Abstract

This note is part of a discussion of Mark Solm's 'The Conscious Id'. It seconds Solms' claim that recent work in neuroscience indicates that the subcortical mechanisms that generate motives also generate consciousness, and that his enables us to integrate neuroscience with the Freudian Ego and Id. Still this is not reason to regard the Id as conscious. If we take full account of the role of conflict, as described in terms of the Freudian superego, we can see that the complex role of aggression in human life ensures that much of our emotional life is unconscious.