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On the Nature of Repressed ContentsA WorkingThrough of John Searles Critique

a

Vesa Talvitie Lic. Psych. & Juhani Ihanus Ph.D.

a

Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki, Finland.

Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki; Adjunct Professor of Cultural

Psychology, University of Helsinki; Adjunct Professor of the History of Science and Ideas,
University of Oulu; Lecturer, Open University of the University of Helsinki, Finland.
Published online: 09 Jan 2014.

To cite this article: Vesa Talvitie Lic. Psych. & Juhani Ihanus Ph.D. (2003) On the Nature of Repressed ContentsA
Working-Through of John Searles Critique, Neuropsychoanalysis: An Interdisciplinary Journal for Psychoanalysis and the
Neurosciences, 5:2, 133-142, DOI: 10.1080/15294145.2003.10773417
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15294145.2003.10773417

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Neuro-Psychoanalysis, 2003, 5 (2)

133

On the Nature of Repressed Contents

A Working-Through of John Searles Critique

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Vesa Talvitie & Juhani Ihanus (Helsinki)

The philosopher John Searle has called Freuds idea about repressed contents incoherent, factually empty, and
implying dualism. Thus he has been seen as a critic of psychoanalysis. This view is questioned in the present article.
Searle shares the central ideas of psychoanalysis, and the differences between him and Freud are conceptual. Problems
with unconscious meanings and mental contents of the repressed are treated here as philosophical, and the debate on this
issue is suggested to have minor relevance for clinical data and psychoanalytic practice. The authors of this article prefer
the terms unconscious meaning preservation and meaning manipulation instead of repressed contents. It is
problematic to show how repressed contents would exist other than as neurophysiological structures. However, talk about
repressed desires and memories is assessed as unavoidable and reasonable for psychoanalytic practice.

Cognitive scientists have shown keen interest in

unconscious matters in the last decade, and this has
established new common grounds between psychoanalysis and cognitive science. Drew Westen
(2000) has carried out an extensive review of the
experimental study of consciousness from the psychoanalytic point of view. He concludes by stating
that Freud was right in his central hypothesis that
much of mental life, including thought, feeling,
emotion, is unconscious (Westen, 2000, p. 1094).
On the basis of this kind of statement, it seems
clear that contemporary research supports Freuds
core idea in many ways. To be a little more precise,
we might say that the large body of experimental
study could be condensed into two general issues:
(1) we possess representations, the existence of
which we are not aware of (Westen, 2000, pp.
10641068); (2) affective and motivational processes are often unconscious (pp. 10711094).
When we study the unconscious, we have to
separate processes (what happens unconsciously)
on the one hand, and nonconscious contents (what
exists in our mind which we are not aware of ) on the
other. Westen concentrates firmly on the former: the
word content is not even mentioned in his article,
and the nature of nonconscious representations is
not considered. The focus of our article is on the
nature of the contents or representations the existence of which we are not aware of.

John Searles chapter The Unconscious and Its

Relation to Consciousness in The Rediscovery of
the Mind (1992) can be seen as criticism of the
psychoanalytic idea of repressed contents, because
he calls Freuds theory incoherent (p. 151), factually empty (p. 167), and implying dualism (p.
170). There is disagreement between Searle and
psychoanalytic authors (Brakel, 1994; Gillett, 1996;
Palombo, 1994; Shevrin, 1990; Smith, 1999, pp.
137155; see also Lloyd, 1996) on two issues: for
the latter, Searles view of why/how repressed contents are mental is not strong enough; for Searle,
there are no meanings in the unconscious.
Searles chapter certainly implies criticism of
certain formulations of Freud, especially against
likening consciousness to perception. When we take
a closer look at his chapter, however, we notice that
he is not suggesting that psychoanalytic arguments
are inconclusive. As a matter of fact, he says that the
whole problem is erroneously stated when we ask if
repressed mental states exist or not (Searle, 1992, p.
167). The problem with the Freudian unconscious is
not ontological but terminological. There is no
doubt about the existence and power of unconscious
matters, but Searle sees problems in the terminology
that is used by psychoanalysts when the unconscious
is referred to. Thus we argue that Searles ideas
should not be taken as an attack. Instead of that, we
prefer that they should be worked through.

Vesa Talvitie, Lic. Psych.: Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki, Finland.

