ABSTRACT
A Russian friend of mine was looking through some books when he came across a title which mystified him. It was Ellenberger’s history of psychoanalysis, The Discovery of the Unconscious (1970). What on earth, he wondered, could such a book be about? It was not that he had not heard of psychoanalysis nor understood some of its basic precepts. What amazed him was that anyone could think of the unconscious as a recent discovery. For him, it was simply a fact of life experienced, often painfully, through his interactions with others, and in prayer and the sacraments, but above all as a mystery which had been exercising consciousness ever since we began as human beings to think about ourselves and our condition.
