In Sartre’s critique of psychoanalysis (1962, pp. 48– 55, 1981, pp. 153– 171), he rejected Freud’s topographical model for similar reasons that Freud eventually did (Thompson, 2001). In the topographical model, the only thing separating the system-conscious from the system-unconscious is the so-called “censor,” which, according to Freud, regulates what is permitted into consciousness and, contrariwise, what is repressed into the unconscious. This means that the censor is aware of everything, that which is conscious and unconscious alike. Yet because the ego is unaware of the censor, this model posits a “second consciousness” (the censor) that is both unknown and unknowable to the ego. Sartre’s problem with this model is obvious: the so-called censor is the de facto “person” who is being analyzed and disclaims knowledge of all the shenanigans he employs in order to disguise what he is up to, an edition of what Sartre terms “bad faith.” Freud (1923) also had problems with the implications of a “second thinking subject” and decided to discard this model for one that contained only one subject that knows anything – the conscious portion of the ego – and not one, but three subjects that do not know anything: the id, the superego, and the unconscious portion of the ego that employs defense mechanisms.
Freud’s subsequent revision of his earlier model, however, fares little better in Sartre’s opinion. The topographical model is replaced with one that is less concerned with demarcating conscious and unconscious portions of the psyche than with determining the complex nature of psychic “agency” or subjectivity. Sartre’s complaint with the new model is that it still fails to resolve the problem of bad faith, the problem of a “lie without a liar.”
Aner Govrin, Jon MIlls (ed) Innovations in Psychoanalysis (Philosophy and Psychoanalysis) (Kindle location 2480-2493). Taylor and Francis. 2019, Kindle edition.