Freud believed that selfish needsreside in which level of consciousness?
Freud believed that selfish needs reside in the unconscious level of consciousness.
To understand how Freud arrived at this belief, we can explore his theory of the levels of consciousness. According to Freud, our mind is divided into three levels of consciousness: conscious, preconscious, and unconscious.
1. Conscious level: This is the level of awareness in which current thoughts, perceptions, and memories are actively accessible and easily brought to mind. At the conscious level, we are aware of our immediate surroundings and can actively engage with them.
2. Preconscious level: This level includes thoughts and memories that are not currently in our conscious awareness but can be easily retrieved with some effort. These thoughts and memories reside just below the surface and can be brought to the conscious level when needed.
3. Unconscious level: This is the deepest and most concealed level of consciousness. It contains thoughts, desires, memories, and emotions that are repressed or forgotten. According to Freud, the unconscious is the primary source of our instinctual, selfish, and irrational motives. It includes threatening or unacceptable thoughts that are kept out of conscious awareness to protect the ego from anxiety and conflicts.
Freud believed that the unconscious is a crucial part of our mental life, shaping our behaviors and experiences, even though we are not consciously aware of its influence. He argued that selfish needs, stemming from the id (the unconscious part of the mind), can exert powerful influences on our thoughts, emotions, and behavior without our conscious knowledge or control.
In summary, Freud believed that selfish needs reside in the unconscious level of consciousness, which is the deepest and least accessible part of our mind.