Juhani Ihanus, Ph.D.: Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki; Adjunct Professor of Cultural Psychology, University of Helsinki;
Adjunct Professor of the History of Science and Ideas, University of Oulu; Lecturer, Open University of the University of Helsinki, Finland.
Correspondence: Vesa Talvitie, Department of Psychology, P.O. Box 9, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland (email: vesa.talvitie@
helsinki.fi).
Acknowledgements: Simo Korkee, Olli Louhimo, Petri Meronen.

134

Philosophical topics are discussed in the present

article, but the basic goal is practical. We aim to
define how psychoanalysis could maintain its position as a psychological discipline (researching the
unconscious life of humans) without becoming
entangled in philosophical debate concerning intentionality, meanings, and the mental. We will do
this by considering Searleswe think accurate
critique and by formulating psychoanalytic ideas
concerning repressed contents in a way that is compatible with present-day views of cognitive science.

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Repressed contents in psychoanalysis

Freud (1914, p. 16) held repression to be a cornerstone of psychoanalytic thinking. However, the
issue of the conscious/repressed appears in a somewhat different light in more recent writings (e.g.,
Kernberg, Winnicott, Kohut). At least, the formula
repressed content symptom becoming conscious getting rid of the symptom is usually
expressed in a more sophisticated manner. The aim
of this article is to study the nature of the contents of
which we are not conscious, and not to reflect on
nuances of clinical practice. Thus, we hold to the
traditional Freudian description and vocabulary of
unconscious contentswhich is the object of
Searles critique, too.
Freud described the repressed as part of the unconscious, as something that has content. He
claimed that Everything that is repressed must
remain unconscious (Freud, 1915, p. 166). On the
subject of the unconscious, he wrote: How are we
to arrive at a knowledge of the unconscious? It is of
course only as something conscious that we know it,
after it has undergone transformation or translation
into something conscious (p. 166). Nevertheless, he
also often expressed the thought that the unconscious could become conscious (das Bewusstwerden: e.g., 1920, p. 24; 1923a, p. 250; zum Bewusstsein zu kommen: 1923a, p. 254), that it could
be brought to consciousness (zum BW zu bringen:
1923a, p. 250), or that it could surface to consciousness (im Bewusstsein aufgetaucht: 1913, p. 437).
Sometimes, contrary to his 1915 claim, he also
thought it possible that even the repressedsexual
desires, for examplecould, to some extent, be
made conscious through analysis (das Bewusstmachen der verdrngten Sexualgelste in der Analyse: 1923b, pp. 227228; so viel Verdrngtes
bewusst gemacht: 1937, p. 63). He ascribed to the
repressed a strong upward drive, an impulsion to
break through into consciousness (1933, p. 68; see
also Talvitie & Ihanus, 2002, p. 1312).
When we concentrate on Searles critique, it is
crucial to notice that Freud made an analogy be-

Vesa Talvitie & Juhani Ihanus

tween perception and consciousness: In psychoanalysis there is no choice for us but to assert that
mental processes are in themselves unconscious,
and to liken the perception of them by means of
consciousness to the perception of the external
world by means of sense-organs (Freud, 1915, p.
171; for a review of the perception metaphor, see
Solms, 1997, pp. 683687). Opinions diverge on the
role of this metaphorlater referred as the perception metaphorin psychoanalysis: for example,
Solms (1997) leans on it heavily, whereas Natsoulas
(1995, p. 307) criticizes Searle and psychoanalytic
authors for taking a misleading metaphor of
Freuds literally.
Talk about repressed contents does not belong
only to the history of psychoanalysis. Edelson
(1990, pp. 3739), for example, considers repressed
fantasies to be mental dispositions, but he also mentions the latent content of fantasy (see also
Shevrin, Bond, Brakel, Hertel, & Williams, 1996,
pp. 264266). Slap and Saykin (1994) state that the
contents of the repressed include theories and fantasies, and the latter could be thought of as film
clips. According to this kind of thinking, the repressed is something between the brain and consciousness, and it (1) has content (it contains ideas,
desires, fantasies, and memories), (2) cannot be
described in terms of neurophysiology, and (3) is
intentional (psychic, mental). Searles critique is
directed against the second thesis: When you make
a claim about unconscious intentionality, there are
no facts that bear on the case except neurophysical
facts. There is nothing else there except neurophysiological states and processes describable in neurophysical terms (Searle, 1992, p. 161). To put it in
other words, when unconscious contents are not
perceived (in terms of the perception metaphor) or
translated into something conscious, they are
nothing but neurophysiology. This view may seem
to question the cornerstone of psychoanalysis.
Within psychoanalysis, critique can be found
concerning the idea of repressed contents which is
relative to that of Searle: Beres and Joseph (1970),
Schimek (1975), and Olds (1992), for example, hold
that there cannot be repressed contents, although
this expression is useful in psychoanalytic practice.

