Repression (psychology)

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Repression is the psychological attempt to direct one's own desires and
impulses toward pleasurable instincts by excluding them from
one's consciousness and holding or subduing them in the unconscious.
According to psychoanalytic theory, repression plays a major role in
many mental illnesses, and in the psyche of the average person.[1]
Repression is a key concept of psychoanalysis, where it is understood as
a defence mechanism that "ensures that what is unacceptable to the conscious
mind, and would if recalled arouse anxiety, is prevented from entering into it."[2]
There has been debate as to whether (or how often) memory repression really
occurs[3] and mainstream psychology holds that true memory repression occurs
only very rarely.[4] American psychologists began to attempt to study repression
in the experimental laboratory around 1930. However, psychoanalysts were at
first disinterested in attempts to study repression in laboratory settings, and later
came to reject them. Most psychoanalysts concluded that such attempts
misrepresented the psychoanalytic concept of repression.

Sigmund Freud's theory[edit]

As Sigmund Freud moved away from hypnosis, and towards urging his patients
to remember the past in a conscious state, 'the very difficulty and laboriousness
of the process led Freud to a crucial insight'.[5] The intensity of his struggles to
get his patients to recall past memories led him to conclude that 'there was
some force that prevented them from becoming conscious and compelled them
to remain unconscious ... pushed the pathogenetic experiences in question out
of consciousness. I gave the name of repression to this hypothetical process'.[6]
Freud would later call the theory of repression "the corner-stone on which the
whole structure of psychoanalysis rests" ("On the History of the Psycho-Analytic
Movement").[7]
Freud developed many of his early concepts with his mentor, Josef Breuer.
Moreover, while Freud himself noted that the philosopher Arthur
Schopenhauer in 1884 had hinted at a notion of repression (but he had only
read him in later life), he did not mention that Johann Friedrich Herbart,
psychologist and founder of pedagogy whose ideas were very influential in
Freud's environment and in particular with Freud's psychiatry teacher Theodor
Meynert, had used the term in 1824 in his discussion of unconscious ideas
competing to get into consciousness.[8]
Stages[edit]
Freud considered that there was 'reason to assume that there is a primal
repression, a first phase of repression, which consists in the psychical
(ideational) representative of the instinct being denied entrance into the
conscious', as well as a 'second stage of repression, repression proper, which
affects mental derivatives of the repressed representative: distinguished what
he called a first stage of 'primal repression' from 'the case of repression proper
("after-pressure").'[9]
In the primary repression phase, 'it is highly probable that the immediate
precipitating causes of primal repressions are quantitative factors such as ... the
earliest outbreaks of anxiety, which are of a very intense kind'. [10] The child
realizes that acting on some desires may bring anxiety. This anxiety leads to
repression of the desire.
When it is internalized, the threat of punishment related to this form of anxiety
becomes the superego, which intercedes against the desires of the id (which
works on the basis of the pleasure principle). Freud speculated that 'it is
perhaps the emergence of the super-ego which provides the line of demarcation
between primal repression and after-pressure' [11]
Therapy[edit]
Abnormal repression, as defined by Freud, or neurotic behavior occurs when
repression develops under the influence of the superego and the internalized
feelings of anxiety, in ways leading to behavior that is illogical, self-destructive,
or antisocial.
A psychotherapist may try to ameliorate this behavior by revealing and
reintroducing the repressed aspects of the patient's mental processes to their
conscious awareness - 'assuming the role of mediator and peacemaker ... to lift
the repression'.[12] In favourable circumstances, 'Repression is replaced by
a condemning judgement carried out along the best lines',[13] thereby reducing
anxiety over the impulses involved.
Reactions[edit]
The philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre challenged Freud's theory by maintaining that
there is no "mechanism" that represses unwanted thoughts. Since "all
consciousness is conscious of itself" we will be aware of the process of
repression, even if skilfully dodging an issue. [14] The philosopher Thomas
Baldwin stated in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (1995) that Sartre's
argument that Freud's theory of repression is internally flawed is based on a
misunderstanding of Freud.[15] The philosopher Roger Scruton argued in Sexual
Desire (1986) that Freud's theory of repression disproves the claim, made
by Karl Popper and Ernest Nagel, that Freudian theory implies
no testable observation and therefore does not have genuine predictive power,
since the theory has "strong empirical content" and implies testable
consequences.[16]

