ABSTRACT
Many people have a problem with psychoanalytical theory because it is grounded in the concept of the unconscious. They find this concept distasteful and justify their distaste on the basis of two fundamental criticisms: that they can find no empirical evidence for it and that it is ahistorical. In this paper I want to begin by looking briefly at what I think constitutes evidence for the unconscious and then move on to consider the charge of it being ahistorical and examine what this charge really means. I shall then argue that rejection of the unconscious on these grounds is part of a more serious problem for the production of feminist knowledge of the personal—the problem of anxiety often experienced as distaste. A feminist knowledge which can theorize the link between sociology and psychoanalytic theory—integrate social and psychical reality—may only be possible if we can find a way of moving beyond anxiety to an integration of our own personal social and psychical dimensions in the form of insight.
