The human psyche is a subtle structure that is constantly influenced by the person himself and his environment, while functioning independently. Many things are not realized or understood by a person, especially if only the result is visible without awareness of the process of its formation. Repression is a psychological form of protecting the human psyche from external stress factors, examples of which can be used to familiarize yourself with its results.

The psyche has several ways of self-defense. What is it? The online magazine site draws readers' attention to what is happening against their will. Since childhood, the psyche protects a person from various mental traumas. Since a child is the most vulnerable creature, his mental defenses work much faster and more freely than those of an adult.

Psychological defense mechanisms refer to programs to avoid stressful and traumatic factors. And here the psyche has several ways to do this:

1. Ignoring.
2. Projection.
3. Fixation.
4. Regression.
5. Repression or suppression.

Repression is one of the common forms of defense that an individual can consciously resort to. Only in this case, most likely, the suppression will occur poorly, reminding itself every time in critical situations. If we are talking about the natural mechanism of repression, when information goes into the subconscious and cannot be reproduced by a person at his will, then the psyche will briefly protect itself from stressful external stimuli, but it will not be able to relieve a person from the experiences that will arise every time he encounters such stimuli .

A striking example of repression can be a person’s irritability to an unimportant factor. For example, an adult man gets irritated every time his mother calls him. From the outside, many people may think his irritability is groundless. The mother just calls, and her son is already furious. However, if we turn to subconscious programs, it may turn out that the psyche pushed there all the situations when the mother, through her various actions, spoiled the life and mood of her son. And now my son has simply developed a conditioned reflex at the sight of just one mention of his mother.

The proximity of stimuli is a prerequisite for the formation of conditioned reflexes. Do you think the reflex would have developed in Pavlovian dogs if food (unconditioned stimulus) was brought 15 minutes after the bell (conditioned stimulus) or if the bell was given after feeding? To establish associative connections, the conditioned stimulus must act immediately before or simultaneously with the unconditioned reflex reaction.

Each of the assumptions can be considered as a special technique for developing reflexes, and not the most effective one. The action of an unconditioned stimulus before a conditioned one is called reverse conditioning, as a result of which very weak associations are formed (if any). Calling long before feeding is called trace conditioning. This method is also ineffective.

To form sustainable associations, the following is necessary:

• Make sure that the conditioned stimulus acts immediately before the unconditioned one and that there are no “gaps” between them. Then both stimuli will be perceived as adjacent.
• Repeatedly and frequently apply exposure to adjacent stimuli. The stability of associative connections is directly proportional to the frequency and number of repetitions.
• Use a strong conditioned stimulus.

It is worth cautioning against the apparent ease of the conditioned reflex method. At first glance, everything is simple: you act with a strong conditioned stimulus immediately before the unconditioned one, repeat the entire procedure many times - and the conditioned reflex is formed. According to the contiguity of the stimuli, if the above conditions are met, associative connections should be formed. Everything would have been very simple if it had not been for a certain undergraduate student named Robert Rescorla, who doubted that the proximity of stimuli was enough to form a reflex. He proposed adding one more rule to the rules listed above - the rule of predictability.

Rescorla proposed that the conditioned stimulus should not only be consistent with the unconditioned stimulus, but also accurately predict it. If in one series of experiments the time intervals between the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli are uneven (1 minute, 7 minutes, 2 minutes, 12 minutes, etc.), the unconditioned stimulus will be predictable. The conditioned stimulus must be applied in such a way that the body expects the appearance of the unconditioned stimulus with a certain degree of confidence.

Rescorla did not stop there. Some time later, together with another psychologist Alan Wagner, he made another contribution to learning theory. According to the Rescorla-Wagner concept, the effectiveness of a conditioned stimulus is directly proportional to its surprise. If a conditioned stimulus predicts an unconditioned one, associative connections are established between them. At the first stage, associations quickly become stronger. Then, as the subject gets used to the conditioned stimulus, the strength of the associations stops increasing. The conditioned stimulus becomes more expected and, accordingly, less effective.

What is repression?

The concept of “repression” was introduced by Sigmund Freud. This term refers to psychological defense for the purpose of active forgetting. It is as if some event or factor that causes sharply negative unpleasant experiences in a person is erased from human memory.

In other terms, repression is defined as:

• Repression.
• Suppression.

The essence of repression is that the psyche directs forces to forget the information that causes pain and strong feelings, transferring it to the subconscious part. Since the brain cannot completely forget the information received by it, it can only transfer it from the conscious sphere to the subconscious.

This is done so that the human psyche reaches its balance, since in the presence of certain thoughts or memories the individual experiences deep and strong experiences, emotions, and suffering. It should be recalled that repression is just one way to eliminate negative information from memory. One person will experience repression, while another person will experience another form of defense, such as fixation.

Repression in psychoanalysis

The mechanism of repression, which was proposed by Freud, is one of the factors studied in psychoanalysis. When conducting conversations with a client, the psychoanalyst draws attention to the fact that his consciousness has been repressed. Repression in psychoanalysis is a defense mechanism of the psyche, which does not want to experience anxiety and fears in the real world, therefore it represses memories into the subconscious.