Later developments[edit]
The psychoanalyst Otto Fenichel stressed that 'if the disappearance of the
original aim from consciousness is called repression, every sublimation is a
repression (a "successful" one: through the new type of discharge, the old one
has become superfluous)'.[17]
The psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan stressed the role of the signifier in
repression — 'the primal repressed is a signifier' — examining how the
symptom is 'constituted on the basis of primal repression, of the fall, of
the Unterdrückung, of the binary signifier ... the necessary fall of this first
signifier'.[18]
Family therapy has explored how familial taboos lead to 'this screening-off that
Freud called "repression"', emphasising the way that 'keeping part of ourselves
out of our awareness is a very active process ... a deliberate hiding of some
feeling from our family'.[19]

Experimental attempts to study repression[edit]

According to the psychologist Donald W. MacKinnon and his co-author William
F. Dukes, American psychologists began to attempt to study repression in the
experimental laboratory around 1930. These psychologists were influenced by
an exposition of the concept of repression published by the
psychoanalyst Ernest Jones in the American Journal of Psychology in 1911.
Like other psychologists who attempted to submit the claims of psychoanalysis
to experimental test, they did not immediately try to develop new techniques for
that purpose, instead conducting surveys of the psychological literature to see
whether "experiments undertaken to test other theoretical assertions" had
produced results relevant to assessing psychoanalysis. In 1930, H. Meltzer
published a survey of experimental literature on "the relationships between
feeling and memory" in an attempt to determine the relevance of laboratory
findings to "that aspect of the theory of repression which posits a relationship
between hedonic tone and conscious memory." However, according to
MacKinnon and Dukes, because Meltzer had an inadequate grasp of
psychoanalytic writing he misinterpreted Freud's view that the purpose of
repression is to avoid "unpleasure", taking the term to mean simply something
unpleasant, whereas for Freud it actually meant deep-rooted anxiety.
Nevertheless, Meltzer pointed out shortcomings in the studies he reviewed, and
in MacKinnon and Dukes's view he also "recognized that most of the
investigations which he reviewed had not been designed specifically to test the
Freudian theory of repression."[20]
In 1934, the psychologist Saul Rosenzweig and his co-author G. Mason
criticized Meltzer, concluding that the studies he reviewed suffered from two
basic problems: that the studies "worked with hedonic tone associated with
sensory stimuli unrelated to the theory of repression rather than with conative
hedonic tone associated with frustrated striving, which is the only kind of
'unpleasantnesss' which, according to the Freudian theory, leads to repression"
and that they "failed to develop under laboratory control the experiences which
are subsequently to be tested for recall". In MacKinnon and Dukes's view,
psychologists who wanted to study repression in the laboratory "faced the
necessity of becoming clear about the details of the psychoanalytic formulation
of repression if their researches were to be adequate tests of the theory" but
soon discovered that "to grasp clearly even a single psychoanalytic concept
was an almost insurmountable task." MacKinnon and Dukes attribute this
situation to the way in which Freud repeatedly modified his theory "without ever
stating clearly just which of his earlier formulations were to be completely
discarded, or if not discarded, how they were to be understood in the light of his
more recent assertions."[21]
MacKinnon and Dukes write that, while psychoanalysts were at first only
disinterested in attempts to study repression in laboratory settings, they later
came to reject them. They comment that while "the psychologists had criticized
each other's researches largely on the grounds that their experimental
techniques and laboratory controls had not been fully adequate, the
psychoanalysts rejected them on the more sweeping grounds that whatever
else these researches might be they simply were not investigations of
repression." They relate that in 1934, when Freud was sent reprints of
Rosenzweig's attempts to study repression, he responded with a dismissive
letter stating that "the wealth of reliable observations" on which psychoanalytic
assertions were based made them "independent of experimental verification." In
the same letter, Freud concluded that Rosenzweig's studies "can do no harm."
MacKinnon and Dukes describe Freud's conclusion as a "first rather casual
opinion", and state that most psychoanalysts eventually adopted a contrary
view, becoming convinced that "such studies could indeed be harmful since
they misrepresented what psychoanalysts conceived repression to be." [22]
Writing in 1962, MacKinnon and Dukes state that experimental studies
"conducted during the last decade" have largely abandoned the term
"repression", choosing instead to refer to the phenomenon as "perceptual
defense". They argue that this change of terminology has had a major effect on
how the phenomenon is understood, and that psychoanalysts, who had
attacked earlier studies of repression, did not criticize studies of perceptual
defense in a similar fashion, instead neglecting them. They concluded by noting
that psychologists remained divided in their view of repression, some regarding
it as well-established, others as needing further evidence to support it, and still
others finding it indefensible.[23]

