The Unconscious in Psychoanalysis and Phenomenology

This chapter is devoted to the comparative analysis of the phenomenological and the psychoanalytic unconscious. The aim of the chapter is to examine the convergences and divergences between these two forms of the unconscious and to extend the Husserlian concept of affective relief. The chapter compares the role of repression in the Freudian unconscious and in Husserl’s analysis of the living present. The chapter will also examine the harmonizing attempts that try to connect the Freudian and the Husserlian notions of the unconscious. Finally, a partial synthesis between the Freudian and the Husserlian unconscious is proposed.