ABSTRACT
There are many ways to modify conscious-system repression. With regard to repressed triggers, in empowered psychotherapy the most common means is reflected in this vignette—the build-up of encoded thematic clues to a missing trigger until the images overwhelm the defence. By adopting a strong adaptive viewpoint, and by using the activities of the deep unconscious system as a basis for comparison, the main attributes of the conscious mind can be identified. These include: the conscious system is our basic survival-oriented system; on the whole, emotionally charged triggers or impingements, especially overly strong affects and meanings, tend to disrupt conscious-system functioning; with regard to emotionally charged events, then, the conscious system’s primary response tends to be skewed towards self-preserving defensiveness; and the conscious system has its own unconscious subsystem—the superficial unconscious subsystem.
