Freud defined the unconscious as a result of repression. However, recent findings in neurology and developmental psychology indicate that unconscious experience may be composed of presymbolic, subsymbolic, implicit, and procedural forms of memory, as well as being the result of trauma. In this article, preverbal, never-verbalized, unacknowledged, nonmemory, and avoided verbalization are categories of unconscious experience used to describe two psychotherapy cases. Five prereflective patterns—attachment style, self-regulation, relational needs, script beliefs, and introjection—are suggested as a way to organize treatment planning. A relational and in-depth integrative psychotherapy is described for the treatment of unconscious experience.
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