Unconscious Desire Research Articles

Toward more reflexive, empowering, and ethical metaphorical organizational research

This study aims to take forward Gareth Morgan’s call for more reflexivity and self-deconstruction in metaphorical organizational research by developing a novel framework for the production and use of metaphors. Drawing on psychoanalytic theorizing, this framework seeks to move the field toward an approach to metaphors in which metaphors can be explored as symptoms of our struggles with unconscious desire. This, in turn, offers opportunities for engaging in more reflexive, empowering, and ethical metaphorical research.

Marginados y rebeldes: Juan Ruiz de Alarcón y Fernando Zárate Castronovo, autores de comedias

This article offers a comparison between two plays: Mudarse por mejorarse by Juan Ruiz de Alarcon y Mudarse por mejorarse by Fernando Zarate Castronovo (ca. 1663) in order to examine the authors’ Jewish origins, personalities and biographies. Both of them suffered harassment from other authors (Alarcon) and from Spanish Inquisition (Zarate). Alarcon, who was an isolated but peaceful man, died in Madrid the 4th of August 1639. On the contrary, Zarate, who was rebellious and defeated, died at Sevilla’s Inquisition Palace, the 18th of March 1663. As a conclusion, we can confirm that Zarate Castronovo just copied the title of Alarcon’s comedy to be able to relate it to the unconscious desire of «change» the physical appearence (Alarcon) or the fate (Zarate).

Play of the unconscious in pre-service teachers’ self-reflection around race and racism

Reading psychoanalytic theory of the unconscious desire for wholeness in the light of the notion of white racial supremacy, this study explores a constituted difficulty that self-reflection around the issues of race and racism confronts by exploring three white male pre-service teachers’ emotional experiences inscribed in their responses to the process of engaging in self-reflection. The pervasiveness of strong emotional reactions to the process of engaging in self-reflection spoke volumes not only about how uncomfortable the participants felt in the face of ambivalence, incommensurability and vulnerability but also about their active resistance against their emotional states to defend their unconscious desire for wholeness that is intensified by the forces of white racial supremacy. This study also seeks to elaborate problems inherent in teachers’ self-reflection and why and how unknown and unconscious emotional world filters and at times hinders the participants’ willingness to inquire into their own relationship to race and racism. In the final section, the author discusses how the findings may be used to imagine how teachers’ unknown and unconscious emotional world can become subjective curriculum which in turn becomes a foundation for students’ learning or lack thereof and also informs the field of teacher education engaging in critical self-reflection.

Understanding Children’s Paintings in Psychological Counselling with Children

Children paintings carrying therapeutic value are important in understanding for the child's feelings and thoughts, unconscious desires and inner world. Paintings based on therapeutic cooperation may be perceived as a way of communicating with the child. The primary aim of the present study is to explain the significance of children paintings which help abstract experiences to provide a concrete basis for therapeutic cooperation while counselling children. The importance of the use of paintings while working with children is examined the titles of the linear development of the child, colour in children's paintings, the use of children's paintings in psychological counselling with children, the phenomenon of the family and interpersonal relationships in children's paintings, the interpretation of the child paintings of his family. Finally, the study is intended to encourage and increase the use of children paintings in the practice of school counsellors and other mental health professionals.Keywords: Children, psychological counselling with children, children paintings.

Understanding Children’s Paintings in Psychological Counselling with Children

Children paintings carrying therapeutic value are important in understanding for the child's feelings and thoughts, unconscious desires and inner world. Paintings based on therapeutic cooperation may be perceived as a way of communicating with the child. The primary aim of the present study is to explain the significance of children paintings which help abstract experiences to provide a concrete basis for therapeutic cooperation while counselling children. The importance of the use of paintings while working with children is examined the titles of the linear development of the child, colour in children's paintings, the use of children's paintings in psychological counselling with children, the phenomenon of the family and interpersonal relationships in children's paintings, the interpretation of the child paintings of his family. Finally, the study is intended to encourage and increase the use of children paintings in the practice of school counsellors and other mental health professionals. Keywords: Children, psychological counselling with children, children paintings.

