The Affective Unconscious and the Cognitive Unconscious

Abstract

I would like to thank first the American Psychoanalytic Association for having invited me to speak at this congress. It is a great honor and I am very flattered. This invitation has a scientific importance that I would like to underline. There was a time when no contact existed between psychoanalysts and “academic psychologists.” Since then, scientific psychologists—who have an advantage over you in that they don’t belong to a particular school—have understood the importance of Freudian psychoanalysis and have incorporated, more or less prudently and successfully, its central ideas into their theories of behavior. But apart from some famous exceptions (D. Rapaport, P. Wolff, Spitz, Cobliner, and Anthony) psychoanalysts have seldom made use of their experimental results. You have invited me to speak to you today about the possible links between psychoanalytic and cognitive theories. Although I have always been rather heretical as regards dogmas, I did at one time undertake a didactic psychoanalysis in order to more fully understand the theory, and I therefore appreciate your invitation all the more, and thank you for it once again.