ABSTRACT
Chapter 10 by Shmuel Erlich picks up on a theme that he believes did not receive the attention it deserves (i.e., the intertwined ideas of consciousness, the subject, and “the I”). He points out that Freud consistently used the term Das Ich, or “the I”, in different yet interrelated meanings, prominent at different periods, which he traces. The profound change brought about by The Ego and the Id is that “the I” (ego) is also largely unconscious, introducing the paradoxical notion of the subject, who is both conscious and unconscious and, in this sense, the master in his own house. With this formidable change, the therapeutic goal shifted profoundly from merely being aware to being responsible, introducing an ethical and social dimension into psychoanalysis.
