Two ways to ignore the non-conscious in human mental life<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n These are<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the latter option, the non-conscious is something like a meaningless automaton, an entity of levers, buttons to be pushed, and wheels to be turned. At best, it\u2019s something to be conditioned through repetition. [see: \u201cWhat Did Pavlov\u2019s Dogs Know?<\/a>\u201d]<\/p>\n\n\n\n At present, many people know about ‘the non-conscious.’ At least, many know the term and accept that it denotes something. However, they look upon \u2018something there\u2019 from afar (while nothing can be nearer). Then indeed, the non-conscious may appear like an automaton, as is also the case with the body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the dual Cartesian error.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The non-conscious is the source of meaning, therefore decision, action, anything.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n [see: \u201cNon-Conscious Processing is Meaningful<\/a>\u201d]<\/p>\n\n\n\n The test: Try to let something meaningless be meaningful by conscious decision. You easily see that it doesn\u2019t work that way. \u2018Meaningful energy\u2019 is not under conscious control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can try to find out why<\/em> something is meaningful. This leaves you with the same difficulty. The why-thing does not become meaningful simply because you consciously decide it to be so. You may take the next step and ask again why<\/em> \u2015 and again, and again. You feel that, in doing so, you go \u2018deeper\u2019 one way or another, reaching true meaningfulness with depth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All \u2018meaningful energy\u2019 eventually comes from depth, thus also the cause of any mental action. [see: \u201cThe Stream of Non-Consciousness<\/a>\u201d]<\/p>\n\n\n\n But depth is hard to see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This not-seeing one’s own depth leads people into searching for meaning anywhere else.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a road towards all kinds of god-seeing. Primitive people may see gods in trees and stones. Within more complex cultures, people see gods in what is imposed from birth onwards: X in culture-X, Y in culture-Y. Baby X will believe the former; baby Y the latter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More or less, the same happens in the modern health\/healthcare domain. In this also, people may believe in all kinds of stuff if reality-from-inside is not discerned as such. Our thinking is almost necessarily causal. It will not rest before it finds ‘something.’ This is pertinent to non-scientific and to scientific medicine as well. We should not lend immunity to anything where none is present. [see: \u201cWhere\u2019s the Mind in Medical Causation?<\/a>\u201d]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Treating the non-conscious as an automaton<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Not seeing that the \u2018deeper self\u2019 causes many things, solutions are also not easily sought in-depth. Unfortunately, substitute solutions frequently aggravate existing problems. This is a worldwide phenomenon with worldwide consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a result, for example, the long-term in psychotherapy is hardly or not deemed important in most research, [see: \u201cIs Short-Term Enough in Therapy?<\/a>\u201d] nor the many social side effects, the mutual influence of people deep-to-deep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The general consequence goes very far. It is related to the fact that Compassion comes from deep inside. [see: “Essence of Compassion<\/a>“] Viewing the non-conscious as an automaton hampers it in every respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What is the Compassionate answer to this?<\/p>\n