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Response to commentaries
Vesa Talvitie & Juhani Ihanus
Published online: 09 Jan 2014.

To cite this article: Vesa Talvitie & Juhani Ihanus (2003) Response to commentaries, Neuropsychoanalysis: An
Interdisciplinary Journal for Psychoanalysis and the Neurosciences, 5:2, 153-158, DOI: 10.1080/15294145.2003.10773421
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Neuro-Psychoanalysis, 2003, 5 (2)

for more care in laying out the ideas and scholarship makes this a difficult article to evaluate.
Nonetheless, I think this is an area worth pursuing

153

REFERENCE

Searle, J. (1992). The Rediscovery of the Mind. Cambridge,

MA: MIT Press.

Response to commentaries
Vesa Talvitie & Juhani Ihanus

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WHAT IS IT LIKE
TO BE UNCONSCIOUSLY MENTAL?

In our target article we aimed to transform philosophicalwe think mainly uselessspeculations

concerning the mental nature of the unconscious
into scientific or neurophysiological issues. When
looking at the comments, it becomes evident that
we have failed completely: philosophical issues
have a prominent role in the comments of the reviewers. Moreover, none of the reviewers sees the
basic line of thought of our article to be fruitful
when the dilemma between the psychoanalytic and
the cognitive unconscious is attempted to be resolved.
However, every reviewer thinks the topic to be
importantthis is not a surprise, because we are
dealing with the cornerstone of psychoanalysis.
Sharing this idea, and being glad to have an opportunity to study this topic together with the reviewers,
we will still try to argue in favor of our view.

Mental, facts, and explanations

Mental is a tricky term. It is (together with psychic) probably the most common psychological
term, but there is no standard definition for it. For us
(and for Searle and many others, too), the term
mental is inescapably tied to the unique characteristics of consciousness: emotions, affects, and the
feeling of what it is like to possess a certain idea.
However, it is often used in a very general sense to
refer to processes that occur, or structures that exist,
in the mind/brain (of humans). Only few researchersin addition to psychoanalytic ones, or, for example, the HOT-theorists (see Gennaro, 1996, pp.
103120)have reasons to debate whether unconscious matters are mental or not.
When pondering if A has a property of B or not,
we usually know what B is, and how it may appear
to us. We know how to find out if a certain matter is,
for example, wet or radioactive. In the present topic,

however, the foundations are quite different. In the

domain of psychoanalysis, we are accustomed to
thinking that the unconscious is mental, but it has
never been clear what this means. Consequently, in
the present discussion there is an emphasis on trying
to find a suitable definition for the term mental.
Actually, Searles view about which nonconscious matters are mental is not an empirically testable idea either: he just proposes how the term
mental should or could be used in the case of the
unconscious. For Searle, those neurophysiological
structures that possess power to give rise to specific
conscious states should be called mental. Contrary to that, one might argue that those neurophysiological structures that make it possible to possess
phenomenal conscious states in general should be
called mentalfrom the point of view of the
mindbody problem, this general capacity is more
interesting than specific conscious states. Which
view is wrong and which one correct? We think this
question is not reasonable. What if we were to treat
the views as complementary and accept them both?
This would lead to an idea that almost the whole
brain is mental. We possess conscious mental states,
and the brain that gives rise to these states (in
general and in particular) is hereby also called mental. But what would be achieved with all this? We
see it as more reasonable to slightly reshape certain
psychoanalytic intuitions than to carry on (another
100 years) terminological acrobatics with the
mental unconscious.
Dr Weinberger stated that from the point of view
of cognitive scientists and social psychologists, the
view we presented in the target article might be
acceptable. But what are the psychoanalytic reasons
to define the term mental otherwise than Searle and
most cognitivist researchers do? We think that the
reasons concern intuitions about how to explain a
certain phenomenon found in psychoanalysis: For
an analyst, an analysand seems to miss certain contents of consciousness, and later those contents (or
something quite close to the analysts idea of them)
appear to the analysands consciousness. A succes-

