THE REPRESSION
Sigmund Freud (1915)
Summary:
It may happen that a drive motion collides with resistances that try to make it inoperative. Under certain conditions, it enters a
state of repression. If it were an external stimulus, escape would be the appropriate means. However, in the case of a drive, the
escape is not effective since the ego cannot escape from itself. Eventually, an appeal can be found in the adverse judgment against
the instinctive motion. A stage prior to adverse judgment is repression, the concept of which was not established before
psychoanalytic studies.
The repression is not easy to deduce theoretically. Why would a drive motion be a victim of such a fate? To this end, the condition
must be fulfilled that the achievement of the instinctive goal causes displeasure instead of pleasure, which is difficult to conceive,
since the satisfaction of the instinct is always pleasant. There must be particular constellations or some process that transforms
pleasure into displeasure.
To better understand repression, we can consider other instinctive situations. For example, an external stimulus can be internalized
and cause a source of continuous excitation, similar to a drive. This case is experienced as pain, the aim of which is to cease the
disturbance and displeasure, without obtaining direct pleasure. Pain is imperative and can only be overcome by a drug or psychic
distraction. However, this example is not clear for our purpose.
Consider unsatisfied hunger, which becomes imperative and can only be appeased by satisfaction, maintaining a tension of need.
There is no repression here. Repression does not occur when the tension caused by the dissatisfaction of a drive becomes
unbearable. The means of defense of the organism against this situation must be studied from another approach.
Through clinical experience in psychoanalytic practice, we learn that the satisfaction of the repressed drive would be possible and
pleasurable, but irreconcilable with other demands, producing pleasure in one place and displeasure in another. Repression occurs
when the displeasure outweighs the pleasure of satisfaction. Moreover, repression is not a defense mechanism present from the
beginning; It arises only when a clear separation is established between the conscious and unconscious activity of the soul,
rejecting something from consciousness and keeping it away from it. Before this stage, other destinies of the drive, such as the
move towards the opposite and the return to one's own person, were exclusively responsible for the defense against the instinctive
impulses.
We now understand that repression and the unconscious are so closely related that we need to learn more about psychic instances
and the difference between unconscious and conscious before delving into repression. For now, we can only describe some aspects
of repression based on clinical experience.
There is a primordial repression, where the psychic representation of the drive is denied in the conscious, creating a fixation that
persists. The second stage, repression itself, affects the ideas associated with the repressed representation. This repression is an
"effort to hunt" and not only implies repulsion from the conscious, but also the attraction of the repressed. These forces cooperate
to make the repression successful.
Under the influence of the study of psychoneuroses, which shows the substantial effects of repression, we tend to overestimate
their psychological content and forget that repression does not prevent the representation of the drive from continuing to exist in
the unconscious. Repression only interrupts the link with the conscious system.
Psychoanalysis teaches us that the representation of the drive develops with greater richness when it is repressed and distant from
the conscious, proliferating in fantasy and seeming more intense and dangerous when translated and presented to the neurotic.
This illusory intensity is the result of uninhibited fantasy and the overstasis produced by denied satisfaction.
However, not all offshoots of the primordial repressed are kept apart from the conscious. If they distance themselves far enough,
either by disfigurements or by intermediate links, they can access the conscious. In psychoanalytic technique, we ask the patient
to produce these offshoots, which by distancing or disfiguring themselves can evade conscious censorship. We observe that the
patient can generate a series of occurrences until he finds one that forces him to try repression again. Neurotic symptoms also
meet this condition, being offshoots of the repressed that, through these formations, manage to access consciousness.
Repression operates individually, and each offshoot of the repressed can have a particular destiny. Slight differences in
disfigurement radically change the outcome. The objects most loved and abhorred by people come from the same perceptions
1
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Sigmund Freud (1915)
Summary:
It may happen that a drive motion collides with resistances that try to make it inoperative. Under certain conditions, it enters a
state of repression. If it were an external stimulus, escape would be the appropriate means. However, in the case of a drive, the
escape is not effective since the ego cannot escape from itself. Eventually, an appeal can be found in the adverse judgment against
the instinctive motion. A stage prior to adverse judgment is repression, the concept of which was not established before
psychoanalytic studies.
The repression is not easy to deduce theoretically. Why would a drive motion be a victim of such a fate? To this end, the condition
must be fulfilled that the achievement of the instinctive goal causes displeasure instead of pleasure, which is difficult to conceive,
since the satisfaction of the instinct is always pleasant. There must be particular constellations or some process that transforms
pleasure into displeasure.
To better understand repression, we can consider other instinctive situations. For example, an external stimulus can be internalized
and cause a source of continuous excitation, similar to a drive. This case is experienced as pain, the aim of which is to cease the
disturbance and displeasure, without obtaining direct pleasure. Pain is imperative and can only be overcome by a drug or psychic
distraction. However, this example is not clear for our purpose.
Consider unsatisfied hunger, which becomes imperative and can only be appeased by satisfaction, maintaining a tension of need.
There is no repression here. Repression does not occur when the tension caused by the dissatisfaction of a drive becomes
unbearable. The means of defense of the organism against this situation must be studied from another approach.
Through clinical experience in psychoanalytic practice, we learn that the satisfaction of the repressed drive would be possible and
pleasurable, but irreconcilable with other demands, producing pleasure in one place and displeasure in another. Repression occurs
when the displeasure outweighs the pleasure of satisfaction. Moreover, repression is not a defense mechanism present from the
beginning; It arises only when a clear separation is established between the conscious and unconscious activity of the soul,
rejecting something from consciousness and keeping it away from it. Before this stage, other destinies of the drive, such as the
move towards the opposite and the return to one's own person, were exclusively responsible for the defense against the instinctive
impulses.
We now understand that repression and the unconscious are so closely related that we need to learn more about psychic instances
and the difference between unconscious and conscious before delving into repression. For now, we can only describe some aspects
of repression based on clinical experience.
There is a primordial repression, where the psychic representation of the drive is denied in the conscious, creating a fixation that
persists. The second stage, repression itself, affects the ideas associated with the repressed representation. This repression is an
"effort to hunt" and not only implies repulsion from the conscious, but also the attraction of the repressed. These forces cooperate
to make the repression successful.
Under the influence of the study of psychoneuroses, which shows the substantial effects of repression, we tend to overestimate
their psychological content and forget that repression does not prevent the representation of the drive from continuing to exist in
the unconscious. Repression only interrupts the link with the conscious system.
Psychoanalysis teaches us that the representation of the drive develops with greater richness when it is repressed and distant from
the conscious, proliferating in fantasy and seeming more intense and dangerous when translated and presented to the neurotic.
This illusory intensity is the result of uninhibited fantasy and the overstasis produced by denied satisfaction.
However, not all offshoots of the primordial repressed are kept apart from the conscious. If they distance themselves far enough,
either by disfigurements or by intermediate links, they can access the conscious. In psychoanalytic technique, we ask the patient
to produce these offshoots, which by distancing or disfiguring themselves can evade conscious censorship. We observe that the
patient can generate a series of occurrences until he finds one that forces him to try repression again. Neurotic symptoms also
meet this condition, being offshoots of the repressed that, through these formations, manage to access consciousness.
Repression operates individually, and each offshoot of the repressed can have a particular destiny. Slight differences in
disfigurement radically change the outcome. The objects most loved and abhorred by people come from the same perceptions
1
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