Human Development/Consciousness Evolution ,Self; Evolution Record Type: Review   ID: 844
Preconscious Foundations of Human Experience Burrow, Trigant
Trigant Burrow was a pioneer psychoanalyst who perceived that humans are not individuals but a part of the phylum or species consciousness: "Individual discord is social discord" (p. x). Instead of looking for the origin of mental illness within, he viewed it as moving from culture and society inward. As a founder and former president of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Burrow's thinking is rooted in Freudian thought, though Burrow carries it further, especially as regards the preconscious, which he views as a state of unity and connectedness and creativity, which we tend to repress as we conform to society's norms. Thus, the social realm itself is neurotic. The preconscious survives, in symbolical form, in art, literature, dreams, and religious experience. It is essential in a developed consciousness that the primary mode of experience, or the preconscious foundation, must be absorbed: We must undo the effects of language, which tends to separate us from the preconscious. In order to offset the overemphasis society has placed on the intellect and rational thinking, in his later years, as represented in the last essay in this book, Burrow emphasized the importance of feeling, which he calls "the primary expression of the organism." We must learn to feel the disorder of our feelings, which civilization has wrought: So only can humans regain "alignment with preconscious foundations" (p. 150). This makes conscious the consciousness we share with our species as a whole. Only by so doing can the individual become whole.
Publisher Information:	New York: Basic Books, 1964. 164p. Chap. bibl; Index: 154-164

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