explained by him as a result of difficult or unpleasant experiences associated with a particular subject, word, name, etc. In turn , reservations or accidental cipher Freud explained that they contain the true intentions of man, carefully concealed from others.

Finishing the conversation about unconscious motivators of action, it should be noted that Freud's theory, despite its contradictory nature, still allows us to understand many of the mechanisms of unconscious human actions.

6.3. "Superconscious" processes

The third class of unconscious processes is formed by “ superconscious” processes. The processes of formation of a certain integral product as a result of a large conscious (as a rule, intellectual) work fall into this category. We encounter this phenomenon when we are trying to solve some complex and significant problem for us. We have been sorting through all sorts of options for a long time, analyzing the available information, but there is still no clear solution to the problem. And suddenly, unexpectedly, somehow by itself, and sometimes using some minor excuse, we come to solving this problem. It is becoming clear to us, we clearly understand the essence of this problem and know how to solve it. This is not just a look at the solution of a problem, it is a qualitatively new look that can change our whole life.

Thus, what entered our consciousness is really an integral product, although we did not have a clear idea of ​​why we came to such a solution to the problem. We know only what we thought or experienced at any given moment or a certain period of time. The very process of making a decision for ourselves remained unconscious. In everyday life, such phenomena are often referred to as intuition, that is, a method of decision-making by analyzing at a level that is beyond the control of consciousness.

What are the main characteristics of this process? First, the subject does not know the final decision or outcome that the superconscious process will lead to. In contrast to supraconscious processes, conscious, or controlled by the subject, processes are characterized by the presence of a clear goal to which the actions we perform must lead. Secondly, we do not know which

the moment of superconscious processes ceases, because they, as a rule, end abruptly, unexpectedly for us. Conscious actions, on the contrary, imply control over the approach to the final goal and knowledge of the moment at which they should be stopped.

Conscious and supraconscious processes are constantly side by side with each other. For example, the well-known human feeling is love. You know that you love this man, but why do you love him? What motivates you to love this particular person and not the other? Moreover, quite often your elect is not the best among your acquaintances. This can be explained only by the work of certain mechanisms, which we have called the down-consciousness processes. Another example is the choice of a profession. A priori, it is believed that the choice of a profession is a deliberate step. This is true, but how clearly are the reasons for your choice reflected in your mind? Very often, when asked about the reasons for choosing a particular profession, we answer that we like it, or it is most suitable, or it allows you to earn a living, but at the same time, we often have only a vague idea of ​​the profession. We do not know (or do not seek to know) the conditions and characteristics of labor. Very often, we act under pressure from the opinions of our parents, friends, living conditions, etc., but we do not give ourselves an account of this. Thus, our choice, or, more precisely, the process that determined our decision, is not always realized by us. Therefore, supra-conscious processes play a very significant role in people's lives. The considered class of processes should fully include the processes of creative thinking, the processes of experiencing significant life events, crises of feelings, personality crises, etc.

In addition to addressing the problem of superconscious processes, it is necessary to dwell on the explanation of the term “superconscious processes”. Why precisely the supraconscious?

One of the first psychologists who paid attention to these processes was W. Djemme. The facts he collected were presented in the book The Variety of Religious Experience. Later on this topic were published the works of 3. Freud, E. Lin-deman and others. W. Djem called the observed processes unconscious. However, later, after the emergence of the theory of psychoanalysis, this term acquired a very special meaning, and those processes that we consider to be superconscious have a qualitative difference from the processes considered in the framework of Freud's theory. The term “supraconscious processes”, which we use in this chapter, is widely used in its work by Professor of the Moscow University Yu. B. Hippenreiter. In her opinion, this term most fully reflects the meaning of the processes included in the third of the classes we are considering, since the processes that are included in this class are larger in content and scope than anything that consciousness can accommodate. These processes are only partially represented in the consciousness, while the main action takes place beyond the limits of consciousness.

If we schematically represent the relationship between the processes we are considering and consciousness (Fig. 6.2), we must place the consciousness in the center, the remaining processes will be located around it. Below will be located unconscious mechanisms of conscious action (I). In essence, they are technical performers of conscious acts. Most of them were formed as a result of the transfer of consciousness functions to unconscious levels.

At the level of consciousness, unconscious movers of conscious action can be placed (II). They probably have the same meaning for a person as conscious motivators, but, unlike the latter, unconscious motivators of conscious actions are forced out of consciousness, emotionally charged, and periodically break into consciousness in a special symbolic form.

The processes of "supraconsciousness" (III) should rightfully occupy the top of the hierarchical pyramid of the ratio of mental processes. They unfold in the form of the work of consciousness, long and intense. The result of it is a certain integral result, which returns to consciousness in the form of a new creative idea, a new attitude or feeling.

There is another problem that we must dwell on. This problem lies in the procedures of cognition of unconscious mental processes. The question of how to study unconscious processes, if they are not realized, is quite legitimate.

First of all, it should be noted that the unconscious in various forms manifests itself in consciousness: the illusions of perception, installation errors, Freudian phenomena, the integral result of superconscious processes. Information about unconscious processes can be obtained by analyzing the dynamics of the formation of skills, as well as the study of information obtained by the researcher from a variety of physiological indicators, as was illustrated by the example of experiments of A. R. Luria.

Consequently, in the study of unconscious processes, we operate with the same initial data: facts of consciousness, behavior, and physiological processes. Their complex use allows the psychologist to study phenomena that are related to the sphere of the "unconscious".

Thus, the human psyche is extremely complex and includes not only consciousness, but also processes that are not controlled by the subject. However, one cannot describe the psyche by simply dividing the processes into “conscious” and “unconscious”. The sphere of the unconscious has its own complex and probably hierarchical structure.

test questions

1. Give a general description and classification of unconscious mental processes.

2. What are unconscious mechanisms of conscious action?

3. Give examples of unconscious automatisms.

4. Tell us about the study of unconscious installations D. N. Uznadze and his staff.

5. Expand the role of unconscious accompaniments of conscious actions in the study of mental phenomena and the daily life of people.

6. Tell us about the structure of unconscious movers of conscious action.

7. Tell us about the research 3. Freud unconscious drivers of conscious action.

8. What do you know about superconscious processes?

9. Are there methods for studying unconscious mental processes?

Recommended literature

1. Ananyev B. G. Selected psychological works: In 2 tons. T. 1 / Ed. A. A. Bodaylen, B. F. Lomov. - M .: Pedagogy, 1980.

2. Bassip F. V. The problem of "unconscious". (On unconscious forms of higher. Nervous activity). - M .: Medicine, 1968..

3. Gippenrseyter Yu. B. Introduction to general psychology: Course of lectures: Textbook for universities. - M .: Chero, 1997.

4. Grimak L.P. Reserves of the human psyche. Introduction to the psychology of activity. -2 ed., Ext. - M .: Politizdat, 1989.

5. Jeme B. The Variety of Religious Experience. - SPb .: Andreev and sons, 1992.

6. Krachkoy S.V. Self-observation. - M., 1922.

7. Uznadze D. N. Psychological studies. - M .: Science, 1966.