More than a hundred years after Freud began exploring the depths of the human psyche, the concept of the unconscious continues to occupy a central position in a number of psychotherapeutic frameworks and clinical approaches. When trying to understand clients' internal and interpersonal struggles, it is almost unthinkable not to look for unconscious motivations, conflicts, and patterns in relationships. Clinicians continue to see a breakthrough in realizing how our unconscious patterns have interacted with those of clients during responding.
Although clinicians use concepts such as "unconscious" and "dissociation" in practice, many do not consider the emergent neuropsychological features of such processes. As a result, assumptions and lack of clarity prevent a more meaningful and useful understanding of clients' difficulties.
This groundbreaking book presents a new model of the unconscious that continues to be shaped by the integration of neuropsychological research and clinical practice. Drawing on affect theory, cognitive neuroscience, neuropsychological findings, and his extensive therapeutic experience, Guinot presents an expanded picture of unconscious processes. Her model moves from the traditional focus on repression, or the dissociation of individual memories and experiences, to viewing the unconscious as a continuum and as expressing entire patterns of feeling, thinking, and behavior—patterns that are so integrated and entrenched that they lie within the basis of all our various states.