Talk of Pedophilia: The Reflexive Management of Desire

ABSTRACTSociologists have increasingly been using theories and models borrowed from cognitive science and psychology to address questions of personal motivation. One influential model is the dual-process model, a cognitive model which holds that individuals think and act either unconsciously and automatically, or consciously and deliberately. Through an analysis of conversations between individuals who are sexually attracted to minors, however, I find that these individuals’ sexual desires cannot be reduced to strictly automatic or deliberate means. Due to the taboo nature of this sexual preference in these individuals’ locales, their unconscious sexual desires are frequently called into question and made conscious.

Psychological mislabeling of chronic pain: lessons from migraine in the 20th century.

Starting with Freud, psychoanalytically oriented practitioners described a complex of unconscious conflicts, desires and personality traits they believed to be the primary cause of a wide range of medical disorders. This was the psychogenic model. With the advance of basic research and pharmacotherapy, the psychogenic model was gradually replaced by a biopsychobehavioral model. This model treats chronic pain as a biologically based disorder that can be influenced by psychological factors and lifestyle. The present paper argues that many patients with chronic pain may not be significantly impacted by psychological factors, and that for those who are, cognitive-behavioral therapy is the treatment of choice.

Forgotten memories of a social justice education: Difficult knowledge and the impossibilities of school and research

ABSTRACTThis paper is about memory, the elusive process of remembering and of an encounter between a researcher and a participant who after five years reunited to remember. The object under study is a high school social justice curriculum with a central focus on the development of social action projects. Grounded in Pitt and Britzman's work on difficult knowledge, this paper asks: What do 10th grade students who spent four years attending a school committed to the Freirian principles of political engagement remember about their high school experience? Past and recent interviews are woven together to surface three emergent lines of thinking: the failure to secure knowledge as unitary and in agreement; education as deferred in time; and research as relational dilemmas and unconscious desire. The aim is to complicate teaching and learning by illuminating its difficulties and unseating our reliance on evidentiary accountability, production and outcome. Throughout, the positionality of the researcher is discussed, particularly as unconscious desire for social justice, as lovely knowledge, becomes transferred through one participant, Sadie.

