2. Psychoanalysis and the Theory of Unconscious Psychological Set: Findings and Prospects a. E. Sherozia

Academy of Sciences of the Georgian SSR, The D. Uznadze Institute of Psychology Tbilisi State University, Department of Philosophy and Psychology

Summary

A generalized study is made of psychoanalysis and the theory of psychological set - the two rival trends in modern psychology. An attempt is made at elucidating some aspects of qualitatively different - though related - categories of the science in question: mind, consciousness and the unconscious, on the one hand, and set, activity and personality, on the other. Each of the above named trends and categories is analysed on the basis of the author's general theory of consciousness and the unconscious mind-these two mutually exclusive and reciprocally compensating components of the human mind which emerge as a single system of relations based on the person's integrate set to some activity to be carried out 'here and now'. Hence the description of this set as a specific mental reality: a probabilistic principle of the internal organization and regulation of any purposive activity initiated by it.

It is stated in conclusion that the problem of concrete techniques and general methodology of the study of the mind can today be posed - and solved with some degree of adequacy - only on the basis of a generalized theory of consciousness and the unconscious, systematically overcoming the classical (Galilean) principle of analyzing the latter as one of the most involved and internally contradictory phenomena of life.

The introduction of the idea of the unconscious compels psychology to radically change its entire categorial apparatus.