Psychological repression, also psychic repression or simply repression, is the psychological attempt by an individual to repel one's own desires and impulses towards pleasurable instincts by excluding the desire from one's consciousness and holding or subduing it in the unconscious. Repression plays a major role in many mental illnesses, and in the psyche of average people.
'Repression, a key concept of psychoanalysis, is not a defense mechanism as it pre-exists the ego e.g. 'Primal Repression'. It ensures that what is unacceptable to the conscious mind, and would if recalled arouse anxiety, is prevented from entering into it'; and is generally accepted as such by psychoanalytic psychologists.
However, regarding the distinct subject of repressed memory, there is debate as to whether (or how often) memory repression really happens and mainstream psychology holds that true memory repression occurs only very rarely.
Read more about Psychological Repression: Freud's Theory, Later Developments, Related Concepts: Repressed Memories
Famous quotes containing the word repression:
“People with a culture of poverty suffer much less from repression than we of the middle class suffer and indeed, if I may make the suggestion with due qualification, they often have a hell of a lot more fun than we have.”
—Brian Friel (b. 1929)