Summary

This article by Hewitson (2017) is particularly valuable to readers who are unfamiliar with the history of discourse on conscious and unconscious minds in psychoanalytic thought. Hewitson highlights three important dates (1915, 1928, 1960) in psychoanalytic history which have altered and/or transformed how theorists have thought about unconsciousness and consciousness. Hewitson discusses several prominent thinkers in his writing: Freud, Politzer, Laplanche, Lacan, Leclaire. These thinkers were critical to developing contemporary theories on what the unconscious and conscious minds are. The article concludes with several, well-articulated and succinct points that summarize how psychoanalysis has developed and its relationship with consciousness/unconsciousness, noting that unconsciousness is another plane or reality, apart from consciousness.