Facing inconvenient truths

Abstract

This commentary offers a personal account of hearing Mark Solms’s talk at the Berlin Congress in 2011 on the ‘Conscious Id’ concept. Organized around seven key thoughts, the commentary discusses the author’s surprise at this radical idea; an opinion of its scientific basis; the likely impact of the idea on Freudian metapsychology; and questions around why this line of thinking had not been obvious years before and, especially, what might have been unique about that meeting in Berlin. In this regard, the effect of the simultaneous presence of Bud Craig, Jaak Panksepp, and Antonio Damasio is discussed, and especially the impact of Craig’s radical position as a foil. Finally, the commentary considers Solms’s bravery—for one so immersed in Freud—in admitting the “inconvenient” thought that Freud may, on this point, have been wrong.

Keywords:

• consciousness
• Freud
• history of science
• id
• metapsychology
• neuropsychoanalysis