raging them while under hypnosis to speak openly about themselves and the onset of their symptoms. Often the patients responded freely, and upon reviewing their past, became quite upset and agitated. By this process, some saw their symptoms lessened or banished entirely. It was in this way that Freud discovered what he termed the "unconscious." Piecing together his patients' accounts of their lives, he decided that the loss of feeling in one's hand might be caused by, say, the fear of touching one's genitals; blindness or deafness might be caused by the fear of hearing or seeing something that might arouse grief or distress. Over time, Freud saw hundreds of patients. He soon recognized that hypnosis was not as helpful as he had first hoped. He thus pioneered a new technique termed "free association." Patients were told to relax and say whatever came to mind, no matter how mortifying or irrelevant. Freud believed that free association produced a chain of thought that was linked to the unconscious, and often painful, memories of childhood. Freud called this process psychoanalysis.Underlying Freud's psychoanalytic perception of personality was his belief that the mind was akin to an iceberg - most of it was hidden from view. The conscious awareness is the part of the iceberg that is above the surface but below the surface is a much larger unconscious region that contains feelings, wishes and memories of which persons are largely unaware. Some thoughts are stored temporarily in a preconscious area, from where they can be retrieved at will. However, Freud was more interested in the mass of thought and feeling that are repressed - forcibly blocked from conscious thought because it would be too painful to acknowledge. Freud believed that these repressed materials unconsciously exert a powerful influence on behavior and choices. Freud believed that dreams and slips of tongue and pen were windows to his patient's unconscious. Intrusive thoughts ...
