The distinction between implicit (non-conscious) and explicit (conscious) knowledge made by cognitive scientists is applied to the psychoanalytic idea of repressed contents. The consequences of repression are suggested to have been caused by implicit representations. Repressed memories can also be treated in terms of explicit representations, which are prevented from becoming activated. Implicit knowledge cannot, however, be made conscious, and thus the idea of becoming conscious of the repressed desires and fears that have never been conscious is contradictory. This tension may be relieved by reconceptualising the idea of becoming conscious of the repressed. It is suggested that this could be seen as creating explicit knowledge about the effects of implicit representations. By applying the implicit/explicit knowledge distinction, psychoanalytic ideas concerning the repressed could be connected to current views in the domain of cognitive orientation.

The distinction between implicit (non‐conscious) and explicit (conscious) knowledge made by cognitive scientists is applied to the psychoanalytic idea of repressed contents. The consequences of repression are suggested to have been caused by implicit representations. Repressed memories can also be treated in terms of explicit representations, which are prevented from becoming activated. Implicit knowledge cannot, however, be made conscious, and thus the idea of becoming conscious of the repressed desires and fears that have never been conscious is contradictory. This tension may be relieved by reconceptualising the idea of becoming conscious of the repressed. It is suggested that this could be seen as creating explicit knowledge about the effects of implicit representations. By applying the implicit/explicit knowledge distinction, psychoanalytic ideas concerning the repressed could be connected to current views in the domain of cognitive orientation.

Neuropsychoanalysis focuses on the neural counterparts of psychoanalytically interesting phenomena and has left the difference in the metaphysical presuppositions between neuroscience and psychoanalysis unexamined. The authors analyse the logical possibilities concerning the relation between the brain and the mental unconscious in terms of the serial, parallel, epiphenomenalist and Kantian conceptions, and conclude that none of them provides a satisfactory ground for neuropsychoanalysis. As far as psychoanalytic explanations refer to the mental unconscious, they cannot be verified with the help of neuroscience. Neither is it possible to form a picture of how a neuro-viewpoint might be of help for psychoanalytic theorizing. Neuropsychoanalysis has occasionally been seen as a reductionist affair, but the authors suggest that neuropsychoanalysts themselves lean on the hybrid conception, which combines neuroscientific and psychoanalytic viewpoints. The authors state arguments in favour of the interfield conception of neuropsychoanalysis that takes seriously the metaphysical tensions between neuroscience and psychoanalysis.

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In psychoanalysis, it is commonly thought that ideas (desires, fears, etc.) may be repressed, and that they can be made conscious. In this article, we shall apply cognitive viewpoints and assert that ideas do not exist in the unconscious as 'ready made', and thus repressed ideas cannot be 'brought' into consciousness. We suggest that the contents of consciousness are formed by processes on four levels: (1) unconscious brain processes, (2) the level of consciousness, (3) the level of self-consciousness, and (4) the level of narrative self-consciousness. From this point of view, the absence (or repression) of certain contents appears to be due to the missing of processes on Levels 1-4. Consequently, repressed contents appear in consciousness when appropriate processes take place. When studied in terms of our four-level model, repression may be treated as part of the study of the self. By applying the viewpoint of the self to the phenomenon of repression, the danger of the homunculus problem can be avoided. It also becomes apparent that certain fundamental problems met in the study of the self are the ones that Freud tried to solve in his meta-psychological writings.