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The paraconscious.

D M Donovan1

  • 1Children's Center for Developmental Psychiatry, St. Petersburg, Florida.

The Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis
|January 1, 1989
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

The paraconscious, a new cognitive concept, describes early intrauterine and first-year-of-life knowing shaped by incomplete brain development. This framework explains diverse phenomena, including gender identity and paranormal beliefs.

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Area of Science:

  • Psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Psychoanalysis

Background:

  • The traditional conscious/unconscious paradigm offers an incomplete model of human cognition.
  • Early cognitive development, particularly during intrauterine existence and the first year of life, remains poorly understood.
  • Existing frameworks struggle to explain phenomena like core gender identity, primary anorexia nervosa, and widespread beliefs in telepathy.

Observation:

  • A novel concept, the paraconscious, is introduced as a third component complementing the conscious and unconscious.
  • The paraconscious is characterized by cognitive processes occurring before the full development of voluntarily retrievable mental representations.
  • This form of cognition is shaped by the immaturity of developing neural structures.

Findings:

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  • The paraconscious provides a unifying framework for understanding "conflict-free" psychic development.
  • It links seemingly disparate phenomena such as core gender identity, primary transsexualism, primary anorexia nervosa, night terrors, and beliefs in telepathy and survival after death.
  • The paraconscious explains how certain beliefs and identities can form without conscious, retrievable memory.

Implications:

  • This concept has profound implications for the treatment of significant psychiatric syndromes, including considerations for primary male transsexualism.
  • It raises critical questions regarding the nature of learning and information transmission during the earliest stages of cognitive existence.
  • The paraconscious offers potential insights into the origins of widely held, often non-rational, human beliefs.