I don't believe in the unconscious. How's that for controversial, me being a therapist and all.

Let's recap - Freud gave us the idea/concept of the unconscious. He regarded it as a vast, submerged portion of the mind. In his mind, the unconcious comprised of the id, which accounts for the instinctual drives, acts as the motivating force for human behaviour and contains desires and wishes that the individual hides - or represses - from conscious recognition.

Let's pause there, because that part really doesn't make sense to me...how can you, at one stage in your life, know something consciously but then somehow move it or refile it to a place where you no longer know it or have access to it?

To Freud, cognitive conscious functions like thinking are performed by the ego (and a bit of superego, but most of the superego is in the unconscious bit...come on, keep up!). Conflict between conscious and uncscious processes are said to give rise to anxiety.

Pause again...eh? I mean...what? I'm mentally battling something I consciously know with something I unconsciously don't know and don't have access to but clearly some aspect of me does because otherwise I wouldn't be feeling anxious...have I got that right? Is it just me, or does all none of this make sense?

The unconscious mind can't be proved to exist. Freud's notion of it, anyway. I'm certainly not denying that the brain regularly gets on with loads of unconscious processing, you'd be mad to do that! However, the idea that it's a large resevoir of potentially harmful memories that impact our conscious behaviour even though we're unaware of them seems a bit far fetched to me.

Check out this link for a great look at how advances in neuroscience have given us a much better handle on how memory works, perception etc.