To understand consciousness, means philosophical, that you speak about the perspective of Man as such

To understand consciousness, desires and thinking, means psychological, that you speak about the contents of the observed, and the contents of the thoughts in the individual person, and that you take a psychological perspective on the observed and the thought.

To understand consciousness, desires and thinking, means philosophical, that you speak about the perspective and self-production of Man as such.

You direct the awareness towards the observer and the thinker, rather than towards the observed and the thought, towards the form of consciousness and thinking, rather than towards its content.

And the subconscious has here to do with absence and unreality; that is: the separation of the observer and the observed.