Repression is considered an act of regression, in which real events and internal desires, instincts, and interests come into conflict. When a person cannot cope with an internal conflict, then repression occurs - the psyche transfers memories to an unconscious space so as not to cause acute sensations.

To imagine the mechanism of repression, a metaphor should be used. A lecture is taking place, during which one of the listeners talks loudly and makes noise while the lecturer presents the material. When a lecturer gets tired of a listener, he stops presenting the material and gives an ultimatum: until the listener calms down, he will not continue reading the lecture. There are other listeners in the audience who become intermediaries and push the loud listener out the door. The lecture continues, everyone is happy.

1. The lecturer in this situation is consciousness.
2. The listener who made noise is an unpleasant memory.
3. The listeners who escorted the intruder out are mentally ill.
4. The territory behind the door is subconscious.

A listener who was kicked out wants to come back. But guards (other listeners) stand in his way. However, this does not become an obstacle, because the noisy listener continues to look for ways to get back into the audience: he waits for the “guards” to fall asleep, go change clothes, go out for lunch, etc.

All this is an illustration of how information is first driven into the area of ​​the subconscious when it becomes interfering and objectionable to consciousness, and then again emerges in memory in various images when it succeeds. Repressed information does not disappear or disappear anywhere. She is simply waiting for the moment when the psyche weakens its defenses, and then it can break out. Moreover, how exactly the information will emerge in consciousness will be another question.

However, there is such a solution to the problem: when the lecturer negotiates with a noisy listener in order to eliminate the problem on mutually beneficial terms. Then the information returns to conscious memory and becomes simply a memory to which the person is calm. It is this transformation that the psychoanalyst deals with.

Neuroses are the result of repression. If a person does not accept some information, cannot experience it, or treat it calmly, then it is repressed (that is, forgotten). Often, such repression occurs in childhood, but in subsequent years the person continues to solve the same problem, when again and again he encounters situations that cause him anxiety, which he repressed. It is necessary to understand the information that was repressed in order to eliminate the neurotic state and send it to the past.

Repression as a psychological defense

Repression is considered the main mechanism of mental defense when two functions are performed:

1. Negative experiences are prevented by removing traumatic information from consciousness into the unconscious.
2. Control and retention of traumatic information in the subconscious.

Examples of repression could be situations after physical or sexual violence, PTSD, military action, etc. However, information does not go away. Periodically, it pops up in the memory; a person may experience causeless anxiety, have nightmares, or not fall asleep for a long time.

On the one hand, repression is a way of adapting the psyche to environmental conditions. On the other hand, suppression prevents a person from developing, becoming stronger and more perfect, using his past experience in his present life, and also eliminating conflicts both within himself and in the outside world.

Bottom line

The psyche does everything for the benefit of its owner. However, a person also needs to try to do everything to harmonize his psyche. Here you need to remove information from the subconscious in order to direct it to solve a problem that will no longer worry you.

When we have a feeling of strong but directly opposing desires (motivations), we experience internal conflict. Psychological defense is those mechanisms that stabilize our condition and preserve our self-image. Thus, these are actions of our consciousness in which it rejects or changes unfavorable information about ourselves or others.

Defense mechanisms were first identified by S. Freud, and studied and described by his daughter A. Freud*. Based on the teachings of her father, A. Freud, in contrast to traditional psychoanalysis, created a new theoretical direction in psychology, “Ego psychology,” imbued with faith in the power of the human personality. A. Freud identifies the following defense mechanisms: denial, repression, projection, introjection, regression, reaction formation, isolation, destruction, struggle of the self with itself, conversion and sublimation.

* See: Freud A. Psychology of the Self and Defense Mechanisms: Trans. from English - M.: Pedagogy, 1993.

Let us dwell on some of the most “working” psychological defense mechanisms.

Displacement -this is a mechanism as a result of which thoughts, memories or experiences unacceptable to a person are, as it were, “expelled” from consciousness and transferred to the sphere of the unconscious, but at the same time continue to influence the behavior of the individual, manifesting itself in the form of anxiety, fear, etc.

Substitutionassociated with the transfer of an action from an inaccessible object to an accessible one. Those feelings and actions that should have been directed at the object that caused the anxiety are transferred to another object. For example, aggression towards superiors is sometimes taken out on members of the employee’s family. There is another type of substitution, when some feelings are replaced with the exact opposite (for example, unrequited love can turn into hatred, sexual need can result in aggression, violence). In television reports about football matches, we often see how an attacker, who misses the target, sends the rebounding ball with a strong blow, in any direction. In this way, the accumulated energy is discharged.

Identification -a defense mechanism in which a person sees another in himself and transfers to himself the motives and qualities inherent in the other person. Identification also has a positive aspect, since with the help of this mechanism the individual assimilates social experience, masters new properties and qualities. Each of us, as readers and spectators, is familiar with empathy for the hero. But identification is also carried out in relation to a real partner in communication, in joint affairs, experiences. In the practice of education, it is noticed that in a family the son identifies himself with the father, and the daughter with the mother. In labor relations, a young specialist finds an example for himself, a role model, i.e. a certain person whom he can focus on when trying to master professional skills.

