ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the idea of an “associative unconscious”, differentiated from the repressed dynamic unconscious so well articulated through Sigmund Freud and his followers. It explores some of the ideas of the philosopher Charles S. Peirce, whose concept of “abductive logic” not only provides a logic to underpin psychoanalytic and socioanalytic thinking, but also provides a conceptual framework for the associative processes. The chapter argues that the associative unconscious is as vital to understanding socioanalytic phenomena as the repressed unconscious. The idea of an associative unconscious brings forward the notion that all human thought and meaning is implicate within human symbolic form and capacity. Symbolic functions are the very basis of human thought, whether in mathematics, the syllogisms of formal logic, natural languages and musical forms, or common sense and colloquial logic. It is only when the symbolic function remains uncreated or destroyed, as in psychotic functioning, that the boundary between conscious and unconscious dissolves.
