Freud’s most important contribution is the concept of the unconscious. Before Freud, Western philosophy and psychology assumed that consciousness is the whole mind. You are what you think, feel, and want consciously. If you are unaware of something, it does not exist in your mind. Freud demolished this assumption. He argued that consciousness is a tiny fraction of mental life, like the visible tip of an iceberg. The vast majority of mental activity occurs beneath awareness in the unconscious. Your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are shaped by forces you cannot see, do not understand, and cannot directly control. This is...