ABSTRACT
UNTIL about fifty years ago, almost all psychologists and philosophers in the West were interested only in the understanding of the conscious state of mind, while the study of the subconscious, or unconscious, was practically neglected. Although there have been a few references to the subconscious in the writings of psychologists, they do not give us complete understanding of it. In the West the study of the subconscious mind was started by Charcot and his student Janêt, the great French psychologists. They made a study of some mental cases and, in the course of their observation, they realized that the conscious states of mind and behavior of man depend greatly on something that is not known to the individual or to others. During their experiments in hypnotism 1 they gathered materials which convinced them that the mind has not only a conscious state but also a hidden state, the subconscious, which is the determining factor of man’s conscious activities. Janêt’s successor, Freud, made a great discovery of the inner states of the mind which are not known to the average man and yet are powerful and extremely dynamic in changing his conscious activities and behavior.
