3 | THE UNCONSCIOUS
It is impossible to exactly define the term
consciousness.7 The best way to define it that I have
found, for the purpose of this presentation, is that it is every mental
content that is within the subjective experience of a person at any
given moment. By deduction, the unconscious is every mental content that
is not found within the subjective experience of an individual at a
given moment. For example, answer the following question: how old am I?
now, the reader has a number in his mind, this mental content, which
corresponds to the number of years lived, is now conscious but it was
unconscious until a few seconds ago. Of course, there are unconscious
mental contents that are easily brought to consciousness— called
preconscious— such as our age, but there are other mental contents
that are extremely difficult to bring to the conscious mind— called
unconscious proper— such as the reasons why we love as we love or why
we relate to others as we do.8 To exemplify this, ask
the passionate reader why he or she is frequently involved in an
unsatisfactory—or satisfactory, for those who are fortunate—love
relationship, and the answer would be, in contrast with our age, much
more confusing. All cognitive, affective, and behavioral phenomena can
be both conscious and unconscious.