On the nature of representations

The issue of repressed contents is inseparable from
the larger issue of representing and representations:
repressed memory is a representation of something
that has happened previously, and repressed desire
represents a desirable state of affairs. Schimek
(1975, p. 171), who favors the psychoanalytic view,
has stated that psychoanalytic theory treats represen-

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On the Nature of Repressed Contents

tations, and especially unconscious representations,

in a vague and ambiguous way. There are similar
problems in cognitive science. The cognitivist van
Gelder (1998, p. 110), echoing Schimek from more
than twenty years earlier, stresses that representation
is one of the most vague and ambiguous notions in
cognitive science (see also Shanon, 1991; Stich,
1992; Schwitzgebel, 1999). There have even been
attempts to give up the whole idea of representations
(see Eliasmith, 1996). Problems with the term representation give us reason to make some terminological clarifications here.
First, we will say something about the often-used
expression being (or not being) conscious of a
representation. This expression easily gives rise to
confusion. When something is remembered, we are
conscious of the event, and this happens via the
activation of a representation. Moreover, we are not
conscious of the representation, but it is the existence and activation of it that enables us to be
conscious of the event in question. It would seem
more natural for talk about being conscious of representations to refer to the fact that it is through
methods of brain research that it is possible to
acquire knowledge about how and where representations lie in our brains. The expression in question
also relates to the topic of metarepresentations and
ideas about Higher Order Thoughts (HOT) proposed by Rosenthal (see, e.g., 1997): for example,
when we are asked Can you say the letters of the
alphabet in the correct order? we say Yes without any need to try it beforehand. Thus, we possess
knowledge about our knowledge, and the expression
being (or not being) conscious of a representation
refers to this fact more naturally than to the phenomenon of repression.
Because of these problems with the expression
being conscious of a representation, the following
technical-sounding terms will be used: to have (or
not to have) direct consequences on the contents of
consciousness on the one hand, and to have (or not
to have) indirect consequences on the contents of
consciousness, on the other. The former refers to a
situation in which the activation of a representation
causes an experience of remembering (or possessing, for instance, a certain desire).
The latter expression refers to the case when a
representation affects the behavior of an organism
but does not lead to the experience of remembering.
Let us imagine a situation in which someone has
been in a car accident with a red Jaguar but does not
remember anything about it. Seeing a red Jaguar,
however, makes his hands tremble. Thus the activation of the representation about the crash does not
have any direct consequences on the contents of
consciousness, butto be preciseit does affect
the contents of consciousness indirectly because the

135

person concerned sees his hands trembling. The use

of the expression to have indirect consequences on
the contents of consciousness is motivated by this
fact.
Three aspects of representations can be distinguished: (1) what they are about (reference),
(2) their nature (what they look like, what they
are made of ), and (3) what part they play in the
information processing of an organism (efficacy)
(Dretske, 1986, pp. 103107). The third aspect
gives the idea of repressed contents its practical
relevance: it would not be especially interesting if
nonconscious contents did not affect our behavior
(by causing psychic disorders, for instance).
The basic logic behind the term repression is
that to be conscious of a content is distinct from its
efficacya content does not have to be conscious to
affect behavior. In the following we consider the
relation between the contents of consciousness and
the efficacy of representations in order to show that
the basic logic in question is, in principle, nonproblematic. We then concentrate on Searles critique.

Repressed contents in the context

of information processing
According to the terminology introduced above,
repressed contents involve representations that have
no direct consequences for the contents of consciousness. As mentioned, the crucial issue is that
such representations may affect our behavior. We
can express the logic behind repression in terms of
information processing in the following way: A
content either
A. is part of information processing and thus affects
behavior, but it is not conscious (a representation
only has indirect consequences on the contents of
consciousness);
or
B. is part of information processing and is conscious
(a representation has direct consequences on the
contents of consciousness, toothe experience
of remembering).
In the psychoanalytic cure, the leap from (A) to (B)
involves the analysand becoming conscious of
something and also affects the information processing (because he/she can get rid of psychic disorders).
The concept of information processinga
central one in cognitive scienceis based on the
idea that psychic processes may be equated to
the processing of information performed by computers. The computer analogy has been in dispute

