Repression/Consciousness

Suzanne Ardanowski

Feeling Brain

4-8-08

            So now I feel like I need things redefined. Is consciousness just working memory? I guess you could define it this way, but what about things I may not be thinking about, but I can retrieve from long or short term memory-we only call them conscious when they enter working memory? We were reading about repressed traumatic memory in Jan’s pathology class and I was wondering how these memories can be “blocked” from a scientific perspective. I feel that when science talks about “unconscious” we are not talking about the Freudian/psychoanalytic unconscious per se.  The article “Emotions and Consciousness” states, “..stimuli can, under certain experience, fail to lead to conscious experience, even though they can trigger emotional responses…..but can there be a failure to experience the emotional responses themselves? (Later)…Can emotion states that are not experienced at all still motivate behavior?” These questions in the framework of trauma, especially childhood trauma, are important. Trauma can influence behavior, even if not consciously, and even if emotional responses were not experienced. I can see how LeDoux’s fear response, the blinding studies, and the subliminal studies are unconscious processes that may or may not become conscious, but what about conscious turned unconscious? Are the same systems, pathways, brain regions involved? How do our defenses turn conscious into unconscious? What about dissociation, and as I mentioned, repression?  How does this happen? Do they become blocked from working memory? Ochner and Gross added the term “mood” to the mix of our terminology. I thought it was interesting that they defined emotions as distinct from moods because emotions have “identifiable objects or triggers.” More food for thought.