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154

sive psychoanalytic treatment proceeds along with

these kinds of processes.
Freud held that the missing contents preexist in
the unconscious (in a form that somehow resembles
contents of consciousness: hence the word mental)
and cause symptoms, disorders, and other matters.
The idea of making the repressed conscious has
been the leading principle of psychoanalytic technique, and it has shown itself to be reasonable and
effective. If this phenomenon is not at the heart of
the problem concerning the nature of the unconscious, we hope to be corrected.
Here we have to be especially careful when making the distinction between the data and the
explanation(s). The data consist of matters such as
certain missing contents of consciousness and the
later appearance of them, as slips of the tongue,
symptoms, and disorders, and finally their disappearance. The idea concerning the preexistence of
those missing contents of consciousness is an explanation (or a hypothesis). The core question of the
discussion around our target article is the following:
is Freuds explanation accurate, and if it is not, what
kind of explanation should we create to replace it?
To explain the data in question, there is another
line of reasoning, too: the missing contents do not
preexist, but they are prohibited from becoming
formed in consciousness. When certain preconditions are created, a missing content may become
formed in consciousness. This view is not alien to
psychoanalysis at all. For example, thinking in
terms of primary and secondary processes implies
that contents are not made conscious but become
formed in (or transformed into) consciousness along
with a huge amount of conscious and brain processes. When repression is studied from the point of
view of repressive acts (or defenses), the process
view is also emphasized.
Freuds explanation is compatible with the way
the phenomenon appears to an analyst, and sometimes to analysands, too (or maybe matters appear
that way because of Freuds explanation). Psychoanalytically oriented researchers still seem to be
willing to think that those presecondary-process
matters are quite (or somehow) like the contents that
emerge to patients consciousness along with the
cure. In other words, they wantor at least so it
seems to usexplanations to resemble the way
matters appear to them in clinical practice.
Psychoanalysis should not, any more than any
other branch of study, take certain explanations as
self-evident characteristics of the domain. In psychoanalysis, the main attention should be paid to
data, to certain aims (to curing patients, to getting
knowledge of the mind/brain), and to the best techniques for reaching those aims. If there is such a
thing as Freuds legacy, we think that it points

Vesa Talvitie & Juhani Ihanus

toward critically examining psychoanalytic explanations in the light of up-to-date knowledge. When
there are such serious difficulties in determining the
nature of the Freudian (mental) unconscious, we
should turn to more recent points of view.
We have recently presented a model (Talvitie
& Ihanus, 2002) that aims to explain making
the repressed conscious in terms of implicit and
explicit knowledge. According to our model, unconscious matters are not made conscious in psychoanalysis, and thus the new contents of consciousness
that emerge in the cure do not preexist in the brain
or in the unconscious either. Thus, our model does
not lean on the idea of the mental nature of the
unconscious, but is based on empirical research
derived from cognitive views. Our model may turn
out to be erroneous, but we strongly favor the strategy of creating better models based on empirical
research and psychoanalytic clinical data instead of
concentrating on speculations about the meanings
that might be given to the term mental.
We are happy that Dr. Brakel stressed the clinical
point of view: theories should not exist in a fictive
reality without connections to clinical practice.
However, we still think that even if a psychoanalyst
could accept the view we presented in our target
article (though, judging by the comments, this may
seem unlikely), it should not alter (a lot) the way he/
she works. Despite what we have presented above,
we see that psychoanalysts should feel free to think
of the patients mind in terms of hidden ideas,
desires, etc. This permissive attitude may seem to be
opportunistic, or postmodern, but we think it
has good foundations. Theoretical hypotheses made
by an analystwhether they are metapsychological, neurophysiological, applied from cognitivists
models, or whateverhave to be presented to analysands in everyday language (in terms of folk psychology). It is hard to believe that, for example,
neurophysiological speculations with patients
would be especially curative. One of us (Talvitie,
2003) has suggested that just as parents should think
of an infant in terms of ideas and desires that he/she
will possess when older (Fonagy, 2001, p. 27), so in
the clinical situation an analyst should think of a
patients unconscious matters from the point of
view of what they would be like if they were conscious. This might be called a psychoanalysts
stance.
Thus, we deem it possible and appropriate to get
it both ways: Theoretically, we maintain that one
should holdas Searle and most cognitivists do
that the unconscious contains only neurophysiological matters. In a clinical situation, there is no reason
to avoid thinking in terms of repressed contents
when it gives support in reaching the aims of the
cure.