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136

for decades in the cognitive approach (for a review,

see Chalmers, 1996, pp. 313332), and this discussion has been reflected in psychoanalytic thinking
too (see, e.g., Badcock, 1994; Colby & Stoller,
1988; Palombo, 1985; Rodado & Rendon, 1996).
A computer certainly does not possess mental
processes and contents, and it does not feel anything. The analogy between the computer and the
human mind is nowadays somewhat old-fashioned,
and attempts have been made to replace it with
mind-as-braintype thinking (see, e.g., Elman,
1998). In the following, however, the relation between the screen and the computer hardware is used
as an analogy or metaphor for the relation between
the brain and consciousness. We would like to emphasize that in the following we are not stating
arguments in favor of computer analogy or strong
artificial intelligence (AI). We are suggesting that
the analogy works as a tool, in order to show, first of
all, that it is accurate to explain human behavior by
the idea of repressed contents. Second, with the help
of the analogy, we are able to address the terminological problems concerning repressed contents that
are expressed in Searles chapter.
(The activations of ) human representations have
a dual role. On the one hand, they affect behavior
(efficacy); on the other, they have effects on the
contents of consciousness. This can be seen by
referring to Thesaurus, a text-processing computer
program. Thesaurus automatically changes lowercase letters to capital letters at the beginning of a
sentence, for example. The corrections are based on
some kind of representation of the correct writing
of, say, English. The computer screen plays the role
of the consciousness, and we could consider the
effort to change letters in certain places as a desire
or a goal of the computer.
Thus the distinction between the efficacy of a
representation and its consequences for the contents
of consciousness could be set out as follows in the
case of the computer.
Thesaurus (and the representation of correct writing) is either
A. instantiated (the information goes through the
program and the letters are changed), but in such
a way that it is not connected to the desktop: a
naive user cannot know anything about the program, and the working of it (the changing of
letters) is unmanageable to him/her (cf. psychic
disorders and slips caused by the repressed);
or
B. also connected to the desktop, and the program
icon appears on the screen: the program both
takes part in the information processing and has
direct effects on the screen (so the user can learn

Vesa Talvitie & Juhani Ihanus

the functioning of the program and can also make

changes to it).
What can be said about the repressed on the basis
of the computer analogy? Mental processes could be
equated to the flow of messages charting the
progress of an antivirus program, for example:
checking file UCS, five viruses found, etc.
What appears on the screen is entirely different
from what is happening inside the computer. In
cognitive science, unconscious processes are
thought to be such that they cannot become conscious under any circumstancesthey are the basis
on which consciousness works (Fodor, 1983).
Freuds thinking goes this way too. The unconscious primary process (with thing [re]presentations) lacks the characteristics (time, oppositions,
etc.) of the secondary process (with word [re]presentations), and therefore these two processes are
essentially different (Freud, 1915, pp. 186189).
According to Freud, unconscious processes cannot
become conscious (cognized) (Freud, 1915, p.
187; see also Solms, 1997, pp. 683687).
Repressed memory contents can be said to be
analogous to a (text) file that is not activated on the
screen. It is clear that there are (or may be) differences in the ease of activation in both human
memory traces and the files of a computer. Thus
there is no problem of principle in the idea that a
certain memory is hard to activate. From the point of
view of cognitive science, it is also possible to think
that the psychoanalytic cure may help analysands to
remember better (see Erdelyi, 1996, p. 65).
Our example of Thesaurus and its desire to
capitalize letters shows that desires do not have to
be conscious (to have direct consequences on the
screen) in order to affect information processing
Thesaurus can do its job whether it is visible on the
screen or not. As a matter of fact, it can even be said
that nowadays it is hard to find a scientist who
would claim that a representation must have direct
consequences on the contents of consciousness in
order to affect behavior. Research in the domain of
implicit knowledge/memory (for reviews, see
Holender, 1986; Kihlstrom, 1996; Shanks & St.
John, 1994) has shown this empirically.

