Confronting the Unconscious

Why do Qualitative Researchers need to be concerned with the unconscious? Joanna Chrzanowska examines why it is as relevant today as it was in Freud's time.

Modern qualitative research practice is rooted in the psychoanalytic orientation of the early US researchers. We have developed and added to this thinking, but still claim to ‘go deeper’, under the surface structures, to find the true meaning of consumer communications. Yet we are ambivalent about using the concept of the unconscious.

This article argues that we need to confront this ambivalence. The unconscious did not disappear with Freud. It is implicit in the ideas of later psychologies, and discoveries in neuroscience are now showing the true extent of unconscious processing and decision-making. Like it or not, the idea of the unconscious continues to influence our work today.

What’s more, we need to be concerned with the unconscious because it also plays a major role in framing the context in which we work - the consumer society.
 

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