The Split Subjects of Fantasy Theater: Focusing on Minjung Kim’s Poems

김민정의 시에 등장하는 현대적 주체들은 탈중심적이고 분열된 존재들이며, 고정된 이미지를 거부하고 끝없이 변신을 추구하는 경향이 두드러진다. 본 논문은 그녀의 시를 환상극장과 분열된 주체의 관점에서 분석한다. 그녀의 시집 『날으는 고슴도치아가씨』와 『그녀가 처음, 느끼기 시작했다』에 등장하는 여성 주체들은 분열된 특징을 선명하게 보여준다. 이성적인 주체로 고정되기 보다는 신경증적 주체나 정신병을 앓는 욕동의 주체로서의 모습이 드러나고, 그 이면에는 윤리적 주체를 찾아가는 시선도 읽혀진다. 하나로 고정되지 않는 심리적 환영을 묘사하고 있으며, 때로는 보이지 않지만 존재하는 유령의 존재처럼 다가오기도 한다. 본론에는 첫째, 김민정 시에서 드러나는 그로테스크한 육체의 글쓰기를 통해 여성 주체의 성적 욕망을 검토한다. 특히 여성의 자위를 시적 모티프로 활용하여 무대화시키는 시적 전략을 통해, 여성의 자위가 남성의 성적 욕망의 대상 혹은 대타자의 시선에 얽매이지 않음을 알 수 있다. 그녀의 시적 화자는 대타자의 욕망에 관심을 두는 히스테리 주체의 위치를 취하기보다는 대타자의 욕망을 제어하면서 여성적 쥬이쌍스에 접근하고 있다. 둘째, 폭력적인 원초적 아버지의 욕망과 그것을 저지하려는 소녀의 반란을 통해, 가부장적 팔루스를 전도시킨다. 셋째, 광기를 드러내는 욕동의 주체와는 차이를 보이지만, 현실 세계의 타자를 수용하려는 윤리적 주체가 출현하는 방식을 살펴본다. 실재와의 조우에 의한 괴기스러운 환상에 매몰되지 않고, 삶 속에서 왜곡된 지점들을 새롭게 재구축하는 여성 주체를 발견할 수 있다. 김민정의 시에 등장하는 여성 주체들은 다른 여성시인들의 고백적 언술과 차별되게 환상 극장이라는 공간 안에서 다양한 포즈로 분열되어 출현한다. 여성의 성적 욕망을 표출하는데 있어서 자위라는 행위를 전면에 내세우면서, 신경증적인 억압을 대면하는 모습을 보여주고, 원초적인 아버지의 광기를 붕괴시키려는 그로테스크한 살해 의식을 살수제비를 뜨는 방식으로 풀어내기도 한다. 그럼에도 나르시시즘에 갇히거나 욕동의 주체에 함몰되지 않고, 현실 세계의 타자를 일상 안에서 수용하려는 윤리적 주체로 나아가는 측면도 있다. 그러나 그것이 쉽지 않은 여정임을 예감할 수 있다. 사라지면서 출현하는 유령처럼, 여성을 포함한 현대의 주체들은 의식과 무의식의 경계에 위태롭게 위치하기 때문이다.Modern subjects in Minjung Kim’s poems are decentralized and split beings, so they reject the fixed image of self and tend to metamorphose themselves endlessly. The aim of this paper is to focus on the fantasy theater and split subjects in her poems. The feminine subjects in Flying Hedgehog Girl and When She begins to feel for the first time show the various characteristics of split subjects. They are neurotic or impulsive, but sometimes they seek to be ethic subjects. In Kim’s poems, psychological phantoms described as ghosts or the uncanny appear grotesquely on the fantasy theater. Firstly, this paper inquires into sexual desire of feminine subject through Kim’s writing on grotesque female body. Representing masturbation on Nana’s fantastic theater shows the strategy for subverting phallus, which can help to find unconscious desire. Although her persona is located as a hysteric subject, it refuses to be an object a for masculine desire. Especially her tactic of staging woman’s masturbation indicates that feminine jouissance cannot be bound by the Other’s gaze and cannot be an object of a male s sexual desire. Also Nana, the persona, is not located as a hysteric subject concentrating on the desire of the Other, but approaches the feminine jouissance. Secondly, heading off original father’s cruel impulse, she can reverse patriarchal phallus. Thirdly, an ethic subject, who is different from an impulse subject, appears into the fantasy theater to embrace others with compassion. Thus, we can find a woman subject to reconstruct psychological reality in a new way, which is not involved with the uncanny. Kim’s feminine subject crosses the fantasy to seek her subject like a hedgehog ridiculing hypocrisy of adults. Kim’s narrative is different from other Korean women poets’ confessional voices; spilt subjects in various situations show her unconscious impulse or hysteria. Escaping the cage of narcissism, her subjects have to stand anxiety of psychological reality. As a mature woman, her persona can also accept others with deep compassion. But split subjects sometimes disappear into abyss of the real and then suddenly emerge into the symbolic like ghosts, and they are located precariously on the boundary of consciousness and unconsciousness.

A Freudian Psychoanalysis of Symbols in Faulkner’s The Hamlet

William Faulkner is regarded as the representative of American Southern culture and literature. His works are famous for his writing techniques, artistic value and cultural setting. The Hamlet is one of Faulkner’s great works set in the Southern America, and the novel is filled with symbols. According to Freud, symbols are often used as the agency to combine the conscious and the unconscious together. From the perspective of Freudian psychoanalysis, many symbolic images are related to the unconscious desire. Therefore, to understand a literary work well, it’s better to ruin the surface structure of arts to seek the unconscious meanings from symbols like incidents, plots, details and sceneries in the work. There are three main symbols that symbolize people’s unconscious desire in The Hamlet : the Eula’s buggies, the village’s activities and people’s purchasing behavior. All these symbolize the original unconscious desire of the villagers in the Frenchman place. The psychoanalysis of these symbols in The Hamlet is beneficial to deepen our understanding of human nature embodied in the novel.

Psychoanalysis as a Philosophical Revolution: Freud's Divergence From the Philosophy of Kant, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche.

In his classic, The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche described a philosophical worldview that has many similarities to Freudian metapsychology. This paper uses Freud's theories to analyze The Birth of Tragedy, discussing the similarities and differences between Nietzsche's philosophy and Freudian metapsychology. The author suggests that while psychoanalysis was born from the spirit of German philosophy, in that it based itself on a similar concept of the unconscious, Freud diverged from his predecessors to create a new worldview, based on the acceptance and integration of unconscious desire. This revolutionary theory provided a new approach to humanity's moral and existential issues.