Searle on repressed contents

In The Rediscovery of the Mind, Searle criticizes not
only Freuds idea about repression, but also certain
fundamental theses of cognitive science, including
those of memory and representation, computation,
and information processing. On memory, Searle
(1992) states, We think of memory as . . . [a] filing
cabinet of representations. But we should think of

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On the Nature of Repressed Contents

memory rather as a mechanism for generating current performance, including conscious thoughts and
actions . . . (p. 187). Similarly, he (e.g., pp. 227
248) criticizes the idea that the mind/brain contains
rules and representations, and he supports the connectionist approach.
If we went into more detail here, we would lose
sight of the main point of this article. Therefore, let
us make some minimalist definitions. Searle is one
of the main critics of the computational approach,
but our example of Thesaurus happens to be of help
in understanding his view. We could think of it
either in terms of having a representation of correct
English, or as containing mechanisms capable of
generating language-correcting performance. In
the case of human memory performance, we should
think in terms of a certain event having somehow
changed the brain, regardless of whether we call the
change a neural representation (see Hadley, 1983)
(be it distributed, explicit, or implicit), a mechanism, or a trace. Central to the issue treated here is
the point thataccording to Searlebehind consciousness are just physical matters.
According to Searles biological naturalism,
consciousness and (intrinsic) intentionality is
a phenomenon that humans and certain other animals have as part of their biological nature
(Searle, 1992, p. 79) or property of the brain.
Various researchers (Chalmers, 1996, pp. 213246;
Damasio, 1994, pp. 225229; Dennett, 1991, p. 16;
Edelman, 1992, pp. 149150; Olds, 1992; Searle,
1992) have recently supported this kind of thinking.
From this point of view, the question about the
existence of contents outside consciousness canto
borrow an idea from Woolridge (1968, in Peterfreund, 1971, p. 228)be equated to a childs
question, Where does the light go when it goes
out?
The brain also has the capability or power to
cause (or give rise to) conscious states. This could,
in principle, be likened to the hardware of a computer, which is capable of giving rise to what appears
on the screen (and, as every user of a PC knows, this
capability is easily disturbed). In the case of a
computer, the physical entity responsible for the
capability is a set of silicon chips or 01 formations.
In humans, the physical entity is a set of nerve cells
or neurophysical structures.
Searles view does not solve the mindbody
problem because he does not give us an explanation
of how and why brains have this capability. Therefore, his idea that consciousness is a property of the
brain could be considered equal to Freuds analogy
between consciousness and perception: the aim is to
conceptualize the phenomenon in a way that is
fruitful for research. Thus, toward the end of this
article, Searles critique is considered in terms of

137

differences between Freuds perception metaphor

and Searles property metaphor.
The central characteristic of intentionality in
Searles thinking is that the contents of the mind
possess aspectual shape. What he means by this is
that mental states (perceptions, beliefs) are about
something, but that this something can be described in several ways: a table can be seen as a
table, as furniture, as an example of the design of a
certain period, as a composition of atoms, and so on,
depending on the interests and the knowledge of the
perceiver. Thus, aspectual shape constitutes the
way the agent thinks about or experiences a subject
matter (Searle, 1992, p. 157). For Searle, there is
no intrinsic intentionality without aspectual shape.
How, then, does this relate to the intentionality of
repressed contents or, as the issue is conceptualized
here, representations that have no direct consequences on the contents of consciousness? According to Searle, there are no contents in the brain, and
there is no intermediate level between the brain and
consciousnessthus, the repressed is just neurophysiology.
This is analogical to the screen and hardware of a
computer: the representation of correct English exists in the hardware in a form that could be described in terms of engineering. If a computer
engineer examines the hardware, he/she finds silicon chips and 01 formations. If the engineer knows
beforehand what programs there are on the disc and
through which language they are programmed, he/
she may also be able to tell where the given representation is located. However, no words or linguistic rules can be found from the hardwarejust
silicon chips and 01 formations.
Similarly, the relation between the neural representation and what it is a representation of can be
determined. It is possible to state (at least in principle) how and where a given representation is located
in the brain, and we can give an interpretation of
neural facts. This interpretation makes a connection
between them and their reference. Thus, neural representations of the brain are said to be semantically
evaluable (see, e.g., Haugeland, 1981, pp. 4346).
These neural representations and the 01 representations of a computer do not contain aspectual
shape, which is the criterion for intentionality in
Searles thinking. However, certain neurophysiological structures correspond to certain aspectual
shapes because they have the causal capacity to
produce conscious states (this Searle calls the connection principle). The processes (as mentioned
above, Searle is not fond of speaking about representations) that cause conscious states are mental
because they are candidates for consciousness.
Thus, he calls certain neurophysiological states
(which are dispositions to produce conscious

