Conscious mind versus the unconscious mind. What has the greatest influence?

New blog added 01 May 2017

Psychologists agree that the Subconscious mind has the greater influence over our thoughts, actions and behaviours than the logical, analytical conscious part of our mind. This is because the Subconscious part of our mind is far more powerful and tasked with those important protective areas of fight, flight or freeze responses and its primary task is in with keeping us safe from harm and that part of our brain/mind development goes back many millions of years.

As far as development of the human brain is concerned in our evolutionary stages, the subconscious mind is many millions of years older than the conscious part of our minds. There are a number of studies which put the most ancient Reptilian Complex part of brain at 65 million years and the Paleomammalian Complex part of our brain at 23 million years and these areas of human behaviour are those parts which likely deal with aggression, territorial and ritual displays, anxiety and instinctive behaviour, emotion, feeding, reproductive and parental behaviour.

The logical conscious part of our minds is the relative youngster in the scheme of things, developing somewhere around 2.5 million years ago and termed the Neomammalian Complex. It is thought likely to be the only part of the brain/mind with awareness of self and conscious thought with all the parts of consciousness which go hand in hand with what it means. I.e. Logic and reasoning, communication, abstract ideas and concepts, planning, etc.

The subconscious deals with all of our life experiences and is the repository for everything that has ever happened to us. The Subconscious it is thought is likely to be responsible for working with amongst other things, life experiences storing beliefs, emotions, long term memory and is the part of our mind that deals with creativity. The subconscious since it is not conscious and incapable of reasoning is therefore non judgemental and is very flexible and one could think of it as the hard drive of the brain constantly being programmed with life’s data. Because it is non judgemental it is one of the key reasons why people respond under hypnosis and are seen to be able to change their perceptions of reality as directed by a hypnotist with directed suggestion who temporarily changes the programme for entertainment. However, hypnosis is far more powerful than this. It is capable of creating long lasting permanent change.

Looking at the model of the iceberg in the illustration below and seeing how large that influence is on our behaviours, beliefs, habits and thoughts there is a very convincing argument that working directly with the subconscious part of the mind in hypnosis that faster more permanent results are achievable in helping people create a major shift in their beliefs thoughts and actions than at the conscious level where the subconscious would always win because of how it is and because of its larger power and influence over that part of “Me’-I” and what that reasoning part of wants; which is all tied up in our belief structure and which is driven by the subconscious part of our mind.

However, changing things at the subconscious level is a real game changer because faster change can be achieved. This is something Hypnotherapists have understood for decades. Using the intervention of hypnosis and therapy combined to become hypnotherapy puts you back in control in a safe protective way where you can under direction from a skilled therapist access your own inner resources to harness the phenomenal power of your mind and create the change you want in your life.