Several branches of cognitive science now focus on the nature of the unconscious. This paper explores some of the findings and models from this research. By introducing formulations based on non-clinical data, the cognitive scientists--in neural linguistics, computational modelling, and neuroscience--may depart from the older psychoanalytic formulations. An understanding of unconscious neural processes is nevertheless emerging showing how synapses are modified by experience and how learning, conscious and unconscious, is due to this important aspect of brain plasticity. Freud and Jung's formulations about the unconscious psyche, representing the main tenets of depth psychology, are also based on a conception of the mind as extending beyond immediate awareness. However, their models are more hypothetical in that their data, almost exclusively, come from treatments of psychotherapy patients and their verbal accounts. So how do these two conceptions of the unconscious match, where do they differ? And how does the neural understanding in the present research support theories and practices of analytic treatments?

The article addresses problems associated with analytic formulations from the founders of psychoanalysis, including C. G. Jung. Although no longer able to claim a scientific basis for these theoretical constructs, analytic practitioners still use this outdated terminology when presenting their work with patients. By now there is a cacophony of theories often concealing rather than explaining. Denial of loneliness, notions of special knowledge, and idealization of the 'The Founder' seem to perpetuate formulations which no longer carry a clear meaning. The article explores three proposals for describing analytic treatments based on the works of the psychoanalyst Roy Schafer and the cognitive psychologist Roger Schank: analytic attitudes, therapeutic narratives and specific treatment perspectives. The first addresses findings from psychotherapy research about the centrality of analytic attitudes. The second applies the findings about story-based memory and narratives to therapy relationships, and the third takes note of the fact that analytic attention often is more complex than can be described with terms such as transference/countertransference.

For some time, it has been clear that psychoanalytic theories are built upon the kind of master narratives Roy Schafer, a New York psychoanalyst, described in 1980. As such, psychoanalytic theories may today have lost some of their initial scientific credibility in that they can no longer be seen as summarizing findings from data collected in a research environment. As aids in participating in their patients’ process of healing, however, narratives continue to be used by practitioners and reflect allegiance to core beliefs and propositions with roots in long‐standing Western thought. In this article, the metaphors in master narratives of Freud and Jung are compared with a conceptual system identified by cognitive linguists as ‘The Great Chain of Being’. Based on this analysis, the article proposes that theoretical formulations have mainly a secondary role to play in achieving good outcomes. The most critical element is the therapist's capacity to access a specific narrative for what transpires throughout each treatment.

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