Repressed memories[edit]
Main article: Repressed memory
One of the issues Freud struggled with was the status of the childhood
"memories" recovered from repression in his therapy. He concluded that "these
scenes from infancy are not always true. Indeed, they are not true in the
majority of cases, and in a few of them they are the direct opposite of the
historical truth".[24] Controversy arose in the late 20th century about the status of
such "recovered memories", particularly of child abuse, with many claiming that
Freud had been wrong to ignore the reality of such recovered memories.
While accepting "the realities of child abuse", the feminist Elaine
Showalter considered it important that one "distinguishes between abuse
remembered all along, abuse spontaneously remembered, abuse recovered in
therapy, and abuse suggested in therapy".[25] Memory researcher Elizabeth
Loftus has shown that it is possible to implant false memories in individuals and
that it is possible to "come to doubt the validity of therapeutically recovered
memories of sexual abuse ... [as] confabulations".[26] However, criminal
prosecutors continue to present them as evidence in legal cases [citation needed].
There is debate about the possibility of the repression of psychological trauma.
While some evidence suggests that "adults who have been through
overwhelming trauma can suffer a psychic numbing, blocking out memory of or
feeling about the catastrophe",[27] it appears that the trauma more
often strengthens memories due to heightened emotional or physical
sensations.[28] (However these sensations may also cause distortions, as human
memory in general is filtered both by layers of perception, and by "appropriate
mental schema ... spatio-temporal schemata").[29]

See also[edit]
 Censorship (psychoanalysis) – Barrier of the conscious and unconscious
 Cognitive dissonance – Psychological stress resulting from multiple
contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values held at the same time
 Defence mechanism – Unconscious psychological mechanism that
reduces anxiety arising from unacceptable or potentially harmful stimuli
 Denial – Assertion that a statement or allegation is not true despite the
existence or non-existence of evidence
 Experiential avoidance – Attempts to avoid internal experiences
 Expressive suppression – Willful curtailing of emotional visage
 Foreclosure (psychoanalysis)
 Motivation – Psychological feature that arouses an organism to action
toward a desired goal
 Narcissistic defence sequences
 Nirodha – Renounciation of desire in Buddhism
 Thought suppression – Conscious effort to discontinue a thought

