Review: The Discovery of the Unconscious

It’s truly mindblowing such a book even exists. Ellenberger set out to do a seemingly impossible task, yet somehow succeeded. Tracking the discovery of the unconscious from its beginnings in prehistory up to the late 20th Century.

Not only the history of dynamic psychiatry itself but expanding into the surrounding sociological, economic, political, cultural, medical and philosophical background. At times it feels overkill, but nevertheless, it provides an incredibly helpful context to understand how and why certain ideas developed. In many chapters, I felt I just read an entire book on that historical period alone, even outside of psychiatry. And in a way, I did.

The evolution of the unconscious can be tracked culturally from shamanism to exorcism, animal magnetism, magnetism, hypnotism, prototype dynamic psychiatric systems, and then full schools of psychotherapeutic thought. The book can be divided into 2 parts, pre-Freudian and post-Freudian, roughly half of the book for each. Meaning Freud only appears at roughly half-way through the book (which is 1000 pages in total). That alone speaks volumes about the importance of the roots of dynamic psychiatry.

The Discovery of the Unconscious — The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry By Henri F. Ellenberger (1970)

It beautifully describes the progression of mankind’s awareness of their biases and projections, and thus, while generally not recognized so, a great contribution for scientific thinking in itself, particularly in magnetism and hypnosis, and its progression with different theories and methods over time. Slowly detaching supernatural phenomena and realizing their psychological source.

After the pre-Freudian period is over, it mostly covers the 4 big names of modern psychiatry: the doctrines of Janet, Freud, Adler, and Jung. The fight between the main dynamic system often had an underlying axiom based on either Enlightenment or Romanticism, which made a complete union difficult, particularly of Janet and Adler against Jung and Freud. The latter being more theoretical, whereas Janet and Adler made their discoveries in more or less “objective” clinical research, by the standards of their time. Also has beautiful descriptions of Freud and Jung’s creative illnesses, which if I’m not mistaken is a term coined by Ellenberger himself.

Always connecting their thought to the context of the time, it’s truly a masterpiece. Sometimes even getting quite deep into philosophy, explaining the influence of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Heidegger, showing how deeply interwebed everything is and its enormous roots.

If you’re passionate about psychiatry or the unconscious in general, this book has ineffable value. It’s indeed quite long and takes time and effort, but the writing is excellent and rarely tedious. The background of individual thinkers can get pretty long, often easily going over a dozen pages simply describing the family or personality of a single individual, but I found it often still provided interesting insights, and it’s always easily skippable, given it’s very well structured with sections within each chapter.

Henri Frédéric Ellenberger (1905–1993) was a Canadian psychiatrist, medical historian, and criminologist, sometimes considered the founding historiographer of psychiatry. He has been characterised as one of the mid-century, interdisciplinary independents in psychiatric thought.

Thanks for reading. If you like non-fiction book reviews, feel free to follow me on Medium. I also have a philosophy podcast. If you want to check it out look for Anagoge Podcast.

Tiago V.F.