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138

thoughts) intentional, too: The concept of unconscious intentionality is thus that of latency relative
to its manifestation in consciousness (Searle, 1992,
p. 161). Although repressed contents are just neurophysiological facts, they are intentional (and this
way mental) too, because they are possible candidates of consciousness.
Searle formulates his critique against Freud quite
cautiously, in fact: One, we dont have a clear
notion of how the ontology of the unconscious is
supposed to match the ontology of neurophysiology.
Two, we dont have a clear notion of how to apply
the perceptual analogy to the relation between consciousness and unconsciousness . . . (Searle, 1992,
p. 172).
The first point means that intentionality cannot be
found from unconscious states otherwise than
through their capacity to produce conscious intentionality. If repressed contents exist somewhere,
they are in the brain. However, according to presentday views of neuroscience, we cannot even conceive
of what these contents are like, or of the kind of
equipment that would reveal their existence. Although the expression has been traditionally used in
a different context, repressed fantasies (beliefs, etc.)
could be said to appear from the cognitive viewpoint
as ghosts in the machineit is even hard to
conceive of where and how such entities might exist.
Searles (1992, pp. 170171) critique against
Freuds perception metaphor relates closely to the
first issue. According to the metaphor, mental contents exist independently of the perceiver, just as do
physical objects. For Searle, there is nothing but
neurophysiological facts to be perceived.

On the existence of the repressed

It seems weird that of all cognitivists, Searle
whose philosophy fits in well with psychoanalytic
ideas in its realismgets the aspectual shape of
being a critic of psychoanalysis. According to
Searle (1992, p. 151) The explanatory power of the
notion of the unconscious is so great that we cannot
do without it. He agrees with Freud on major
questions concerning repression: (1) there are
nonconscious intentional and mental states, and (2)
those states have the power to affect our behavior as
it is described in psychoanalytic case studies
(Searle, 1990, p. 634).
We need to remind ourselves of the clinical facts
(and their interrelations) that Freud wanted to organize under the umbrella of repressed contents:
psychic disorders; the lack of given contents of
consciousness; new contents of consciousness that
evolve during treatment; the disappearance of the
disorders. Searles contribution does not question

Vesa Talvitie & Juhani Ihanus

any of these. Thus, the object of his criticism is not

the psychoanalytic data, or the method of the cure,
or Freuds ideas about the reason for disorders, or
psychoanalytic research methods.
He considers the question Do unconscious mental states really exist? an empty one. He is referring
to the commonly accepted notion of the central role
of unconscious matters. There is no (ontological)
disagreement concerning the existence of these matters. Thus, the question is plainly a terminological
one, and it also concerns the terms we use when
speaking about the unconscious.
The differences between Searles and Freuds
views emerge from their different metaphors for
consciousness. For Freud, unconscious matters exist
in a similar way to objects when they are not seen.
For Searle, conscious states emerge like appearances on the screen of a computer, or light from a
lampcertain physical processes give rise to them.
As far as nonconscious contents are concerned,
there is nothing to be seen except neurophysiological facts.
Metaphors are never true or falsenobody
thinks that consciousness is light from a lamp, perception of objects, or a computer screen. Metaphors
may be nothing more than just tools for organizing
knowledge and communicating complex ideas.
Freuds metaphor works well even today in a clinical context: new contents of consciousness are often
felt to be something revealed, become visible.
However, in the context of the present-day view of
consciousness, the consciousness as perception
metaphor does not work as a tool for communication.
Psychoanalysis is grounded neither on Freuds
leading metaphor nor on his formulations about the
nature of repressed contents but, rather, on clinical
observations. Thus, the reframing of metaphorical
tools should be welcomed. Searles chapter should
not be regarded as an attack on psychoanalytic ideas
but, rather, as a reassessment: his thinking may be
helpful in the process of adopting psychoanalytic
ideas into the framework of present-day cognitive
research. According to Searle, certain neurophysiological structures are mental because they are capable of causing conscious states. The question is
whether we need reasons other than those of Searle
for repressed contents being mental. To what extent
is clinical work dependent on Freuds formulations
concerning repressed mental contents and the perception metaphor?

The repressed and the mental

In his excellent book Freuds Philosophy of the
Unconscious, David L. Smith (1999) argues that

