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awareness. You won't look for these influences if you don't believe in
them and/or find it too embarrassing or painful. If your resistance to
these ideas is quite high, there may be some wisdom in your reaction;
frankly, I wouldn't push it too much.
Actually, the evidence for unconscious factors is compelling. In the
split-brain studies, these people clearly have perceptions, responses,
motives and emotions that escape their awareness. Under hypnosis,
people can do things they don't remember and they can carry out
post-hypnotic suggestions without knowing why. In multiple
personalities, one personality is often not aware of all the others. We
all use defense mechanisms. No one would deny that playing,
partying, sleeping, listening to music, watching TV and so forth are
used sometimes to avoid and forget unpleasant duties; yet, we aren't
always aware of what we are doing. We often do not realize that our
own irrational ideas cause many of our emotions. Therapists
repeatedly find unconscious motivations and "unfinished business." All
of us are at times puzzled by our own behavior and feelings. We
frequently forget the way we originally learned to respond, think, or
emote in a certain way; in a sense, the causes become "unconscious"
as we forget. No one can deny these facts, but some people will still
refuse to face and look into their unconscious.
Freud would also quickly point out that the unconscious is very
clever. It might easily persuade you that your unconscious factors are
of little importance day to day, hardly worth thinking about.
Some therapies, such as Gestalt and Psychoanalysis, assume that
once you have discovered some force in your unconscious, you will
automatically handle the force in a healthy manner. Almost as though
the unconscious drive loses its power once the owner becomes aware
of it. This may not be true. We need to know much more about
handling these vile impulses we all have.
Effectiveness, advantages and dangers
I know of no solid objective evidence of the benefits of uncovering
unconscious motives and traits, relative to the benefits from non-
insight methods. Yet, thousands of therapy patients feel that gaining
understanding of their feelings and behavior has helped them to
change and feel better. In the process of going through training to
become an insight-oriented therapist--and while doing therapy--one
gradually accepts the idea of unconscious factors. We psychologists
haven't yet proven that insight therapists or their patients are more
aware of their unconscious or more able to handle personal problems
than others. In fact, Ellis (1987) says we keep on fooling ourselves
even after therapy. This denial of the truth may, in some instances,
actually help us feel better about ourselves (see discussion in the
introduction to this chapter). So, there are potential dangers in
becoming aware and in remaining unaware.
