Awareness, the Origin of Thought, and the Role of Conscious Self-Deception in Resistance and Repression

Non-conscious processes involved in the formulation, organization, and expression of thought and consciousness are examined. It is argued that non-organized impulses and imageless non-linguistic knowledge exist prior to and result in the organization recognized as consciousness and thought. Hence consciousness is viewed as the developmental endpoint of a unitary process originating as non-activated sensations and knowledge, i.e., awareness. Because one can be aware of and have knowledge of “things” prior to being conscious of them, it is possible to know, yet not know, or rather not think about certain objectionable feelings or tacit ideas. These imageless, non-linguistic forms of knowledge are not unconscious; rather they are non-labeled and non-descriptive. Within this framework the Freudian conception of unconscious processes is examined and shown to support a model of self-deception, defined as a conscious refusal to attend to unstructured tacit knowledge of which one is simultaneously aware.