On the front page of the New York Times on Sunday, there was a story showing how effective new drugs have made the Freudian “talking cure” obsolete and too time-consuming to make it economically possible. Ten to fifteen minutes a patient was all the insurance companies would pay for. (Mere?) psychotherapists had the time to listen to patients reveal their unconscious. Psychiatrists did not need to.
But yesterday the unconscious made an unexpected comeback, in a different context, in the publication of David Brooks’ book, The Social Animal. A review by Michael Agger in Slate Magazine is subtitled, “David Brooks solves all our problems.” Brooks himself had a column yesterday in the NYT called “The New Humanism.”
The review in Slate summarizes David Brooks’ position as follows:
“[A] growing, dispersed body of research reminds us of a few key insights. First, the unconscious parts of the mind are most of the mind, where many of the most impressive feats of thinking take place. Second, emotion is not opposed to reason; our emotions assign value to things and are the basis of reason. Finally, we are not individuals who form relationships. We are social animals, deeply interpenetrated with one another, who emerge out of relationships….”
Brooks’ championship of the unconscious also has a political dimension:
“If an individual’s motivation is too shadowy to understand or predict, imagine the forces that propel an entire society. Government should be limited, modest, and aware that much is unknowable and unsolvable. Brooks hasn’t completely given up on the meritocracy. He still believes that ‘a healthy society is a mobile society…in which everyone has a reason to strive.’ But he also believes that the current setup of things in America is unfair. If your conscious and unconscious aren’t cultivated in an information-rich environment starting from birth, you can almost never join the cognitively adept class that runs the world. The role of government – somehow –should be to build a uniform intellectual and cultural foundation for all. Through schooling, I suppose, and policies that encourage community and strong moral fiber….”
In his column David Brooks writes:
“[The] body of research suggests the French enlightenment view of human nature, which emphasized individualism and reason, was wrong. The British enlightenment, which emphasized social sentiments, was more accurate about who we are. It suggests we are not divided creatures. We don’t only progress as reason dominates the passions. We also thrive as we educate our emotions.
“When Sigmund Freud came up with his view of the unconscious, it had a huge effect on society and literature. Now hundreds of thousands of researchers are coming up with a more accurate view of who we are. Their work is scientific, but it directs our attention toward a new humanism. It’s beginning to show how the emotional and the rational are intertwined.
“I suspect their work will have a giant effect on the culture. It’ll change how we see ourselves. Who knows, it may even someday transform the way our policy-makers see the world.”
Eric Koch’s book, The Weimar Triangle, is available at Indigo-Chapters and in your local bookstore. 
As a psychotherapist, I work with some people who wouldn’t benefit from talk therapy if they were not already on medication for depression, anxiety or one or more of many other conditions. I also work with people who don’t need or don’t want pharmaceutical intervention. They want to manage their relationships and their own inner conflicts by exploring the human condition and understanding how they can act in their own best interests and those of the people around them. The medical model doesn’t fit their skin. Ultimately it’s not a question of medication vs psychotherapy. The challenge is to find the appropriate combination of modalities to address the specific needs of each individual, in a way that they feel comfortable, respected, and helped.
I agree with David Brooks ideas as expressed in The New HUMANISM. Specifically, human nature and his inclusion of psychology, neuroscience etc., are of vital importance. This would produce more developed individuals (more evolved) and would benefit society.