Sigmund Freud's Iceberg Metaphor

The concept of the unconscious, which has been specially studied by the psychoanalytic and psychodynamic current. In fact, the unconscious is one of the basic pillars that Sigmund Freud used to elaborate the well-known theories of him.

But although psychoanalysis can be complex to understand, sometimes even psychoanalysis has used metaphors or comparisons with other aspects of reality in order to facilitate the understanding of what your theory proposes. An example is Freud's iceberg metaphor, which we are going to talk about throughout this article.

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Psychoanalysis and consciousness

Psychoanalysis is one of the best known and most popular theoretical currents in the history of psychology, although it is not the most validated and has often been poorly considered by other currents psychological.

This school of thought and theoretical current, whose father and founder is Sigmund Freud, focuses primarily on the study of the unconscious

, considering that current human behavior is the product of conflicts between our instinctual part and the repression and management of these by the conscious.

His emergence draws heavily on the currents of thought of the time and the increasingly medical view of hysteria, and As the years went by, the author developed an increasingly complex vision of his theory regarding the functioning psychic.

His theories about the psychosexual development of minors (oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital stages) and its differentiation between it or drive element, I and superego or censorship.

Also relevant is her consideration of libido or sexual energy as the main source of psychic and drive energy, and her deep work on neuroses and hysteria. female (especially prevalent in a time of strong sexual repression such as the Victorian, something that must be taken into account when assessing their focus on this aspect).

But to understand all this it is necessary first understand what the difference is between the conscious and the unconscious, something that can be easily visible thanks to Freud's iceberg metaphor. Let's see what it consists of.

Freud's iceberg metaphor

Freud's iceberg metaphor is a metaphor through which it is intended to show and make see the existence of instances or parts of our psychic apparatus that are not directly accessible on a voluntary and conscious level. The similarity would occur between the different parts or instances of consciousness and the vision of an iceberg, a mass of ice that floats in the ocean.

This metaphor was not described in detail by Sigmund Freud, but by his followers and intellectuals interested in psychoanalysis, and especially by Stefan Zweig. It is a fairly visual explanation of the differences between the psychic instances or levels of consciousness proposed by Freud, which in turn serve as the basis for another of his models.

This model mentioned exposes three basic structures that according to Freud make up our personality: the id or primitive and instinctual part that obeys the pleasure principle, the superego or censoring part derived from the social and learned and the ego or element that sublimates the impulses of the id to what is acceptable to the psyche based on the reality principle.

If we focus on the image of an iceberg seen from the ground, we are only able to see the part that protrudes from the water, and from time to time we can observe between the waters how a small area emerges or submerges that is in the limit and contacts directly with the surface of the Water.

However, there is a large part, in fact usually much larger than visible, that is submerged and to which we do not have access visually unless we immerse ourselves. This image would be directly comparable and equivalent to the functioning of our psychic structure, specifically at the level of identifying the levels of consciousness.

1. The conscious: the emerged part of the iceberg

According to Freud's ideas, we are able to see only a small emerging part that corresponds to the mental activity that we can detect directly and voluntarily, in addition to assuming a link between the external world and our mental processes.

We would be before the instance known as conscious, totally under our control and in which, therefore, there are no active defense mechanisms that block them. However, it is in this element that our internal psychic energy is most contained, since we exercise direct control over them.

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2. The boundary between the submerged and the emerged: the preconscious

We can also find a second instance called preconscious, which would correspond to the part of the iceberg that is finds between the emerged and the submerged in such a way that depending on the movement of the waters and the circumstances it can reach be seen.

It is the set of those contents that in general are not identifiable to us and that we cannot bring to our consciousness at will, but that can emerge in our psyche abruptly and when we make a great effort to remove them to the light. According to Freud, for this we must overcome the existence of defense mechanisms that repress these contents through selection or deletion.

3. The unconscious: the great submerged mass

Finally, and perhaps the most relevant instance for psychoanalysis, it corresponds to the great mass of ice that remains submerged and invisible to those who look at the iceberg from the surface, but which is nevertheless basic for what can exist emerged.

We are talking about the concept of the unconscious, which would include everything the set of drives, impulses, desires, primal instincts or even repressed memories, which is moved by the pleasure principle and which remain hidden from our consciousness except in the extent to which they reach a compromise solution to make themselves acceptable to the apparatus psychic.

The unconscious would be our most primary, pure and natural part, in which psychic energy moves with total freedom. It would also be the most intense and the one that most marks our way of being and the direction to follow in life, but is strongly repressed and censored by various defense mechanisms as such content is unacceptable.

Bibliographic references:

• Freud, S. (1933). New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis.
• Jones, E. (2003). Life and Work of Sigmund Freud. Barcelona: Editorial Anagrama.