Negationis defined as the process of eliminating, ignoring traumatic perceptions of external reality. In an everyday sense, this mechanism is known to us as the “position of an ostrich”, which hides its head in the sand, continuing to remain in a dangerous situation for itself. The first reaction of a patient who learns from a doctor about his serious illness will be the following: “I don’t believe it, it can’t be!” This is the basic formula of the denial mechanism. Her options: “There is no danger, I don’t see it!”; “I don’t hear anything, I don’t see anything...”

Projection -This is most often an unconscious mechanism through which impulses and feelings that are unacceptable to the individual are attributed to an external object and penetrate consciousness as an altered perception of the external world. He transfers (projects) his own desires, feelings and personality traits, which a person does not want to admit to himself because of their ugliness, onto another person. We know that a stingy person, as a rule, sees in other people primarily greed and stinginess, while an aggressive person considers everyone around him to be cruel. Based on the action of this mechanism, practicing psychologists have developed and used projective tests.

Rationalization - a protective mechanism that has as its function camouflage, hiding from the consciousness of the subject the true motives of his actions, thoughts and feelings in the name of ensuring internal comfort, preserving self-esteem, self-respect. Often this mechanism is used by a person to prevent the experience of guilt or shame. When this mechanism operates, the awareness of those motives that appear to be socially unacceptable or disapproved is blocked. A person, after some actions, actions dictated by unconscious motives, tries to understand them and rationally explain them, attributing to them more acceptable, more noble motives. Such attempts may be perceived as an excuse to others or to oneself for one’s inadequacy. When experiencing mental trauma, a person protects himself by overestimating or devaluing the significance of the traumatic factor in the direction of reducing it. Let us recall the well-known fable of Aesop, arranged by I.A. Krylov "The Fox and the Grapes". Unable to get tasty fruits, the Fox reassures herself that the grapes are green.

Reactive formations. This is a very interesting mechanism that is familiar to many from everyday practice. Its essence lies in the transformation of a traumatic motive into its opposite. Sometimes unreasonable, inexplicable hostility towards someone is transformed in relations with this person into special consideration, emphasized politeness. And vice versa, sympathy, maybe even love interest is demonstrated as hostility, deliberate ignoring and even tactlessness. Thus, psychologically competent teachers and parents, in the aggressive pursuit of a teenage boy of his classmate, “read” the feeling of falling in love, and regard it (and this is true in most cases, everyone can remember something similar) as a courtship ritual characteristic of adolescents.

Regression -a psychological defense mechanism consisting in the fact that a person, in his behavior when responding to very important situations, returns to early, childhood types of behavior that were successful at that stage. Regression is the return of the individual from higher forms of behavior to lower ones. Thus, an adult in difficult conditions strives to avoid internal anxiety and lose a sense of self-esteem. Regression is often assessed as a mechanism negative for the individual (for example, infantilism). Infantility (lat. infantilis - infantile, childish) in psychology is understood as a feature of a person’s mental make-up, in which traits characteristic of an earlier age are revealed, such as emotional instability, immaturity of judgment, capriciousness, subordination, and lack of independence.

There are other mechanisms of human psychological defense. They are used to form adequate self-esteem and self-improvement of the individual. However, one should not think that they are needed only by psychotherapists; they are also actively used by teachers; they are unconsciously used by almost every person. Knowledge of the mechanisms of psychological defense will help us work with our consciousness, understand their manifestations in the behavior and consciousness of other people.

German: Verdr?ngung. - French: refoulement. -English: repression. 6n. - Italian: rimozione. - Portuguese: recalque or recalcamento. Spanish: represion.

o A) In the narrow sense of the word - an action through which the subject tries to eliminate or retain in the unconscious ideas associated with drives (thoughts, images, memories). Repression occurs in cases where the satisfaction of an instinct is pleasant in itself, but can become unpleasant when other demands are taken into account.

Repression is especially evident in hysteria, but plays an important role in other mental disorders, as well as in the normal psyche. It can be considered that this is a universal mental process that underlies the formation of the unconscious as a separate area of ​​the psyche.

B) In a broader sense of the word, “repression” in Freud is sometimes close to “defense”*: firstly, because repression in the meaning of A is present, at least temporarily, in many complex defensive processes (“part instead of the whole”), and in -secondly, because the theoretical model of repression was for Freud a prototype of other defense mechanisms.

o The distinction between these two meanings of the term “repression” appears as something inevitable when we remember how Freud himself assessed his own use of the concepts “repression” and “defense” in 1926: “I believe that we have reason to return again to the old term “defense” to designate any techniques used by the ego in conflicts that can lead to neuroses, while “repression” we call that special method of defense with which we were best acquainted at the beginning of our chosen research path" (1) . All this, however, does not take into account the development of Freud's views on the problem of the relationship between repression and defense. Regarding this evolution, it is appropriate to make the following remarks:

1) in texts written earlier than “The Interpretation of Dreams” (Die Traumdeutung, 1920), the frequency of use of the words “repression” and “defense” is approximately the same. However, only occasionally are they used by Freud as completely equivalent, so it would be a mistake to assume, relying on this later testimony of Freud, that at that time he knew only repression as a special method of defense against hysteria and that thereby he took the particular for the general. First of all, Freud then clarified the different types of psychoneurosis - depending on clearly different methods of defense, among which repression is not mentioned. Thus, in two texts devoted to “Psychoneuroses of Defense” (1894, 1896), it is the conversion* of affect that is presented as a protective mechanism in hysteria, the displacement of affect as a mechanism of obsessive-compulsive neurosis, while in psychosis Freud draws attention to mechanisms such as rejection (verwerfen) (simultaneously both representation and affect) or projection. In addition, the word “repression” sometimes denotes ideas divorced from consciousness that form the core of a separate group of mental phenomena - this process is observed both in obsessive-compulsive neuroses and in hysteria (2).

The concepts of defense and repression both go beyond any single psychopathological disorder, but they do so in different ways. From the very beginning, protection acted as a generic concept, denoting a tendency “... associated with the most general conditions of the functioning of the mental mechanism (with the law of constancy)” (For). It can have both normal and pathological forms, and in the latter case, the defense appears in the form of complex “mechanisms”, the fate of which in affect and representation is different. Repression is also present in all types of disorders and is not at all just a defense mechanism inherent in hysteria; it arises because each neurosis presupposes its own unconscious (see this term), based precisely on repression.

2) After 1900, the term “defense” is used less frequently by Freud, although it does not completely disappear, contrary to Freud’s own statement (“instead of defense, I began to talk about repression”) (4), and retains the same generic meaning. Freud talks about “defense mechanisms”, “struggle for the purpose of defense”, etc.

As for the term “repression,” it does not lose its originality and does not become a concept denoting all the mechanisms used in a defensive conflict. Freud, for example, never called “secondary defenses” (defenses directed against a symptom) “secondary repressions” (5). In fact, in the 1915 work on repression, this concept retains the meaning indicated above: “Its essence is the removal and retention outside of consciousness” [of certain mental contents] (6a). In this sense, repression is sometimes considered by Freud as a special “defense mechanism” or rather as a “special “destiny of the drive” used for defense purposes. In hysteria, repression plays a major role, and in obsessive-compulsive neurosis it is included in a more complex process of defense (6) Therefore, one should not assume, following the compilers of the Standard Edition (7), that since repression is present in various types of neurosis, the concepts of repression and defense are completely equivalent. Repression arises as one of the moments of defense in each disorder and represents - in the exact sense. words are repressed into the unconscious.

However, the mechanism of repression, studied by Freud at its various stages, is for him a prototype of other defensive operations. Thus, describing the case of Schreber and identifying special defense mechanisms in psychosis, Freud simultaneously talks about the three stages of repression and seeks to build its theory. Of course, in this text the confusion between repression and defense reaches its highest level, and there are fundamental problems behind this terminological confusion (see: Projection).

3) Let us finally note that, having included repression in the more general category of defense mechanisms, Freud, in his comments to Anna Freud’s book, wrote the following: “I have never doubted that repression is not the only method by which the ego can carry out its intentions However, repression is unique because it is more clearly demarcated from other mechanisms than other mechanisms are from each other" (8).

“The theory of repression is the cornerstone on which the entire edifice of psychoanalysis rests” (9). The term "repression" appears in Herbart (10), and some authors have suggested that Freud may have been familiar with Herbart's psychology through Meynert (11). However, repression as a clinical fact manifests itself already in the very first cases of treatment of hysteria. Freud noted that patients have no control over those memories that, emerging in memory, retain all their vividness for them: “We were talking about things that the patient would like to forget, unintentionally pushing them out of his consciousness” (12).

As we see, the concept of repression was initially correlated with the concept of the unconscious (the very concept of the repressed for a long time - right up to the discovery of unconscious defenses of the Self - was for Freud synonymous with the unconscious). As for the word “unintentionally,” already in this period (1895) Freud used it with a number of reservations: the splitting of consciousness begins with a deliberate, intentional act. In essence, repressed contents elude the subject and, as a “separate group of mental phenomena,” are subject to their own laws (primary process*). The repressed idea is the first “nucleus of crystallization”, capable of unintentionally attracting painful ideas (13). In this regard, repression is marked with the stamp of the primary process. In fact, this is precisely what distinguishes it as a pathological form of defense from such ordinary defense as, for example, avoidance (3b), withdrawal. Finally, repression is immediately characterized as an action that involves maintaining a counterload, and always remains defenseless against the force of unconscious desire, striving to return to consciousness and action (see: Return of the repressed, Formation of a compromise). Between 1911 and 1915 Freud sought to build a strict theory of the process of repression, distinguishing its various stages. However, this was not the first theoretical approach to the problem. Freud's theory of seduction* is the first systematic attempt to understand repression, and the attempt is all the more interesting because in it the description of the mechanism is inextricably linked with the description of the object, namely sexuality.

