D.H.

Lawrence
Psychoanalysis and the
Unconscious
During the most prolific period in his
career, D.H. Lawrence wrote two rather
peculiar books: Psychoanalysis and the
Unconscious (1921) and Fantasia of the
Unconscious (1922). Psychoanalysis and
the Unconscious was originally written as a
retort to the unappreciated psychoanalytic
criticism of his third novel Sons and Lovers
(1913). It quickly transformed into
something much more, becoming a
platform for Lawrence to explore his ideas
about the psyche and eventually
manifesting into the beginnings of his own
pseudo philosophy.
Lawrence vs. Freud
Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious was
originally projected as "Six Little Essays on
Freudian Unconscious'', and a glance at the
external structure of the published version
indicates that the expository format was carried
through.
Psychoanalysis consists of six chapters: the
first two are concerned with a demonstration of
the limitations of Freudian theory, the last four
with a presentation of Lawrence's own ideas.
Lawrence vs. Freud
"The aim of this little book", Lawrence
repeatedly emphasises, "is merely to establish
the smallest foothold in the swamp of
vagueness which now goes by the name of the
unconscious". Lawrence's basic argument, in
short, is not that Freud and his followers are
not scientific enough.
His method in the first two chapters of his little
book is to discredit the scientific pretensions of
psychoanalysis, and this he does in three ways.
The book begins with the insinuation that
psychoanalysts are the descendants of the old-
fashioned medical charlatans: "No sooner had
we got used to the psychiatric quack ... than the
psychoanalytic gentleman reappeared on the
stage with a theory of pure psychology".
And throughout the opening pages he continues
to ridicule them because they are pretenders. For
example, one might notice Lawrence's use of
"as" and words suggestive of magic: "They have
crept in among us as healers and physicians;
growing bolder they have asserted their
authority as scientists; two more minutes and
they will appear as apostles".
To Lawrence, psychoanalysis is the enemy of
morality not because it operates according to
scientific principles but because it does not;
science is not concerned with moral issues,
psychoanalysis according to Lawrence is.
According to Lawrence, psychoanalysis believes "that at
the root of almost every neurosis lies some incest-craving,
and that this incest craving is not the result of inhibition of
normal sex-craving".
But if this is the case, argues Lawrence, then one must
view incest as a natural desire: "What remains but to accept
it as part of the normal sex-manifestation?" Some
psychoanalysts, he then goes on, will go this far, but that is
not enough. If their theory is to hold up they must go all
the way: if neurosis is caused by repression and if incest is
natural, then the cure for neurosis is "to remove all
repression of incest itself. In fact, you must admit incest as
you now admit sexual marriage, as a duty even".
Of course, if psychoanalysis had minded its own
business, had remained a descriptive "physical"
science instead of "assuming the role of
psychology", its theories could not be brought to
this ludicrous end. But it has not, and there lies "the
moral dilemma of psychoanalysis", and the
justification of Lawrence's appeal to morality to
discredit it.
A third way in which Lawrence faults
psychoanalysts is by pointing out that they do not
stick to the fundamental principles of empirical
inquiry: instead of inductively exploring the
unconscious, they proceed deductively. Suppose,
says Lawrence, the unconscious does contain
repressed incest impulses. Is that all the
unconscious is?
The reason the Freudians come to this conclusion is
that they begin with the consciousness, with ideas
and ideals, and proceed to interpret the unconscious
according to this principle. The unconscious to
them is the repressed consciousness. The Freudians
have built their "doctrine" upon idealistic principles
and consequently all of their arguments lack an
empirical ring.
The Freudians have tried to confine the
unconscious in terms of consciousness. Lawrence's
idea is that one must begin with the pre-conscious
and pre-cognitive sense rather than with the
intellectual apprehension. In a series of four
conditional clauses he carefully explains that such a
procedure is not to abandon rationality:
• “once we can admit the known, but
incomprehensible, presence of the integral
unconscious";
• "once we can trace it home in ourselves and
follow its first revealed movements";
• "once we know how it habitually unfolds itself";
• "once we can scientifically determine its laws and
processes in ourselves".