Work-Family Conflict and the Role of Economic Crisis under the Perspective of both Eco-Systemic and Family Psychodynamic Model: A Case-Study

Research in the family field has identified the family-work conflict as an important relationship which affects both a person’s career and parental/marital roles. The Eco-systemic model (Voydanoff, 2002) has introduced the understanding of this relationship through the exploration of work, family, and individual characteristics. The present paper, based on a case-study methodology, has attempted to explore the role of economic crisis in the work-family relationship for a three member family involved in family and couple therapy based on both eco-systemic and psychodynamic model (Scharff and Scharff, 1998). The eco-systemic model was used during therapy in order to describe and explore the ways that work, family, and individual characteristics interact with each other in regard to economic crisis, while the family psychodynamic model offered a deeper understanding of the above mentioned interactions by focusing on the families’ and members’ defensive mechanisms, unconscious expectations, unconscious desires and emotions, early traumatic experiences as well as the impact of early important relationships on adults’ family and work roles. The present paper describes both techniques and interventions used during therapeutic process. Concluding, the process showed that economic crisis revealed hidden systemic/structural inadequacies related to family-work interaction that were based on family (as a whole), marital, and individual unconscious maladaptive mechanisms.

Medusa: Sexuality, Power, Mastery, and Some Psychoanalytic Observations

ABSTRACTThe imaginative narratives that myths provide have a significant place in mental life. Myths continue to be handed down from one generation to the next because they resonate with our unconscious hopes, desires, fantasies, and fears. This paper discusses the Medusa myth. The discourse deals with the cultural context of its time, which implicates the political, social, and especially the gender differences that existed in classical Greece. This myth had an emotional impact on men and women but undoubtedly each group responded in their own particular way. The emphasis in this paper is on the possible effect of this myth on the sexes in ancient times and especially the meanings it may have had for women then and now. Although destructive rage and vengefulness is part of the story, in addition, I focus on the importance of sexuality, power, mastery, and freedom that the myth may offer to oppressed women.

Le désir et la trace : écritures de l’impensable

ObjectivesThe aim of this article is to explore the function of the unconscious trace in its articulations with desire and with the effects of creation. Starting from the psychoanalytic field, the article explores the areas of art history and aesthetics, since art and creation (literary or other) are the receptacles of the unthinkable. Returning to the idea that the artist is in advance of the psychoanalyst, this article proposes to distinguish the function of aesthetic emotion and creation in the way the real is processed, in particular the emergence of writing for two subjects, one the analysand and the other the writer. MethodThis article sets three elements in perspective: (a) questioning derived from the author's analytical practice, where aesthetic emotion in the processing of the real has proved crucial; (b) theoretical considerations on the notions of trace and detail set in the area of psychoanalysis, aesthetics and art history; (c) consideration of a fragment of analysis derived from the author's clinical practice, and of the works of a writer. This method is in tune with the tripartite nature of psychoanalysis itself – treatment, research, conceptualisation – and it opens up towards other domains liable to cast light on the issues of the unconscious: aesthetics, art history, literature. ResultsThis article shows the importance of the trace in the psychoanalytic process and the recognition of the unconscious. It evidences the conceptions of history and time that are specific to subjectivity, and restates that the psychoanalytic cure, far from seeking to fill the gaps in memory, focuses on a form of deconstruction aimed at the subject's fantasy. Following the path from remembrance to fantasy is not possible without working on the trace and the drive that it entails. The trace, like the symptom, calls up the real for the subject, and its interpretation relates to subjective truth. The analytic experience and the aesthetic experience are presented here for what they have in common–they find their orientation from the real. The exploration of the trace with the artist or the art historian shows the paradox of any processing of “a real”: sometimes approached as a sedimented narrative, sometimes as the blow of a truth, as a break. This shows that there is no possible processing of the real without accepting the unexpected and the unforeseen, and that in this journey aesthetic emotion can have a knotting function. DiscussionThis article proposes consideration of the trace underpinning the origins of psychoanalysis. The links between the trace, its registration, and subjective truth are examined. The function of fantasy in the reshaping of the trace and the real is also explored. The work by Carlo Ginzburg, Jacques Rancière and Daniel Arasse open up the exploration of the trace towards the domains of aesthetics and art history, and evidence the paradox that is specific to any processing of the real. The aesthetic dimension of the unconscious is broached and discussed on the basis of the trace and detail. The function of beauty in the relationship of the subject with the real and the emergence of creation is explored by way of the narrative of a subject and the work by Imre Kertesz. The article focuses on the idea that in the move from aesthetics to subjective truth there is an ethical challenge. ConclusionThe article sets out a general conclusion returning to a conception of history and time that is specific to subjectivity. In the issue of the trace, there is a major challenge for the recognition of unconscious desire and humanness itself: the function of the trace is linked to the question of causality, and subjective response in the encounter with the real. Aesthetics and art history open up these considerations towards other areas of efficacy of the unconscious, and the question of aesthetic emotion can be seen in its specific knot function.