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On the Nature of Repressed Contents

from 1895 Freud was a materialist. Smiths Freud

seems to be quite closely related to Searles views:
mental contents can be reduced to neurophysiology.
Smiths book also includes a thorough study on
Searles ideas concerning psychoanalysis (Smith,
1999, pp. 137155). Despite the similarity of
Freuds and Searles basic views of the nature of
unconscious contents, Smith sees Searles view as
implausible.
Smith focuses on a phenomenon that he baptizes
the continuity argument: there is an idea, and this
is conscious in times T1 and T2; between them
when being unconsciousthe idea is in the process
of developing. Thus, unconscious processes preserve the continuity of the idea. In order for this to
happen, aspectual shape is indispensable. For
Searle, however, aspectual shape is related only to
conscious states, and only conscious states are intrinsically mental. Smith argues that Searles view
that nonconscious contents are mental only in
dispositional sense is not strong enough to explain
continuity between T1 and T2.
Let us suppose that Smiths critique does not
become settled along with Searles (1990, p. 634;
Smith does not refer to this article) comment that
aspectual shape is coded in neurophysiological matters. We see the issue treated by Smith as highly
relevant, and the continuity he describes is surely a
problem. It is, however, not clear which kind of
problem it is. Namely, it is not self-evident whether
aspectual shape is needed for continuity between T1
and T2. When looking at the performance of computers (and Thesaurus, for example), we can find
continuity between different inputs and outputs, yet
in computers there are surely no mental processes.
If we think that continuity is possible without
mental processes, continuity is an easy problem in
David Chalmers terminology: it can be solved
through scientific research. In Smiths study, continuity appears as a hard problem: continuity cannot be explained unless we have a nondualistic
explanation of the mental (and intentionality). We
would prefer treating this issue as an easy problem.
It is, in any case, hard to tell what it means to say
that mental processes are needed for continuity
when it is not known what the mental means
Smith does not define the term.
Brakel (1994, p. 791) remarks that, in Searles
view, associative processes of the mind are not
mental. She also pinpoints another difference between Searle and Freud: in psychoanalytic thinking,
the repressed contains meanings, whereas Searle
rejects this idea (Brakel, 1994, p. 789).
The target article, Consciousness, Explanatory
Inversion, and Cognitive Science, in Behavioral
and Brain Sciences (Searle, 1990) introduced the
central ideas of The Rediscovery of the Mind. In his

139

commentary, Ned Block (1990, p. 596) states: I

dont think many in the cognitive science community care whether these phenomena [deep unconscious rules, representations, states and processes]
are mental or not. . . . Should psychoanalysts care,
orbecause for the most part the answer is obviously yeswhy it is so important that the unconscious is mental?
In order to explore this question, we must ask
some further questions: what do we mean when we
ask how mental states differ from nonmental states,
and how do we know if something is mental or not?
Dictionaries are not of much help in answering
these questions. Reber (1985, p. 432), for example,
says, it has never been entirely clear what the
adjectival form [of mind] pertains to. Later he
defines the dominant meaning as follows: a mental
process is a cognitive process and the term connotes
all that is normally subsumed under the approaches
of cognitive psychology and cognitive science (p.
433). Psychoanalytic dictionaries (e.g., Laplanche
& Pontalis, 1973; Rycroft, 1968) are no more informative on this issue. Because of the fuzziness of
the term, it is not obvious where the disagreement
lies in the debate on the mentalness of unconsciousness. Similar problems are faced with the
term meaning.
In order to make sense of disagreements concerning meanings and mental in the context of the unconscious, we should take a closer look at the basic
lines of thought according to which unconscious
mental contents and meanings are so important for
psychoanalysis. Two reasons for this come to mind.
First, Freuds perception metaphor is so suggestive
that we feel that the neurophysiological existence
of the repressed is not enough. Second, neurophysiological explanations of the complex interplay
between various aspects (missing contents of consciousness, defenses, disorders, slips of the tongue,
interpretations, transferences, new contents of consciousness) of psychoanalytic treatment are not considered adequate.
As far as the first issue is concerned, metaphors
and habits of thinking are suggestiveFreud was
painfully aware of that when he tried to introduce
his revolutionary ideas. The second issue seems
more relevant, although it contains a strange implication. Whether the unconscious contains meanings
and mental contents or not, the clinical facts remain
the samethey are not dependent on the views of
neurophysiologists or philosophers. This issue becomes more clear when we make a distinction between what the brain/unconscious is like and what it
can do.
Clinical psychoanalytic data is about the latter. It
is in principle impossible for the clinical method to
tell us what the brain/unconscious is likethat is

140

the domain of neurophysiologists and philosophers

of the mind. Thus, it is not reasonable for psychoanalysts to argue that the unconscious has mental
contents (e.g., fantasies), when this idea is so unlikely from the point of view of neurophysiologists
and philosophers. The need to separate what the
brain is like from what it can do may become
clearer if we think of it in reverse: it sounds absurd
if a philosopher or a neuroscientist says, I dont
mean to doubt you or your method of study, but
things you describe cannot happen in psychoanalytic treatment because there are no meanings or
mental contents in the brain/unconscious.

