On the afternoon of June 17, 2025, the Department of History of Science at Tsinghua University held the 95th Tsinghua Lecture on History and Philosophy of Science in Room B206 of the Humanities Building. The speaker of this lecture was Dariush M. Doust, a Swedish scholar, certified psychotherapist, and Doctor of Philosophy, and the theme of the lecture was "A Brief History of the Unconscious". Starting from the emergence of the concept of "Unconscious" in psychology and psychoanalysis at the end of the 19th century, he introduced the differences between it and old terms such as "subconscious" and "subliminal", and traced the further development of this concept in the decades after World War II.
The unconscious is closely related to the concept of drives in psychoanalysis. These two concepts are applied in specific clinical work through three key terms: symptom, transference, and interpretation. Freud observed that certain painful symptoms are like a partially obscured text, which seems difficult to read on the surface. However, when these obscured parts are filled in through the patient's memories and associations, the content becomes understandable. In other words, the patient "knows," but this knowledge is repressed, displaced, and hidden, appearing in distorted and mysterious forms such as dream narratives, behavioral misconduct, fixed ideas, or seemingly harmless emotional expressions. Repression is not a voluntary act but a structural aspect of the relationship between the 'I' and unconscious materials. It is a process of 'a representation that stands for the drive,' which prevents the representation from entering the conscious state. The formation of symptoms is similar to this.
Professor Durst then introduced the history of the emergence and development of the concept of the unconscious. The concepts of the subconscious, unconscious, and preconscious began to appear in psychology, philosophy, and literature in the 18th and 19th centuries. The earliest trace can be found in Leibniz's *New Essays on Human Understanding* (1765), where he mentioned the so-called "obscure perceptions," although this is quite different from the concept of the "unconscious." In the Romantic tradition of the 18th century and late 19th century Romanticism, the concept of the "unconscious" appeared more widely in various fields such as literature, philosophy, and psychiatry. In the 19th century, the German tradition marked the transformation of the concept of the unconscious towards natural philosophy. He then briefly outlined similar views from philosopher and psychologist Johann Friedrich Herbart, pioneer of experimental psychology Gustav Fechner, literary critic and important Romantic figure Friedrich Schlegel, as well as perspectives from outside Germany, such as Pierre Janet's research on the subconscious and the views of F. W. H. Myers, Foucault, and others. He then quoted Foucault's work: Psychoanalysis is actually very close to the critical function that exists in all human sciences. By transforming the discourse of the unconscious into expressions within consciousness, psychoanalysis directly points to the unconscious, revealing those things that exist but are hidden, those that exist in the form of silent entities.
A review of history can help us better understand the key points of Lacan's contributions to post-Freudian psychoanalysis. Lacan put forward the proposition of "returning to Freud" in the 1940s and 1950s, aiming to provide a solid scientific foundation for Freud's theory of the unconscious. Lacan's answer lies in the new science of language pioneered by Ferdinand de Saussure, especially regarding the core concept of "structure". Structure refers to the combination of limited elements that constitute a system. Language is a system composed of phonetic elements, which are constructed in the form of combinatorial changes. Lacan believed that the unconscious has a structure like language, and language, as a system and structure, exists prior to human beings. Although language enables us to express needs and desires, once the external world becomes part of the language system, it also disconnects us from the immediacy of reality. Therefore, some symptoms, such as autism, can be regarded as attempts to resolve this contradiction by refusing to speak, even though the result of such efforts (the symptom) is tragic.
The development of psychiatry in the West can be roughly divided into two periods. The first phase was the humanistic turn in the 18th and 19th centuries. This turn opposed viewing mental illness as evil or "dangerous" and advocated for more humane treatment of patients. This shift not only contributed to the establishment of psychiatry but also promoted the emergence of a wealth of literature and the formation of comprehensive diagnostic frameworks in the second half of the 19th century. This perspective effectively illuminates the issue that Freud attempted to understand: the unconscious is not merely a continuation of individual consciousness. However, most of the literature from this period has been forgotten. The reason lies in the second stage of psychiatric development after World War II, which was marked by the introduction of psychotropic drugs.
Over the last 40 years of the 20th century, the trend of adopting a positivist approach to science began to dominate psychiatry, a phase characterized by the chemical treatment of mental illnesses. It not only involved severe cases of schizophrenia but also increasingly covered mild cognitive deficits classified as cognitive disorders. This trend was particularly evident in the United States. Biologists believed that all patterns in life could be relentlessly reduced to the genetic code. Such a strong reductionist tendency was accepted in the 1980s and 1990s. A large number of popular magazine articles claimed the existence of genetic codes for diseases such as depression and schizophrenia. However, biological research has recognized the limitations of biological reductionism. This reductionist perspective largely ended around the early 21st century, and today, basic and cutting-edge research in biology is increasingly focused on information processing and the relationship between data and meaning, rather than just chemical compositions at the molecular level.
Finally, Dr. Durst clarified his position through the case of American neuroscientist Eric A. Kandel. In his 1998 research, Kandel found that patients with damage to the medial temporal lobe or deep hippocampus are unable to form new memories of people, places, and objects. However, they can learn motor skills and perform better in perceptual tasks that do not require conscious participation. This study is considered to have discovered the neural basis of unconscious mental processes. Nevertheless, this kind of unconsciousness is completely different from what Freud referred to as the unconscious. It has nothing to do with instinctive pursuits or sexual conflicts, and such information will never enter consciousness. In the end, Professor Durst expressed his opposition to this reductionist tendency regarding the unconscious, arguing that the fallacy lies in, on the one hand, the incorrect assumption that the unconscious is merely a form of hidden subconscious recall, and on the other hand, that this empirical scientific method cannot explain the causal relationships that lead to different symptoms. Therefore, at least in Europe, people have begun to question this simplistic reductionism from the United States, which is also an ongoing topic of debate in the contemporary psychoanalytic community.
After the lecture, Professor Durst had a full discussion and exchange with the teachers and students present on issues such as attitudes towards symptoms, the history and future of psychoanalysis, and its scientific basis.
Written by: Yu Danni
Review: Wang Wei