THE UNCONSCIOUS TODAY

The unconscious is a system that processes information in our brain automatically and is prior to consciousness both phylogenetically and ontogenetically, consciousness evolutionarily assumes a qualitative variation in the way this information is processed and is produced by a progressive jump of our system nervous to be able to increase our adaptive capacity in front of the environment.

We have achieved a high degree of abstraction that has allowed human beings to configure a personal identity, consciousness is a subjective experience, an experiential knowledge of ourselves and the world around us, but it has a very limited processing capacity.

Contrary to unconscious processing, where our mind is able to process an infinitely greater amount of information and even, if necessary, it does so by organizing it into meaningful units so that it can be used by consciousness. The unconscious processes a lot of information in parallel simultaneously, executes more tasks and is much faster in turn the consciousness processes sequentially.

Our emotions are the bridge between these two systems, but the processing of a stimulus, both external and internal begins with an unconscious analysis of it, therefore we can’t help feeling what we feel, but if we try to control its expression and the ideation that he has set it in motion, the emotions are connected with our physical system and give us a lot of information about our organism and have the faculty to produce instantaneous changes in it when the circumstances require it. These primitive emotional mechanisms are those that throughout our evolution have made our survival possible, the automatic processing of information in our brain, although we have developed a cognitive structure where our conscience is located, it continues to control a large part of our system even though it costs us a lot to accept it.

Nowadays, brain research in the neuroscience field, specifically from the neuroscience of affectivity, confirms that the affective states are not located in the neocortex, although the emotions affect the whole cortical area massively, we must accept that a large part of our emotions automatically operate in our psychic system. This means that we need to take into account if we want to understand our mind in its entirety that basic emotions can be experienced without the need for cognitive activity, so in the light of new discoveries from the scientific paradigm we can say that unconscious phenomena if they produce a lasting impact on our behavior and can cause in our animic life the most diverse consequences.

This fact is of utmost importance to configure new forms of treatment in psychic dysfunctions, perhaps uniting disciplines that are now working in isolation each one on their side to give hope to human suffering.