In the article “Repression” (Die Verdrängung, 1915), Freud distinguishes between repression in the broad sense (including three stages) and repression in the narrow sense (only the second stage). The first stage is “primary repression*”: it does not relate to the drive as such, but only to the signs representing it, which are inaccessible to consciousness and serve as the support of drives. This is how the first unconscious core is created as a pole of attraction for repressed elements.

Repression in the proper sense of the word (eigentliche Verdr?ngung), or, in other words, “repression in the aftereffect” (Nachdr?ngen), is thus a two-way process in which attraction is associated with repulsion (Abstossung) carried out by a higher authority .

Finally, the third stage is the “return of the repressed” in the form of symptoms, dreams, erroneous actions, etc. What is the effect of the act of repression? Not to attraction (14a), which belongs to the realm of the organic, going beyond the framework of the “consciousness - unconscious” alternative, not to affect. Affect can undergo various transformations depending on repression, but cannot become unconscious in the strict sense of the word (14b) (see: Suppression). Only “ideas as representatives of drive” (ideas, images, etc.) are repressed. They are connected with the primary repressed material - either being born on its basis, or accidentally correlating with it. The fate of all these elements during repression is different and “completely individual”: it depends on the degree of their distortion, on their distance from the unconscious core or on the affect associated with them.

Repression can be viewed from three metapsychological points of view:

a) from the point of view of the topic, although in the first theory of the mental apparatus repression is described as blocking access to consciousness, Freud nevertheless does not identify the repressive agency with consciousness. Its model is censorship*. In the second topic, repression appears as a defensive action of the I (partly unconscious);

b) from the point of view of economics, repression presupposes a complex game of unloading*, overloading and counterloading* related to the representatives of drive;

c) from the point of view of dynamics, the most important thing is the problem of incentives for repression: why does an impulse, the satisfaction of which by definition should bring pleasure, give rise to displeasure, and as a result, repression? (See about this: Protection).

REPLACEMENT

repression) The process (DEFENSE mechanism) by which an unacceptable IMPULSE or idea becomes UNCONSCIOUS. Freud distinguished between PRIMARY REPRESSION, with the help of which the initial appearance of the instinctive impulse is prevented, and SECONDARY REPLUSION, with the help of which the derivatives and hidden manifestations of the impulse are retained in the subconscious. “RETURN OF THE REPRESSED” consists of the involuntary penetration into consciousness of unacceptable derivatives of the primary impulse, and not at all in the disappearance of the primary repression. According to Freud, EGO DEVELOPMENT and ADAPTATION to the ENVIRONMENT depend on primary repression, in the absence of which the impulses are immediately discharged through hallucinatory wish fulfillment (see also HALLUCINATION). On the other hand, excessive secondary repression leads to disturbances in the development of the EGO and the appearance of SYMPTOMS, not SUBLIMATIONS. Repression presupposes the presence of a repressive organ - either the EGO or the SUPER-EGO and the STIMULUS, which is ANXIETY, and all this leads to the division of the personality into two parts. In Freud's early work the UNCONSCIOUS was sometimes called the "repressed". Repression differs from INHIBITION in that it involves the opposition of two energy potentials (see QUANTUM; ENERGY): the one that is contained in the repressed impulse and strives for release, and the one that is contained in the repressive organ (CONTRACATEXIS) and strives to continue repression; in other words, displacement is like a dam holding back the flow of a river, while inhibition is like turning off a light bulb.

REPLACEMENT

REPRESSION PROPER)

A defensive process by which ideas are eliminated from consciousness. The repressed ideational content carries potentially painful derivatives of drives and corresponding impulses. They carry the threat of affectively painful overarousal, anxiety or conflict. Freud's original postulate was that repression is only the pathological consequence of forgotten childhood sexual experiences being reawakened by stressful events in adult sexual life. Soon, however, Freud expanded his view by viewing repression as a ubiquitous psychological phenomenon. In early psychoanalysis, the concept of "repression" was used as a generic designation equivalent to defense. Despite the fact that repression still occupies a special place among defense mechanisms, its early understanding should be distinguished from the later, limited one, which was proposed by Freud in 1926.

Primary repression is a stage in the development of the phenomenon of repression, rooted in childhood. (This also includes repression that occurs during adult traumatic neuroses.) Such primary repressions are attributed to the immaturity of the child’s mental apparatus. It is assumed that primary repression is largely responsible for "normal" childhood amnesia.

Although primary repression is associated with early outbreaks of anxiety, it does not act as a defense in the first days and weeks of life. Freud clearly pointed out that before the mental apparatus reaches the stage of organization necessary for primary repression, instinctive impulses are countered in other ways, for example, by transformation into their opposite or by turning on the subject himself. Freud initially believed that primary repression ends with the acquisition of speech, but in 1926 he argued that it occurs with the formation of the superego, which is more consistent with the theory as a whole, clinical experience and many observed phenomena, including common childhood amnesia.

