abaissement du niveau mental
Definition:
Abaissement du niveau mental refers to a temporary lowering of conscious functioning, a mental state where conscious defences are weakened, allowing unconscious material to emerge. This phenomenon is often associated with states of fatigue, relaxation, or altered consciousness, such as hypnosis or dreaming. This is an important condition for accessing deeper layers of the unconscious where repressed emotions can surface into conscious awareness. This is a mental state brought on by exhaustion, feeling overwhelmed, or emotional shock. When it happens, your focus drops, learned behaviours, social scripts, conditioned responses stop, thinking is disrupted, and images, memories, worries, and strange ideas can flood the mind. It can happen spontaneously.
Example:
In Jungian coaching, therapy or analysis, this state is beneficial because it allows a client to express unconscious content, making it available for analysis i.e. exploration and integration into conscious awareness. Their sense of self collapses allowing for deeper layers of their personality to emerge. For example, during free association or analysis of a dream, a client might become aware of repressed feelings in the unconscious that are pivotal to understanding their own psychological dynamics and with others.