On the Nature of Repressed Contents Response to Commentaries

After these considerations, we would like to study

closer certain ideas presented by the commentators.

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Structures vs. processes

Joel Weinberger states the following: For a content
to be repressed, it must arouse anxiety that then
motivates the person to keep it from reaching consciousness. It then must continually strive for expression. This then leads to all of the vicissitudes of
the unconscious that are so unique to psychoanalytic
theory. There are many theory-laden suppositions
here (i.e., the distinction between data and explanation is not made clear), but we will not go into them.
Weinbergers quite traditional view on repressed
contents contains a well-known problem: thinking
in terms of a distinct entity that is prevented from
becoming conscious implies an existence of another
entity (censorship) that keeps certain contents out
of consciousness. Thus, we faceas Weinberger
surely knowsthe homunculus fallacy. It is a fact
that contents that are formed in consciousness along
with the cure do often give rise to anxiety. When
explaining this fact, we should not, however, imply
the existence of a homunculus.
We do not have a nonhomuncular explanation of
repression. However, we can suggest a direction in
which such an explanation might be sought: the
dynamic systems approach. The approach is not
easy to gather from the contemporary viewpoints of
cognitive science and psychoanalysis. In Models of
the Self (Gallagher & Shear, 1999) we find articles
that bring the dynamic systems view very close to
the phenomenon of repression. In his ground-breaking work The Emergent Ego: Complexity and Coevolution in the Psychoanalytic Process, Stanley
Palombo (1999) has shown us how the systems view
can be applied to psychoanalytic thinking.
In psychological theorizing, we can discern the
difference between the emphasis given to structures
on the one hand and to processes on the other. The
traditional psychoanalytic view of becoming conscious of the repressed is grounded on the idea that
there exist in the brain definable structures containing representations that may be activated into consciousness. From the process side, we findfor
exampleSearle, the dynamic systems approach,
the parallel distributed processes (PDP) view, the
idea of transforming unconscious matters into consciousness, and the views stressing the constructive
nature of remembering. In general, within the scope
of the process view, it is thought of in terms of
several interacting systems and structures (e.g.,
memory-chunks, sub-systems of implicit knowledge), which are relatively simple (see, e.g.,
Juarrero, 1999; Panksepp, 1998). Even memories

155

are nowadays not characterized in terms of a definable structure of the brain that would possess a
certain content.
We made a supposition above that the psychoanalytic view concerning the mental unconscious is
closely related to the idea of bringing unconscious
contents to consciousness. If so, the problems with
telling what it is like to be unconsciously mental
are closely related to the present trend to give emphasis to processes over structures.
Weinberger continues this way:
Searle has no problem with repression defined in
this way. And no doubt there are many [mental
states] that could not be brought to consciousness
for one reason or anotherthey may be too painful
and hence too deeply repressed for us to think about
them, for example (p. 154). So what are the authors
interested in reconciling?

It seems that when there is reconciliation between

Searle and the commentators (Brakel too cited this
sentence), there is disagreement between us and
Searle. We think that present-day views do not
support the idea that in the brain there would be
ready-made states that then could be brought to
consciousnessespecially when those states have
never been conscious (as it is often supposed in the
domain of psychoanalysis). Instead, contents of
consciousness become formed (or constructed)
along with brain processes and conscious processes.

Some possible characteristics

of the mental unconscious
Linda Brakels reinterpretation of Edelmans (and
Tononis) thinking is very interesting and surely
worth elaborating. Edelmans thinking has a process
emphasis too, but Brakels reinterpretation of it
opens an interesting view of the idea of repressed
contents.
Brakel states that
Searle has Freud (and psychoanalysis) exactly
right. The foundational claim of psychoanalysis is
that there are subjective, first-person, intentional,
meaningful, representational mental states that are
unconscious and exert great influence on the subjective, first-personal, intentional, meaningful, representational conscious mental states that we
experience. [emphasis added]

She also says that

For something to qualify as a mental state, (1) it
would need to consist of a neurophysiological process in the brain, and (2) it would need to be firstpersonal, subjective, and intrinsically intentional.