In the topographic model, the barrier of repression was placed at the junction of the unconscious and preconscious systems, and in the structural model - at the junction of the It and the Self.

In explaining primary regression, Freud considers two processes. Some early impressions and the desires they generate are “primarily repressed,” since the formation of secondary processes is still very far from completion. He called it a "passively set aside" object of "fixation." The forces involved continue to have an indirect, sometimes very deep, impact on mental life, but their ideational representatives, due to the insufficiency of preconscious representations, are not accessible to consciousness. The later fulfillment of these desires causes displeasure due to the discrepancy between the primary and secondary processes and, consequently, due to the norms and prohibitions of the latter. Subsequently, associatively related impulses become objects of the same forces of repression; thus, primary repression is a necessary condition for the defense known as repression proper (also called secondary repression or subsequent repression) that occurs in late childhood, adolescence, or adulthood.

In his new formulation of the theory of anxiety and defense, Freud (1926) explicitly defined the motive of primary repression - the avoidance of specific stimuli that produce unpleasure. He also added the suggestion that it represents a reaction to painful overstimulation of the immature mental apparatus. It is clear that Freud believed both earlier and later formulations to be true, and his assumptions are confirmed by clinical experience. In both cases, primary repression is seen as arising as a result of countercotexis. It is believed, however, that repression itself also involves the elimination of energy (that is, decathexis) of the unconscious ideation that takes place and functionally replaces ideation.

Primary repression makes emotionally charged ideas from late childhood, adolescence and adulthood available to repression itself. This phenomenon occurs as a result of either subsequent intrapsychic stimulation or stimulation from the external environment. It was originally assumed that early primary repressions attract subsequent associated ideas, which then become the object of repressive forces. They also attract ideas that arise as a result of disharmony in adult mental life, caused by a conflict of drives and norms or prohibitions (“push-pull” theory). According to the first theory of anxiety, Freud believed that drives associated with repressed ideational representations can then manifest themselves in the form of anxiety. In subsequent theoretical developments, repression itself was considered as one of the possible defensive reactions against instinctive drives that generate alarm signals caused by a number of threats during development.

The dynamic balance established by repression can be destroyed due to changes in the strength of drive (for example, during puberty or during aging), external stimulation corresponding to previously repressed ideas, or changes in the repressive structure (I) caused, for example, by illness, sleep, maturation. If repressive forces open the way, then the return of the repressed can cause neurotic symptoms, erroneous actions and dreams of corresponding content.

Successful repression means that the cathected idea exists outside of consciousness. To maintain its volume, a constant expenditure of countercathexis energy is required. Or the energy of the idea can be turned in a different direction. Finally, repression may force the psychic organization to shift toward more primitive levels of need or structure (regression).

Repression was the first defense described by Freud in the 1890s associated with neuroses (Freud, 1895, 1896). It is still believed that this idea of ​​repression applies to cases of hysteria. “Repression” is also an important psychoanalytic concept that goes beyond defense theory, since it is closely related to ideas about the unconscious, developmental theory, major and minor psychopathology, and to increasingly sophisticated treatment models in which the elimination of repression is considered important.

REPLACEMENT (SUPPRESSION, REPRESSION)

one of the types of psychological defense is a process as a result of which thoughts, memories, drives, and experiences that are unacceptable to an individual are expelled from consciousness and transferred to the sphere of the unconscious, continuing to influence the individual’s behavior and being experienced by him as anxieties, fears, etc. According to Z. Freud - a process and mechanism, the essence of which is the removal and removal of certain content from consciousness, as well as the prevention of attraction to Awareness.

The doctrine of repression is an essential part of psychoanalysis, its foundation. Repression can be understood as a mental process during which pathogenic experiences are removed from memory and forgotten. It is a universal means of avoiding internal conflict. Its goal is to eliminate socially unacceptable drives from consciousness. But at the same time, the “traces of memories” are not destroyed: the repressed cannot be directly remembered, but continues to influence and influence mental life under the influence of some external irritation; it leads to mental consequences, which can be considered transformations or products of forgotten memories and which remain incomprehensible under other considerations. Repression actually disrupts the connection between the repressed and consciousness and thus removes unpleasant or unacceptable memories and experiences into the unconscious, which become unable to penetrate consciousness in their original form. However, repressed and suppressed drives appear in neurotic and psychosomatic symptoms, for example, in phobias and conversions, as well as in the “psychopathology of everyday life” - in slips of the tongue, slips of the tongue, awkward movements and humor. Repression is considered the most primitive and ineffective means of defense, because the repressed content of the psyche still breaks through into consciousness, and, moreover, the unresolved conflict manifests itself as a high level of anxiety and a feeling of discomfort. Repression characterizes infantilism and immaturity of the individual and is most often found in children and hysterical neurotics. There are two stages of repression: primary repression and secondary repression. Repression comes from the Ego - more precisely, from the self-esteem of the Ego, or from the Super-Ego. When drives, aspirations, desires, ideas and their libidinal elements are repressed, they turn into symptoms, and their aggressive components into feelings of guilt (=> protective mechanism).