Notes[edit]
1. ^ Laplanche pp. 390, 392
2. ^ Davis, Derek Russell (2004). Gregory, Richard L. (ed.). The Oxford Companion
to the Mind, Second Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.  803. ISBN 978-0-19-
866224-2.
3. ^ McNally, R.J. (2004). "The Science and Folklore of Traumatic Amnesia". Clinical
Psychology Science and Practice. 11 (1): 29–33. doi:10.1093/clipsy/bph056.
4. ^ "Repressed Memories and Recovered Memory Therapy". Jan
Groenveld. Archivedfrom the original on 2009-01-23. Retrieved November 2008. Check
date values in: |access-date= (help)
5. ^ Janet Malcolm, Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession (1998) p. 15
6. ^ Sigmund Freud, Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (Penguin 1995) p. 28–9
7. ^ Repression Archived 2010-09-06 at the Wayback Machine
8. ^ xxii Introduction to Studies on Hysteria
9. ^ Sigmund Freud, On Metapsychology (PFL 11) p. 147 and p. 184
10. ^ Sigmund Freud, On Psychopathology (PFL 10) p. 245
11. ^ Freud, On Psychopathology p. 245
12. ^ Freud, Five Lectures p. 35
13. ^ Freud, Five Lectures p. 87
14. ^ Wilson, John G. (2016-12-01). "Sartre and the Imagination: Top Shelf
Magazines".  Sexuality & Culture.  20  (4): 775–784.  doi:10.1007/s12119-016-9358-
x. ISSN 1095-5143.  S2CID 148101276.
15. ^ Baldwin, Thomas (2005). Honderich, Ted (ed.).  The Oxford Companion to
Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 835–7. ISBN 978-0-19-926479-7.
 16. ^ Scruton, Roger (1994).  Sexual Desire: A Philosophical Investigation. London:
Phoenix. p.  201. ISBN 978-1-85799-100-0.
17. ^ Otto Fenichel, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis (London 1946) p. 153
18. ^ Jacques Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis (1994) p.
176, p. 236, and p. 251
19. ^ R. Skynner/J. Cleese, Families and how to survive them (1993) p. 36–7
20. ^ MacKinnon, Donald W.; Dukes, William F. (1962). Postman, Leo
(ed.). Psychology in the Making: Histories of Selected Research Problems. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf. p. 663, 673–674. ISBN 978-0-19-866224-2.
21. ^ MacKinnon, Donald W.; Dukes, William F. (1962). Postman, Leo
(ed.). Psychology in the Making: Histories of Selected Research Problems. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 674–675. ISBN 978-0-19-866224-2.
22. ^ MacKinnon, Donald W.; Dukes, William F. (1962). Postman, Leo
(ed.). Psychology in the Making: Histories of Selected Research Problems. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 701–703. ISBN 978-0-19-866224-2.
23. ^ MacKinnon, Donald W.; Dukes, William F. (1962). Postman, Leo
(ed.). Psychology in the Making: Histories of Selected Research Problems. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 735-736.  ISBN  978-0-19-866224-2.
24. ^ Sigmund Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (PFL 1) p. 414
25. ^ Elaine Showalter, Hystories (London 1997) p. 158 and p. 148
26. ^ Showalter, p. 147
27. ^ Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence (1996) p. 209
28. ^ NPR: Why It's Hard to Admit to Being Wrong Archived 2018-01-08 at
the Wayback Machine
29. ^ Richard L. Gregory, The Oxford Companion to the Mind (1987) p. 679–80

References[edit]
 Boag, S. (2006). "Freudian repression, the common view, and
pathological science". Review of General Psychology. 10 (1): 74–
86. doi:10.1037/1089-2680.10.1.74. S2CID 40620714.
 Boag, S. (2012). Freudian repression, the unconscious, and the
dynamics of inhibition, London: Karnac.
 Jean Laplanche (1988). The language of psycho-analysis, Originally
published in French as Vocabulaire de la psychanalyse [1967].
 Rofé, Y. (2008). "Does Repression Exist? Memory, Pathogenic,
Unconscious and Clinical Evidence (2008)"  (PDF). Review of General
Psychology. 12 (1): 63–85. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.406.764. doi:10.1037/1089-
2680.12.1.63. S2CID 16830322.
 Rofé, Y. (2010). "The Rational-Choice Theory of Neurosis". Journal of
Psychotherapy Integration. 20 (2): 152–202. doi:10.1037/a0019767.

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