His method, he says, "means that science abandon
its intellectualist position and embraces the
religious faculty. But it does not automatically
become less scientific, it only becomes at last
complete in its knowledge".
In this book Lawrence replaces the sober, scientific
approach of the Freudians by a poetic, mystic
affirmation simultaneously arguing for the
recognition of a precognitive mode of perception.
In this work of fiction Lawrence's concern is the
rationality of recognizing an uncerebral form of
knowledge.
Lawrence frequently relies upon the wisdom of the
past or explores traditional metaphors to explain his
theories. For example, in attempting to describe the
division of consciousness into subjective (located in
the abdominal area) and objective (located in the
breast) he observes that his explanation is
consistent with an old and traditional attitude.
However, instead of simply relying upon its poetic
truth, he feels called upon to justify his use of this
source by emphasising that the men of the past
were not simply being poetic: "When the ancients
located the first seat of the consciousness in the
heart, they were neither misguided nor playing with
metaphor. For by consciousness they meant, as
usual, objective consciousness only".
Instead of giving his work the quality of mythology
retellings, the metaphors and symbols to be found
in Psychoanalysis have an opposite effect. In this
book Lawrence's approach to the poetic is
comparable to the approach of the Cambridge
anthropologists to myth and ritual - they attempted
to provide a rational explanation of primitive
mysteries; Lawrence is trying to provide a rational
basis for his intuitions.
Instead of giving the essay the quality of mythic
restatement, the "This is the vertical line of
division. And the horizontal line and the vertical
line form the cross of all existence and being", he
observes, and here he employs the cosmic image of
the cross. But Lawrence does not encourage us to
view his system in such mythical terms, for he
immediately adds, "And even this is not mysticism-
no more than the ancient symbols used in botany or
biology". Every poetic usage in Psychoanalysis
must be defended or justified empirically.
A final way of suggesting the expository design of
Psychoanalysis is to point out that with one
necessary exception the entire six chapters utilise
the first person plural. On the one hand, this usage
enables Lawrence to give his narration an
impersonal tone, the tone of critical objectivity:
"Now before we can have any sort or scientific,
comprehensive psychology we shall have to
establish the nature of the consciousness".
On the other hand, the journalistic "we"
characterizes the writer as the spokesman for the
majority, enabling him to avoid sounding
impressionistic: "If however, the unconscious is
inconceivable, how do we know it at all?" is the
fundamental question in Psychoanalysis, and
strictly speaking, Lawrence's answer should be "I
know it through intuition". But that is a purely
subjective answer. "We know it by direct
experience" is probably equally subjective but it
sounds more scientific.
However poetic, mystical, or absurd
Psychoanalysis may have sounded to his
contemporaries and may sound to the modern
reader, then, the style of this work indicates that
Lawrence did not view it as such but rather as a
scientific piece designed to expose psychoanalysis
as a pseudo-science and to introduce a pioneer
interpretation of the unconscious. If there are
inconsistencies and contradictions in the work it is
not because his purpose was to affirm the irrational
but because he was too concerned with
demonstrating.
To conclude, Lawrence's first purpose in
“Psychoanalysis” is to denigrate Freudian
psychoanalysis by exposing its unscientific
methodology; his second purpose is to introduce his
own system and a more logical and accurate, more
scientific procedure.
He despises Freud’s perception of the unconscious.
The unconscious to Freud is the repressed
consciousness. The Freudians are deductive instead
of being inductive. Lawrence treats the unconscious
in terms of pre-consciousness, interprets it with the
help of the pre-cognitive mode. Lawrence's method
was to argue for the empirical validity of intuition
and ancient wisdom.
Thank you for your attention

Andrew Ivasenko
Group 1-MG