REPLACEMENT

One of the mechanisms of psychological defense, characterized by the prevention and exclusion from consciousness of an unconscious impulse that arouses tension and anxiety. Repressed impulses, as a rule, are unacceptable to consciousness due to their moral and ethical characteristics. Repression, according to Z. Freud, is carried out by such a substructure of the human personality as censorship. Affective amnesia can also be classified as V.

Syn: repression (late Latin repressio - suppression).

REPLACEMENT

displacement) - (in psychology) replacing one type of behavior with another; most often, relatively harmless behavior is replaced by one that can cause harm to others (for example, instead of kicking a stone, a person begins to kick a cat).

REPLACEMENT

The basic meaning here comes from the root verb to repress, which in various contexts means to omit, suppress, control, censor, exclude, etc. Consequently: 1. In all deep areas of psychology, the classical Freudian model is further developed: a hypothetical mental process or operation that functions to protect the individual from ideas, impulses and memories that would cause anxiety, fear or guilt if they became conscious. Repression is believed to operate on an unconscious level; that is, not only does this mechanism keep some mental content from reaching consciousness, but its very action lies beyond the limits of consciousness. In classical psychoanalytic theory it is seen as a function of the ego, and several processes are involved: (a) primitive repression, in which primitive, forbidden impulses of the id are blocked and kept from reaching consciousness; (b) primary repression, in which the anxiety-provoking mental content is forcibly removed from consciousness and kept from reappearing; and (c) secondary repression, in which elements that could serve as a reminder to the person of what was previously repressed are also repressed. An important conclusion from this analysis is that what has been repressed is not deactivated, but continues to actively exist at the unconscious level, making itself felt through projections in a hidden symbolic form: in dreams, parapraxia and psychoneuroses. Within these analytical areas of psychology, this term has a fairly clear scope of use and is contrasted with other, at first glance, synonymous terms such as suppression and inhibition. 2. In sociology and social psychology - restrictions on group or individual freedom of expression and action by the dominant group or individual.

Repression

repression). According to Freud, the mechanisms by which the ego removes unacceptable and not subject to external expression impulses, imaginary guilt for committed “misdeeds” and other traumatic thoughts into the unconscious. They are hidden there from a person’s consciousness, but continue to bother him in the same way.

REPLACEMENT

REPRESSION)

In Freud's early works, this term initially denoted any defensive activity, but then its use began to be limited to a specific type of defense, when the activity of the psyche or the content of desires, fantasies, and early childhood events are removed from consciousness through a process that the person is not aware of.

Repression

the psychoanalytic terms “repression” and “suppression” are used in the books of Perls, Goodman, Hefferlin “Workshop on Gestalt Therapy” and “The Theory of Gestalt Therapy” [Perls, Hefferlin, Goodman (16), Perls (19)]. Perls later opposed the theory of repression: “The whole theory of repression is wrong. We cannot repress needs. We can only repress the perception of these needs. We block one side, and then self-perceptions are expressed somewhere else: in our movements, in our posture, . ..in the voice" [Perls (18), p. 57]. The term equivalent to repression in Gestalt therapy is avoidance (see). Literature:

REPLACEMENT

the process of removing oneself from consciousness and keeping mental contents out of it, one of the mechanisms for protecting a person from conflicts playing out in the depths of his psyche.

Psychoanalysis was based on several ideas and concepts about the nature and functioning of the human psyche, among which the idea of ​​repression occupied an important place. On this occasion, S. Freud wrote that “the theory of repression is both the cornerstone on which the edifice of psychoanalysis is based, and the most important part of the latter.”

In his work “On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement” (1914), S. Freud emphasized that he came to the theory of repression on his own and for many years considered it original, until the Viennese psychoanalyst O. Rank drew his attention to the work of the German philosopher A. Schopenhauer “The World as Will and representation" (1819), which contained the idea of ​​resistance to the perception of a painful state, which coincided with the psychoanalytic understanding of repression. It is possible that S. Freud’s acquaintance with the work of A. Schopenhauer, to which he referred in his work “The Interpretation of Dreams” (1900), served as an impetus for him to put forward the concept of repression. It is also possible that he could also glean the idea of ​​repression from a textbook on empirical psychology by G. Linder, which was a generalized presentation of the main ideas of I. Herbart, who formulated the position according to which much of what is in consciousness is “repressed from him” (it is known that during his last year of study at the gymnasium he used G. Linder’s textbook).

S. Freud's ideas about repression really formed the basis of psychoanalysis. Thus, in the work “Studies on Hysteria” (1895), published jointly with J. Breuer, he expressed the idea that some psychic force, undisposed on the part of the ego, initially “displaces the pathogenic idea from association”, and subsequently “prevents its return to memory” " In “The Interpretation of Dreams” he developed this idea: the main condition for repression (“pushing aside”) is the presence of a childish complex; the process of repression concerns a person’s sexual desires from childhood; Memory is more easily repressed than perception; At first, repression is expedient, but in the end it turns “into a harmful refusal of psychic domination.”

