In psychology, the subconscious is the part of the mind that is not currently of focal awareness. The term was already popularized in the early 20th century in areas ranging from psychology, religion, and spirituality. The concept was heavily popularized by Joseph Murphy's 1963 self-help book The Power of Your Subconscious Mind.
Scholarly use of the term
The word subconscious represents an anglicized version of the French subconscient as coined by
John Norris, in "An Essay Towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World” (1708):
"The immediate objects of Sense, are not the objects of Intellection, they being of a Subconscient [subconscious] nature." A more recent use was in 1889 by the psychologist Pierre Janet (1859–1947), in his doctorate of letters thesis, Of Psychological Automatism (. Janet argued that underneath the layers of critical-thought functions of the conscious mind lay a powerful awareness that he called the subconscious mind.
In the strict psychological sense, the adjective is defined as "operating or existing outside of consciousness".
Psychoanalysis
Sigmund Freud used the term "subconscious" in 1893 to describe associations and impulses that are not accessible to consciousness. He later abandoned the term in favor of unconscious, noting the following: