ABSTRACT
Psychoanalysis is defined as the investigation of unconscious processes and tends to view conscious subjective experience as epiphenomenal and dissimulating, that is, as manifest content that disguises latent meanings. According to Freudian theory, there is a convergence between the Enlightenment project of knowing oneself and therapeutic cure. In post-Freudian developments, the goal of self-knowledge has been supplemented by corrective emotional experience as a primary factor in psychoanalytic treatment. There are a number of other developments that have shifted the emphasis from a focus on ‘deeply’ buried mental contents to a concern with conscious experience as well as access to material just below the surface of consciousness.
