Conscious and Unconscious Processes: Psychodynamic, Cognitive, and Neurophysiological Convergences

The notion of an unconscious mental life has been subject to debate for over a century. Psychodynamic practitioners generally understand clients' consciously experienced symptoms to reflect conflict within an unconscious realm; cognitive psychologists, on the other hand, doubt the validity of this psychodynamic understanding of unconscious processes. This volume attempts to bridge the theoretical gulf between the two approaches by providing objective evidence for unconscious conflict in psychopathology. Integrating psychodynamic, cognitive, and neurophysiological methods, the authors have developed an experimental model using brain wave measurements that can differentiate types of unconscious processes. The volume provides a unique synthesis of clinical and experimental findings and blazes a new pathway for the study of brain mind interaction.