In 19th-century Vienna, Sigmund Freud confronted a mystery that medicine couldn’t explain: patients with symptoms like paralysis and seizures, yet no physical cause. One case, Anna O., became a turning point. Her symptoms eased as she recounted long-buried, painful memories during “talking therapy,” revealing an astonishing insight: the mind held hidden forces influencing the body and behavior. Freud spoke then of “the unconscious”—a dynamic reservoir of repressed thoughts, desires, fears, and conflicts that influenced human life.
Freud’s concept of the unconscious was groundbreaking. While existential-humanistic (E-H) therapy honors the significance of the unconscious and unconscious processes, it reframes the ideas (and works with them) in a way that aligns with its experiential and relational focus, rooted in humanistic principles like unconditional positive regard.
Rather than viewing the unconscious as a hidden and repressed repository, E-H theory approaches it as a dynamic realm of mystery and depth. This realm certainly influences our experience and actions, typically challengingly. Still, it also serves as a wellspring of possibility, notably by bringing the unknown into embodied awareness, where it can be engaged and addressed.
E-H theory understands the unconscious as revealing itself through the client’s experience—physical sensations like clenched fists or muscle tightness, emotional subtleties, upwellings, or shifts like sudden sadness or anger, nonverbal behaviors such as recurring sighs or changes in tone, and, yes, language through metaphors, recurring themes, contradictions, etc. The unconscious also discloses itself in the relational space between therapist and client, shaping repeated patterns like seeking validation or repetitively criticizing, subtle cues like detachment or boundary challenges, and, importantly, the therapist’s responses, such as frustration or affection. These moments are openings where something significant seeks to emerge into awareness.
While E-H therapy and psychoanalysis understand and approach the unconscious differently, both recognize its profound influence on how we live, relate, and experience the world. E-H therapy respects this shared understanding but, rather than psychoanalytic excavation and interpretation, works with the unconscious by staying rooted in the client’s present experience, deepening exploration, focusing on how unconscious processes naturally emerge, and bringing presence to bear toward greater freedom.
Links to Related Blog Posts:
Explore the therapeutic relationship in E-H therapy in previous posts.
Read previous posts about how E-H Therapy is experiential and relational.
Read more posts about the here-and-now, presence, and freedom,in E-H therapy on EHI’s blog.
View all the Existential Moment series posts on EHI’s blog.
Existential Moment Author: Scott Gibbs, LMFT, EHI Board Member-at-Large | Website: www.mscottgibbs.com | Twitter: @Novum_Organum
