The Concept of the Unconscious in Kierkegaard and Freud

Title: The Concept of the Unconscious in Kierkegaard and Freud: A Comparative Existential-Theological Study

Abstract:
This essay explores the concept of the unconscious in the works of Søren Kierkegaard, particularly in The Concept of Anxiety and The Sickness unto Death, and compares it with the Freudian notion of the unconscious. While both thinkers delve into the hidden structures of the human psyche, their foundations, aims, and implications differ significantly. Kierkegaard's approach is rooted in existential theology and the individual's relation to God, whereas Freud's is grounded in psychoanalysis and biological drives. This comparative study highlights how Kierkegaard's understanding of the unconscious prefigures and yet profoundly diverges from Freudian psychology, offering a spiritually charged vision of the human self.

1. Introduction
Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) and Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) are often situated in separate intellectual traditions—the former a Christian existentialist, the latter the father of psychoanalysis. Nevertheless, both thinkers confront a common concern: the opacity of the human self. In this essay, I argue that Kierkegaard developed a proto-concept of the unconscious, which, while sharing structural similarities with Freud's later theory, radically differs in its ontological and theological underpinnings.

2. Kierkegaard's Existential Psychology: Despair and Self-Ignorance
Kierkegaard identifies despair as a sickness of the spirit, located within the self's relationship to itself. In The Sickness unto Death, he writes, "Despair is the misrelation in a synthesis that relates itself to itself" (SKS 11). One may be in despair without knowing it; thus, the individual may be unconscious of his own condition. This state of 'not being conscious of having a self' is what Kierkegaard calls "inauthentic despair" (uegentlig Fortvivlelse).

This ignorance is not merely intellectual but spiritual: it is the result of a failure to stand transparently before God. The human being, composed as a synthesis of the finite and infinite, temporal and eternal, becomes truly a self only when this synthesis is "grounded transparently in the power that established it" (ibid.). Thus, for Kierkegaard, the unconscious is fundamentally relational and theological.

3. Freud's Theory of the Unconscious
Freud, on the other hand, conceives the unconscious as a repository of repressed desires, primarily sexual or aggressive, which influence thought and behavior without the individual's awareness. The goal of psychoanalysis is to make the unconscious conscious, enabling the ego to assert control over previously repressed material. Freud's unconscious is thus psychodynamic and intrapsychic, not relational or theological.

4. Points of Convergence
Despite their differences, Kierkegaard and Freud share a structural insight: the human subject is not fully transparent to itself. Both recognize the presence of hidden depths that influence outward behavior. Both explore mechanisms of self-deception: Freud through repression, Kierkegaard through despair and self-deceit (Selvbedrag).

5. Fundamental Divergences
The divergences, however, are decisive. Kierkegaard sees the unconscious not as the locus of forbidden desires but as the site of spiritual ignorance and alienation from God. Healing comes not through psychological insight alone but through repentance, faith, and becoming a self 'before God.'

Moreover, Kierkegaard's anthropology presupposes freedom and responsibility at every stage, even in despair. While Freud emphasizes deterministic structures (drives, neuroses), Kierkegaard maintains that despair, though unconscious, is always a choice—a refusal to become the self God intended.

6. Conclusion
Kierkegaard's proto-theory of the unconscious anticipates key elements of Freudian thought but remains fundamentally distinct. His focus is not on libidinal repression but on spiritual alienation. In Kierkegaard, the unconscious is where the self hides from the call of God; in Freud, it is where the self hides its desires from societal norms. The former leads to faith and selfhood, the latter to insight and integration. Each, in its way, offers a profound diagnosis of the human condition, and together they illustrate the complexity of what it means to be a self.