Let us study more closely the words first-personal,

156

subjective, intrinsically intentional, meaningful, and representational.

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First-personal and subjective. After presenting

certain problems of the idea, Brakel suggests how
neurophysiological states might be said to be
first-personal, subjective. We think that unique
would be a better word for the matters Brakel
presents: every brain is unique, and every brain
processes stimuli in a unique way. We cannot
grasp why the terms first-personal, subjective
should be favored, and what could be won by
using them.
Intrinsically intentional. Let us think of implicit
representations, which do not cause direct consequences to consciousness, cannot be made
conscious, and which affect our behavior. They
have become formed in a given situation, and
thus they can be said to be about it. They also
become activated by certain stimuli (resembling
somehow the situation in which the representation has become formed), and thus there is a
consistent relation between the representation
and certain stimuli. The representations are about
certain matters, and they are closely tied to certain stimuli. However, they are surely not intrinsically intentional. Brakel does not suggest how
neurophysiological matters might be intrinsically
intentional. For us, it does not seem to be possible.
Meaningful. Brakel accepts the foundational
claim of psychoanalysis about preexisting unconscious meaningful mental states. For us, meaningful mental states are not hidden (or already
made) in the mental unconscious or in neurophysiological processes. Matters are made (firstpersonally) meaningful in a conscious meaningmaking process.
Representational. This is undoubtedly a difficult
term. As Brakel notes, some researchers argue
that there are no unconscious representations. In
addition to this, there are thought to be both
implicit and explicit representations, and still it is
thought that a matter may be represented implicitly (see Dennett, 1987, pp. 213225). For the
present topic, the crucial thing is whether representations that have no direct consequences to
consciousness may change in such a way that
they would have such consequences (i.e., the
repressed would become conscious). At least in
some cases (implicit representations), this is not
possible. And in any case it is hard to argue that
sophisticated representations would become
formed without conscious processing. We agree
with Brakel that reference can be variable and yet

Vesa Talvitie & Juhani Ihanus

stable. The signified is not identical with a

(fixed) referencethis should be quite clear to
those who have read modern linguistics, philosophy, or even literary criticism. We stress that a
representational content has variable references,
and its meanings are constructed, reconstructed,
and co-constructed in ongoing conscious meaning-making (-manipulation and -preservation)
processes. In discussions like the present one, we
can see that our representations do not refer fixedly, but we can still consciously negotiate about
the world of possible (polyphonic) meanings.
That makes for some stability in the very variability.

Mentalometers, T1s and T2s,

and Deep Junior
We are afraid that the commentators still do not
accept our basic view, but let us reverse the situation: What should happen that the psychoanalytic
idea of the mental unconscious would become commonly accepted? The burden of proof is on the side
of mentalistsone cannot be supposed to show
that something does not exist. We think that basically there are two routes to arguing in favor of
the mental unconscious: an empirical, and a philosophical (or a conceptual) one. When favoring the
former, one should be able to answer the following
question: How could the mental nature of the unconscious (neurophysiological structures) be revealed by using the methods of the natural sciences?
Currently, there is no mentalometer, and because nobody can tell what an unconscious mental
state/structure is like, it is unlikely that such a
machine would be developed. On the other hand, in
the past, people could not imagine what radioactivity might be; however, scientists have built machines that measure radioactivity. But how long
does it make sense to wait for a mentalometer?
For those who define the term mental by referring
to qualities of consciousness, the empirical project
to advocate the idea of the mental unconscious
appears as hopeless: it is a conceptual impossibility.
When making a philosophical or a conceptual (a
nonempirical) appeal for the idea of the mental
unconscious, one should be able to answer the following question: If a consensus could be reached
about which unconscious (neurophysiological) matters should be called mental, what would have
become explained, and how would the research
have advanced?
We have been trying to avoid going into a discussion about what we think a commentator thinks
Searle thinks Freud thinks about the nature of the
unconscious. So far, we believe we have succeeded

