‘The Trouble is it's Ahistorical’: The Problem of the Unconscious in Modern Feminist Theory

Abstract

Many people have a problem with psychoanalytical theory because it is grounded in the concept of the unconscious. They find this concept distasteful and justify their distaste on the basis of two fundamental criticisms: that they can find no empirical evidence for it and that it is ahistorical. In this paper I want to begin by looking briefly at what I think constitutes evidence for the unconscious and then move on to consider the charge of it being ahistorical and examine what this charge really means. I shall then argue that rejection of the unconscious on these grounds is part of a more serious problem for the production of feminist knowledge of the personal - the problem of anxiety often experienced as distaste. A feminist knowledge which can theorize the link between sociology and psychoanalytic theory - integrate social and psychical reality - may only be possible if we can find a way of moving beyond anxiety to an integration of our own personal social and psychical dimensions in the form of insight. Most of us are familiar with the following kind of behaviour. We feel anxious - guilty - or vulnerable, so we hit out at the people closest to us and act as if they were attacking us. This mechanism is known in psychoanalytic theory as 'projection'. We find a part of ourselves unacceptable (the thing we feel guilty about - our anxiety or insecurity, our vulnerability) and instead of allowing ourself to consciously feel and acknowledge the feelings we don't like, we project them onto other people and then feel under attack from these people. These same people then represent to us the alienated part of ourself we've thrown out. Feeling under attack we attack them (usually much to their surprise!). At it's simplest it's the 'kicking the cat' reaction (much as I dislike that