THE PRESENCE OF THE PAST

Freud’s discovery of the unconscious changed everything. Copernicus had shown us that our planet was not the centre of the universe, Darwin demonstrated that we were just another animal species, and then Freud came along to give us another shock: the ego was not the center of the person: we have an unconscious mind, he said, that exercises an enormous power and influence over our lives. Freud's work and theories helped shape our views of childhood, personality, memory, sexuality and therapy. Just how influential he was can be judge by W.H.Auden’s poem written at the time of Freud’s death,

if often he was wrong and, at times, absurd,
to us he is no more a person
now but a whole climate of opinion.

The years since then have seen a gradual change in that climate. Freud is no longer fashionable. Indeed, the present received wisdom among scientifically minded psychologist is that Freud is passé. Only in the humanities is Freud still a subject for study. Patricia Cohen said that psychoanalysis is taught at all the top universities, but not in the Psychology Departments. In therapy we now concentrate on the various versions of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. Forget the past; what matters is The Now and how to enhance it.

Folk wisdom from pop psychology to meditation, all stress the importance of living in The Now – the great Ekhart Tolle fever. But the present moment isn’t as simple as we make out. The past is an aspect of the present moment of which we are unconscious. What we call the present moment encapsulates the past. The present moment contains, yet hides the past. The past is always present. What we regard as ‘the present’ in common sense is actually an abstraction. Freud never said this, but it’s what I take from his remark that there is nothing in the id corresponding to the idea of time; there is no recognition of the passage of time.

The past is that aspect of the present the influence of which we are unaware, oblivious of how it is woven into our perceptions and behaviour. We can, of course, cognitively discern the past as something quite distinct from the present, but this is an abstraction from the actual presence of the past. 

If the ‘present moment’ were denuded of the past, our experience would be relatively formless; in fact, what we call the present moment would disappear if it wasn’t informed by the past. In its place would be a world of pure being – impossible to describe, a mystic state of consciousness that people often find after a long retreat in meditation. Because this state is relatively detached from the past, the environment seems completely new and is hardly recognisable. It is a state of bliss that usually last for only a few days. After a while ordinary consciousness returns where the present moment carries the past as it’s hidden but active component. It’s back to business as usual.

The past is an essential ingredient of the present, seamlessly interwoven with the body and influencing our day to day life in the most profound way. When we experience life in a detached way we are relatively cut off from the body and its feelings and memories. We are then unconscious of the body and its store of memories, and can pretend we have put the past behind us. We then live in the head and our bodily memory becomes that aspect of the present which is invisible. We can then be victims of strange emotions and reactions for which there seems to be no reason.

Under these circumstances the unconscious gets to a point where it screams to be heard. But it can only express itself in a hidden way and it does so with strange pains and physical dysfunctions of all kinds. This is the reason for the placebo effect: I contact my therapist or doctor and she gives me attention and treats me seriously. My unconscious gets that it is being heard. It can then drop the symptoms which were the effort to be heard. Sometimes just ringing for an appointment is enough for the symptoms to disappear. 

contact: stanrich@vodafone.co.nz

(03) 981 2264