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On the Nature of Repressed Contents Response to Commentaries

in this, but David Livingstone Smiths comment

provides a hard challenge to our attitude. However,
we will not give up, and we will still make use of our
position concerning the burden of proof.
Smith presents his continuity argument in terms
of four statements. We disagree with the second,
which goes this way: Only content-bearing mental
processes can provide mental continuity. Nonmental processes do not possess semantic content
and therefore cannot provide semantic continuity.
Continuity between T1 and T2 is a fact, but it is far
from clear what it means that Only content-bearing
mental processes can provide mental continuity
between T1 and T2. In the spirit of our target article,
we propose not to get fixed to content-bearing (a
philosophical issue) and just to study how the brain
produces continuity between T1 and T2 (an empirical issue). Thus, we would like to ask: What else is
content-bearing apart from producing continuity between T1 and T2, What does it mean for an unconscious process to be mental, and How/why is the
mental character of those processes in particular
necessary for the continuity?
Let us make the point in another way. To us, it
seems that Smiths view implies an existence of a
nonphysiological (or nonneural) aspect of the unconscious. The problem with this (supposed) implication is the danger of dualism. Smith states:
Notice that Freud does not assert that the latent
states are nonphysiological. Freud was a physicalist
and held that latent or unconscious mental states
possess both a neural ontology and mental properties. It has to be asked what the mental properties
of the unconscious states are, in addition to neural
ontology. We cannot escape the idea that Freud
supposed the unconscious to possess some kind
of indiscernible mental (psychic, seelisch) stuff
in addition to neurophysiological matters. If so, his
view is dualistic, which is taken to be a bad thing
by himself and by many others. The materialistic
project becomes thus in danger of being abandoned.
Freud himself reminded us that psychoanalysts are
at bottom incorrigible mechanists and materialists,
even though they seek to avoid robbing the mind and
spirit of their still unrecognized characteristics
(Freud, 1941 [1921], p. 179).
Smith continuesastonishingly to usby claiming: Unconscious mental states are states of the
central nervous system that encode representational
content. This sounds like aspectual shape is coded
in the nervous system, and welike Searle and
Velmanshave no categorical disagreement with
that idea. But if so, why the term mental?
To make our view more accessible, we would
like to present a counterexample T1 and T2 situation. Imagine Harry trying to solve a mate in three
moves chess problem. After having tried to solve it

157

for a long time (T1), he forwards the problem to the

Deep Junior chess computer. He goes for a walk
for three hours, comes back, and then (T2) either
(a) the solution pops into his mind;
or
(b) he sees the solution on the screen of the computer.
In an important sense, cases (a) and (b) are, to
Harry, phenomenologically similar: there is no conscious processing of the problem between T1 and T2.
For Smith, in case (a) there occurs unconscious
mental processing. How about (b)? Smith leaves
this question open (It is worth noting that the
question of whether or not computers instantiate
mental functions remains a lively debate in cognitive science). However, psychoanalysts would
hardly like the idea that the unconscious is mental in
the sense of how computers function. Thus, we
think that in the present discussion it is justified to
just state that computers are not mental creatures.
Anyway, in case (b) there is continuity: nonmental Deep Junior solved the problem that Harry
might have solved. An apparent question arises: if a
computer can solve problems without mental processes, why should we consider our unconscious
problem-solving to be mental in nature? We can see
no reasons for that. Despite certain differences between cases (a) and (b) (e.g., Harry possessed conscious states in T1 and T2 , but the computer did not),
we evaluate research in the domain of AI to be
highly relevant to the topics of repression and the
unconscious.
In a nutshell, Smiths view seems to implyafter
allthe (dualistic) supposition of the unconscious
mental stuff. We see the relinquishing of the
conventional psychoanalytic idea of the mental unconscious as necessary for the psychoanalytic endeavor.
Finally, it should be remembered that the problems discussed here are rooted in the fact that nobody knows how and why the brain creates
conscious mental states. Whenor ifthis problem is solved, all the ideas presented in this discussion will appear in a new light.
The success of Searles Chinese room argument
(Searle, 1980) as well as the present discussion
shows that John Searle has a characteristic to get
people thinking. We are grateful for the target
book of our target article, and would be glad to see
Dr. Searles comments on this discussion. They
would surely be interesting to us, to the reviewers,
and to the readers of Neuro-Psychoanalysis, but
also fruitful for future neuro-psychoanalytic theorizing.

158
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