Seminar on the Dual Unity and the Phantom

Seminar on the Dual Unity and the Phantom Nicolas Abraham (bio) Translated by Tom Goodwin [End Page 14] What use is the dual unity? My response: anasemia, which is to ask, how is this analytical concept structured and what specific analytical problem is being addressed? The answer here is that it transforms the symbol into metaphor. This additional step is metapsychological in that it concerns a system of concepts that has no status in language other than as the foundation—the condition of possibility and ultimate recourse—of everything we consider to be human. No logical or ontological status can be granted to this construction, and yet it is not arbitrary.1 It is necessitated by clinical requirement, to transform what appears as symbol into analogy, into metaphor. Analytical listening begins the moment when we hear symbols, in place of what the patient says. But what then is the symbol? It is the result of an operation that remains hidden. What appears for example in dream symbolism is in reality a series of enigmas that allude to something different from their manifest meaning. However, every symbol is originally a metaphor. It is only by a forced forgetting, through the repression of its metaphoric origin, that it becomes a symbol, which, of course, implies a mechanism of repression. When the two "parts" come together, the symbol ceases to be a symbol. But where does the metaphor come from? It comes from the incorporation of the original detachment that is overcome. Having lost one of its parts, the metaphor becomes a symbol; the metaphor realizes this cut (coupure) metaphorically. The symbol, therefore, is in its very being the analogue of this cut (because of what it lacks) which may, however, be grasped in the resemblance of its complement to what is lacking in the subject. So when the missing part is returned, the original metaphor is restored. The symbol is therefore a double metaphor, symbolizing that which is cut and the cut itself. When we listen to our patients and take their words as symbolic, we have made up our mind to restore what is cut with the moment of cutting (introjection of the repressed) and to create, at the level of the word, a new totality. The transformation of the symbol into a metaphor, however, seldom succeeds by means of the metapsychological "witch," particularly in cases where the unconscious contains a phantom (the presence of a foreign body in the unconscious) or when there is a crypt in the ego.2 Ultimately the great discovery of psychoanalysis was this possibility of transformation. Psychoanalytic theory is fundamentally a theory of this initial experience, which is subsequently enriched by others and requires the continual reworking and readjustment of the psychical apparatus. This establishes psychoanalysis as a science capable of evolution; an exact science like theoretical physics. It was with regard to the Wolf Man, for example, that Freud began to reformulate the "witch" in 1914 over concerns with melancholic identification. Even if this reformulation began too late as he sketched out his second topography, the fact remains that his notion of the superego took an important step toward the idea that filial relationships produce psychical topography in the individual. Admittedly though, this filial relationship is restricted to the superego and does not yet extend to unconscious desire. It is necessary to introduce the dual unity into metapsychology as the exemplary genealogical concept to successfully transform the symbol into metaphor in cases where metapsychology has been hidden or distorted by the presence in the subject of what we [End Page 15] call the phantom in the unconscious. It is the same for certain cases of cryptophoria or in other cases where the subject has been entirely decentered by the phantom of an object or a phantom object. The dual unity is thus the witch's broom that allows metapsychology to take flight and land in a more suitable place. >> The Concept of the One as a Separate-Unseparated, The Parable of the "Society of My Right Hand" The notion of a unity can only be defined in terms of its separation from a context...

Unconscious Desire: The Affective and Motivational Aspects of Subliminal Sexual Priming.

Sexual arousal is thought to be the result of the processing of sexual cues at two levels: conscious and unconscious. Whereas numerous studies have examined the affective and motivational responses to supraliminal (consciously processed) sexual cues, much less is known regarding the responses to subliminal (processed outside of one's awareness) sexual cues. Five studies examined responses to subliminal sexual cues. Studies 1–3 demonstrated increases in adults' positive affect following exposure to subliminal sexual cues compared to control cues. Study 4 demonstrated that the positive affect resulting from exposure to subliminal sexual cues increased motivation to further engage in a neutral task. Study 5 provided evidence suggesting that the affect and motivation found in Studies 1–4 were associated with motivation to engage in sex specifically, rather than a general approach motivation. The implications of these findings for the processing of subliminal sexual cues and for human sexuality are discussed.

