Repression

Definitions

Chaplin

1. The forceful ejection from consciousness of impulses, memories, or experiences that are painful or shameful or generate a high level of anxiety. ¹

English & English

1. The exclusion of specific psychological activities or contents from conscious awareness by a process of which the individual is not directly aware. …Exclusion or blocking may be used as a synonym.²

Discussion

Repression is the mother of all defenses. By which I mean, every other defense is essentially a more elaborate form of repression. All defenses prevent awareness of an unwanted sensation, emotion, or thought, but repression is the only defense that simply makes the bad thing disappear without performing some other function first.

Repression and suppression are often confused, for example, because they are almost perfectly similar. The only difference is that whereas suppression is a conscious, intentional decision to not pay attention to something, repression is automatic and happens long before we actually become aware of said thing.

Similarly, rationalisation allows you to justify not dealing with something that causes you anxiety, but, obviously, in order to explain or make excuses about a thing, you have to be aware of it in the first place. If pure repression were active, you wouldn’t feel the anxiety, or even recognise that a particular action could be taken.

Another way of framing repression is being forgetful, or obvlivious, or absent-minded. In other words, the person’s primary way of making themselves feel safe in the world is simply not noticing that anything bad is happening, or even possible.

References