Luminosity

the unconscious in the integrated person

Leonard C. Feldstein

pp. 177-189

in: Tristram Engelhardt, Stuart Spicker (eds), Mental health: philosophical perspectives, Berlin, Springer, 1978

Abstract

In this paper,¹ I propose three theses: first, located in processes midway between bodily activity and mental activity, the Unconscious mediates transformations from each sphere into the other; secondly, revealing these processes in every aspect of his behavior, the healthy person exhibits one mode of unconscious functioning, whereas the unhealthy person, whether ill of body or ill of mind, exhibits a quite different mode; finally, man's characteristic searchings are themselves conditioned by this status of the Unconscious and, in particular, by the dialectical interplay, insofar as both modes occur within him, between the wholesome mode and the unwholesome mode. Accordingly, I stress these areas of inquiry: the locus of the Unconscious, its agential character, its modus operandi, its internal dynamics, and its presence in human comportment. My aim is to illuminate the role of the Unconscious in the actions of integrated persons; and my chief conclusion will be that the Unconscious glows, as it were, through those actions and confers upon them a special quality that I call luminosity.