Desires and Rationality: A Psychoanalysis of Major Male Characters in The Hamlet

William Faulkner is one of the greatest modern writers in America. The Hamlet is a representative work among his later works, playing a very important role in his writing career. The paper is to analyze unconscious desires and conscious rationality of the major male characters in The Hamlet based on Freud’s consciousness and unconsciousness theory. The three major male characters, Flem Snopes, Will Varner and Ratliff, have their own unconscious desires for social position, reputation or fortune. However, their desires are against morality and social customs in the Frenchman’s Bend. Therefore, these desires are repressed into their unconsciousness. A sense of nervousness would appear in the unconsciousness due to the repression, and one must look for a way on the consciousness to release the sense. Their rationality could be considered the way of realizing their unconscious desires on the conscious level. Their rationality is seen in their language, actions or manners and so on. Therefore, the major male characters could be taken as combinations of unconscious desires and conscious rationality.

The question of sexual consent: Between individual liberty and human dignity

In sexual matters, the concept of consent has recently come to the forefront. The concept allows a distinction to be made, notably from a legal standpoint, between what is considered to be raped and what is not. It is however a concept that is difficult to define with any clarity; its boundaries are fuzzy and it is the subject of much controversy, particularly with regard to the issues of prostitution and sadomasochistic practices (BDSM) within the ethics of sexuality. The purpose of this article is to attempt to clarify the terms of the debate. It firstly questions the foundations of sexual consent by analysing the differences or the conceptual confusion between desire and will, based initially on a reading of the philosophers of the 17th century René Descartes and Baruch Spinoza, who have opposing ideas with regard to the position of desire relative to intellect in human beings, before moving on to the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who introduces the idea of unconscious desire. The article then shows that the impossibility of absolute liberty, and therefore consent free of any constraint, leads certain feminist organisations to question individual consent, even when it has been clearly formulated, and to invoke against this the notion of human dignity in a transcending sense, inspired by Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher of the 18th century. This concept is examined and studied in cases of prostitution and sadomasochism (BDSM). The conceptual analysis ultimately reveals the metaphysical nature both of the individualistic approach of consent and of the Kant-inspired approach of human dignity.

Penetrating into the Dark: An Archetypal Approach to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

The present paper aims at providing an archetypal analysis of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness which in turn gets its most effective impetus from Carl Yung’s theory of unconscious”. Yung believed that our collective unconscious is a primordial treasure of dreams and myths which we have inherited from the time of our forefathers and which contains the universal themes and images. For him, mythology was a textbook of archetypes, and literature contained the whole dream of mankind. In Heat of Darkness , Joseph Conrad has created a modern myth which decodes the language of the unconscious via some archetypal images. These images depict the contemporary issues of the time both on historical and psychological levels. In a series of archetypal images, which Conrad has delicately selected, organized, and interwoven, the novel represents the deepest inclinations of the universal man as well as his unconscious desires like the desire for quest, for growth, for truth, and for self-recognition. To see how these images mirror the human nature, the present paper attempts to analyze the construction and interrelations of these archetypes

Narrative identity construction in times of career change: Taking note of unconscious desires

Working at the intersection of narrative and psychoanalytic theory, we present in this article an affective conceptualization of identity dynamics during times of career change, incorporating the notion of unconscious desires. We propose that frictions in career change narratives, such as the paradoxical co-existence of coherence and ambiguity, allude to unconscious subtexts that can become ‘readable’ in the narrative when applying a psychoanalytic framework. We point to the analysis of 30 life story interviews with former management consultants who report upon a past and/or anticipated career change for illustration. By linking three empirically derived narrative strategies for combining coherence and ambiguity ( ignoring the change, admitting the ambiguity and depicting a wishful future) with three conceptually informed psychoanalytic ego-defenses ( denial, rationalization and sublimation), we provide an analytic framework that helps to explain why workers in transition may try to preserve both coherence and ambiguity when constructing a sense of self through narrative. The analysis of unconscious subtexts reveals that, in times of career change, people’s identity constructions are driven by conflicting unconscious desires for self-continuity on one hand and openness on the other.