Thinking of the Unconscious as "Mental Maps"

We often continue doing what we don’t want to do. We try to make changes but eventually repeat the same mistakes despite our best efforts to change. Freud theorized that if we do things that we consciously do not
want to do, then the motivation for
many of our choices must be unconscious [1]. This thought inspired a monumental shift in the way we think about our problems and ourselves. A new way of understanding the mind emerged – one that could begin accounting for our
experiences of ourselves as divided in purpose and motivation. According to Freud, we are divided in motivation because of important unconscious dynamics that make sense when understood within the larger context of our lives. We may both love someone while simultaneously despising them as a result of a dynamic interplay between conscious and unconscious motivations. Although much thought has occurred since Freud, he remains essentially correct about the dynamic interplay between conscious and unconscious processes in much of our mental life (for a contemporary interpersonal neurobiological perspective on the operation of unconscious processes in various brain functions and development, see The Developing Mind by Daniel Siegel [2]). So what are unconscious dynamics?

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Unconscious dynamics are like "mental maps"

Life can go much more smoothly when certain things happen unconsciously.  Instead of deliberating about all the reasons for or against whether or not this person or that person is trustworthy and safe or mean and dangerous, we rely on unconscious relationship “maps” that guide us as we relate to others in the world.  For example, we may find ourselves automatically avoiding eye contact with the angry customer in front of us who is shouting at the grocery clerk for refusing his expired coupons.  Or if we are children, we may approach our parent to obtain comfort and protection when confronted with a dangerous threat.  We don’t consciously consider averting our gaze or approaching our parent – these things happen automatically or “implicitly.”  We make rapid judgments about the safety and availability of others based on our maps of past experiences.  

Over time, we develop more nuanced understandings and expectations of others in relationships, and these experiences further refine the maps we use in order to make them more reliable and guide us through the world more adaptively.  As we develop, these unconscious mental maps are ready at hand to guide us when confronted with various situations and circumstances we encounter later.  Moreover, our minds are so adept at creating mental maps that we need never to have encountered a situation specifically like this one in order to know to be cautious.  People and situations need to be only marginally similar to those of our past in order for our maps to kick in and influence our perceptions, feelings, and actions.  All of this can happen without a moment’s conscious reflection, and we are often safer, make decisions more efficiently, and are often happier for it.  ​

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​The conscious mind may be compared to a fountain playing in the sun and falling back into the great subterranean pool of subconscious from which it rises"

​~Sigmund Freud

How our mental maps cause problems

What makes our unconscious processes so helpful is also what makes them most problematic: we can jump to conclusions too quickly, be overly sensitive to some impressions, and completely ignore other impressions.  Our spouse may come home late from work, and we may automatically conclude he or she must not want to see us, doesn’t care about us, or thinks we are unimportant, despite the fact he or she may have simply been held up in traffic, had to take an emergency phone call, or stopped on the way home to run an errand. 

​Worse yet, if our mental maps were developed during wartime, the odds are good that the territory has since changed and may no longer “fit” the map we developed for it.  We may then find ourselves relying on a guide that's no longer accurate.  When we feel angry by the way our colleague talked down to us, instead of telling him or her, we may simply avoid him or her, act overly nice, deny that we’re angry at all, or yell at our spouse as a displacement of our anger.  Our maps may indicate that direct confrontation was dangerous terrain.  Since speaking up for ourselves directly resulted in rejection, withdrawal of love, or retaliation in the past, that direct route likely won’t appear on our maps as an available option for interacting in the world.  Relying on our old maps for these situations can cause problems as they may keep us from appropriately standing up for ourselves, setting boundaries, and getting our needs met.  In short, our maps have not been updated.  When we automatically follow where the "GPS" dictates, we keep encountering the same potholes and dead ends.  When we find ourselves continuing to get lost and repeating the past, it usually indicates that we need to turn off the GPS and update our maps.  

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Updating our maps

By updating our maps, we can learn to make new choices that are informed by a more accurate reflection of the world as it is instead of the world as it once was.  Downloading the latest version of the map yields a much more reliable guide to the present terrain.  For instance, saying your feelings were hurt by the way your friend minimized your accomplishment will no longer be met with the teasing or rejection that your old map may have led you to expect.  Asking for help when you need something won’t mean that you will be ridiculed for needing help.  According to the new map, it's okay to talk about your feelings, acknowledge hurts, and confront others who are being hurtful.  New maps reveal brand new interstates, helpful signposts, and all the other new developments of healthy adult relationships.  Our original views of what is tolerated and what must be excluded from relationships are often out of date.  They were helpful tools for the world in which we once lived, but they may no longer be reliable guides to the present or future.    

Often times, we discover that our maps are out of date by ending up in the wrong places over and over again.  This is when the knowledge and skill of a trusted companion can help us on our journey by helping us develop new maps that more closely match the new terrain.  A therapist trained in working with unconscious dynamics is critical to achieving these types of changes.  Psychodynamic therapy (or psychoanalysis) is a type of therapy that focuses on exploring these types of unconscious dynamics, and a therapist can help you identify your "mental maps" and the ways they have come to influence your way of being in the world in order to help you modify them and live a life that is more full, enriched, and rewarding.  ​

References
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[1] Freud, S. (1953).  The interpretation of dreams.  In J. Strachey (Ed. & Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 4, pp. 1-338; Vol. 5, pp. 339-621). London: Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1900).

[2] Siegel, D. (1999).  The developing mind: toward a neurobiology of interpersonal experience. New York: The Guilford Press.
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About the Author

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Tyson Davis, Psy.D. is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst at Glen Forest Psychological Services, LLC.  He specializes in helping individuals and couples dig deeper to make lasting transformation in their lives.  Tyson has a special interest in the study of personality development and psychoanalytic psychotherapy for individuals and couples.