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Reverse engineering and meaning

manipulation
Empirical studies on implicit memory/knowledge
and clinical data of psychoanalysts and neurologists
(concerning brain damages; see, e.g., Young, 1994)
show that complicated processing occurs in the absence of consciousness. According to Searle (1990,
p. 634), aspectual shape is coded to neurophysical
structures of repressed states, and these structures
possess a causal power similar to that of conscious
states.
These capacities of the brain may be called mental, but we see no reason to debate the issue. We
prefer taking the what the brain/unconscious can
do aspect (clinical and empirical data) as the starting point. Dennett (1998, pp. 249259; see also
Stich, 1992, p. 252) has called this approach reverse engineering. First we need to define the
competencies that the organism (in this case, the
human mind/brain) possesses, and then we can begin to work out what kind of system or mechanism
would be capable of maintaining them. After this,
the model or theory can be tested and simulated.
When we look at our topic from this point of
view, the word competencies assumes a rather
weird tone: it refers to the dynamics of disorders,
slips of the tongue, parapraxes and so on, as described by psychoanalysts. For the sake of clarity,
let us think about the simple Jaguar example presented above, to demonstrate the reverse-engineering approach. In this case, the repressed content
causes hand trembling when a red Jaguar comes into
view.
What is needed for a system (the mind containing
a repressed content) in our example concerning a
crash with a red Jaguar? The system must be capable of unconsciously recognizing a red Jaguar
this is the same car as the one in the accident (and
that also causes hand trembling). Repressed meanings do not have to be supposed, but the repressed
just has to have a capacity for meaning preserva-

Vesa Talvitie & Juhani Ihanus

tion and meaning manipulation. The implication

in psychoanalytic cure is also that the event (or
the representation), the associations, and the disorder(s) are interrelated in such a way that they can
be made sense of in the treatment. Giving up talk
about repressed meanings and repressed mental
contents in favor of unconscious meaning preservation and meaning manipulation may not seem
especially significant at first sight. By this shift,
however, cumbersome philosophical problems are
avoided.
Philosophical and terminological debate easily
obscure the facts about the unconscious. This kind of
discussion is also in danger of becoming heated
rather than illuminating. The reverse-engineering
strategy and the expressions meaning preserving
and meaning manipulation are probably more
fruitful starting points for communication between
psychoanalysis and the cognitive approach than
muddled debates over mental contents of the unconscious. The former approach directs the discussion toward scientific issues instead of philosophical
ones.

Discussion
All in all, Searles views are mainly compatible with
psychoanalytic thinking. If we think that repressed
fantasies and beliefs are matters that cannot be
described in terms of neurophysiology, there is, of
course, a major disagreement with Searle: for him,
facts about the unconscious are just neurophysiological facts. For Searle, however, this disagreement only concerns terminology.
In our discussions of the ontology of the unconscious, we need to be reminded that it is not only in
psychoanalytic treatment, but also in science, that
there is a need to speak about matters that are known
not to exist in a strict physical sense. In his article
What Is a Theory of Mental Representation?
Stich (1992) notes that even for materialists, materialistic explanations cannot be the whole story. According to him, the materialistic explanation of the
difference between the phonemes /p/ and /b/, for
example, is hardly satisfactory. On the other hand,
many objects of studygrooming behavior studied
by ethologists being onecannot be defined in
terms of natural sciences. Let us also mention that
cognitive science conventionally refers to the computational level between the brain and consciousness, without anybody believing that there are
tokens in the brain.
According to certain cognitive views (e.g.,
Dennett, 1987, pp. 117202), even when we talk
about conscious beliefs and desires we are dealing
with undeniably useful abstractions that do not exist

On the Nature of Repressed Contents

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in our brain. Thus, we come to the question of how

we should speak about the unconscious. Given that
there are only neurophysiological facts, should we
speak about repressed contents in neurophysiological terms? Or, should we treat those neurophysiological structures in terms of aspectual shapes,
which they are capable of producing? The latter
option refers to unconscious or repressed beliefs,
fears, and fantasies, as in traditional psychoanalytic
thinking. The choice between these two alternatives
is clear: talk about the psychic reality of a human
being in terms of neurophysiology is, in most situations, nothing short of absurd. There are practical
reasons for applying terminology such as repressed
fantasies, desires, and so on. Thus, the psychoanalytic idea of repression is not dependent on suppositions of unconscious contents or meanings that
cannot be reduced to neurophysiological terms.

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