Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun rare Unpleasantness; displeasure.
  • noun psychology A sense of internal discomfort opposed to pleasure, produced by impeded impulses from the ego.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From un- +‎ pleasure.

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Examples

  • The fact that Freud tilts his developmental theory primarily towards the former, on the overriding significance of unpleasure, is a symptom of strong theory at work: strong theory tends to be preemptive, organized by the demands of prevention rather than facilitation.

    _Alastor_, Apostasy, and the Ecology of Criticism 1999

  • Sure, the ego wants to please itself, but perversely it does so not by seeking out pleasure, which can cause it overexcitement, but by reducing unpleasure, which Freud defines as anything that throws the ego off course, upsetting its equilibrium.

    BREAKFAST WITH SOCRATES ROBERT ROWLAND SMITH 2010

  • Sure, the ego wants to please itself, but perversely it does so not by seeking out pleasure, which can cause it overexcitement, but by reducing unpleasure, which Freud defines as anything that throws the ego off course, upsetting its equilibrium.

    BREAKFAST WITH SOCRATES ROBERT ROWLAND SMITH 2010

  • Either a song or tune already indicates the mood, or a preliminary cadence is there, in a neutral mood or on one side of pleasure or unpleasure, ready for "me" to add the song and define how I feel.

    Dr. Leo Rangell: Music in the Head: Living at the Brain-Mind Border; Part 2 2008

  • Trauma, the experience of unabsorbable unpleasure, brings out both streams of motives, to minimize the hurt and to bring satisfaction instead.

    Dr. Leo Rangell: Music in the Head: Living at the Brain-Mind Border; Part 1 2008

  • But this expression of unpleasure will stimulate the voters.

    Archive 2006-05-01 Ann Althouse 2006

  • Trauma, the experience of unabsorbable unpleasure, brings out both streams of motives, to minimize the hurt and to bring satisfaction instead.

    Dr. Leo Rangell: Music in the Head: Living at the Brain-Mind Border; Part 1 2006

  • Either a song or tune already indicates the mood, or a preliminary cadence is there, in a neutral mood or on one side of pleasure or unpleasure, ready for "me" to add the song and define how I feel.

    Dr. Leo Rangell: Music in the Head: Living at the Brain-Mind Border; Part 2 2006

  • But I feel quite well today, at least I don't blame the slight unpleasure on the beer....

    Christmas Party magnio 2005

  • The path of logic Freud follows in developing this idea of “unpleasure” can help us understand how the Freudian model might fare in the age of neuroscience.

    Mind Wide Open Steven Johnson 2004

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