S. Freud did not have an unambiguous definition of repression. In any case, in his various works, he understood repression as: the process by which a mental act, capable of being conscious, becomes unconscious; return to an earlier and deeper stage of development of the mental act; pathogenic process manifested as resistance; a type of forgetting in which the memory “wakes up” with great difficulty; one of the personal protective devices. Thus, in classical psychoanalysis, repression showed similarities with such phenomena as regression, resistance, and a defense mechanism. Another thing is that, along with recognizing the similarities, Freud at the same time noted the differences between them.

In particular, in his “Lectures on Introduction to Psychoanalysis” (1916/17) he emphasized that although repression falls under the concept of “regression” (return from a higher stage of development to a lower one), nevertheless repression is a topical-dynamic concept, and regression is purely descriptive. Unlike regression, repression deals with spatial relationships, including the dynamics of mental processes. Repression is the process that “is primarily characteristic of neurosis and best characterizes it.” Without repression, regression of libido (sexual energy) does not lead to neurosis, but results in perversion (perversion).

When considering repression, S. Freud raised the question of its forces, motives and conditions for its implementation. The answer to this question boiled down to the following: under the influence of external circumstances and internal motivations, a person develops a desire that is incompatible with his ethical and aesthetic views; the collision of desire with norms of behavior opposing it leads to intrapsychic conflict; the resolution of the conflict, the cessation of the struggle are carried out due to the fact that the idea that arose in the human mind as the bearer of an incompatible desire is repressed into the unconscious; the idea and the memory related to it are removed from consciousness and forgotten.

According to Z. Freud, repressive forces serve the ethical and aesthetic requirements of a person that arise in him in the process of education. The displeasure that he experiences when it is impossible to realize an incompatible desire is eliminated through repression. The motive for repression is the incompatibility of the corresponding representation of a person with his Self. Repression acts as a mental defense mechanism. At the same time, it gives rise to a neurotic symptom, which is a substitute for what repression prevented. Ultimately, repression turns out to be a prerequisite for the formation of neurosis.

To illustrate the process of repression, we can use the comparison used by S. Freud when he lectured on psychoanalysis at Clark University (USA) in 1909. In the audience where a lecture is being given, there is a person who breaks the silence and distracts the lecturer’s attention with his laughter, chatter, and stamping of feet. The lecturer announces that in such conditions he cannot continue giving the lecture. Several strong men from among the listeners take on the function of restoring order and, after a short struggle, kick the silence breaker out the door. After the troublemaker has been “ousted”, the lecturer can continue his work. To ensure that the disruption does not happen again if those expelled from the audience try to enter the lecture again, the men who committed the expulsion sit near the door and take on the role of guards (resistance). If we use the language of psychology and call the place in the classroom consciousness, and behind the door - unconscious, then this will be an image of the process of repression.

The study and treatment of neurotic disorders led S. Freud to the conviction that neurotics are unable to completely repress the idea associated with an incompatible desire. This idea is eliminated from consciousness and memory, but it continues to live in the unconscious, at the first opportunity it is activated and sends a distorted substitute into consciousness. Unpleasant feelings are added to the replacement idea, which, it would seem, the person got rid of thanks to repression. Such a substitute idea turns out to be a neurotic symptom, as a result of which, instead of the previous short-term conflict, long-term suffering occurs. As S. Freud noted in his work “Moses the Man and the Monotheistic Religion” (1938), a previously repressed idea awakened under the influence of a new reason contributes to the intensification of a person’s repressed desire, and since “the path to normal satisfaction is closed for him by what can be called a repressive scar, then it creates for itself somewhere in a weak spot another path to the so-called ersatz satisfaction, which now makes itself felt as a symptom, without consent, but also without understanding on the part of the ego.”

For a neurotic to recover, it is necessary that the symptom be translated into a repressed idea along the same paths in which repression was carried out from consciousness into the unconscious. If, thanks to overcoming resistance, it is possible to bring the repressed back into consciousness, then the intrapsychic conflict that the patient wanted to avoid, under the guidance of the analyst, can receive a better way out than it previously received with the help of repression. In this regard, repression was considered by S. Freud as a person’s attempt to “escape into illness,” and psychoanalytic therapy was considered as “a good substitute for unsuccessful repression.”

An illustration of analytical work can be the same comparison that was used by S. Freud when lecturing at Clark University. So, despite the repression, expelling the silence breaker from the audience and placing a guard in front of the door does not provide a complete guarantee that everything will be in order. A person forcibly removed from the audience and offended by his shouts and pounding on the door with his fists can make such noise in the corridor that this will interfere with the lecture to an even greater extent than his previous indecent behavior. It turned out that the repression did not lead to the expected result. Then the lecture organizer takes on the role of mediator and restores order. He negotiates with the silence breaker and addresses the audience with a proposal to allow him back into the lecture, and gives his word that the latter will behave appropriately. Relying on the authority of the lecture organizer, the audience agrees to stop the repression, the troublemaker returns to the audience, peace and silence sets in again, as a result of which the necessary conditions for normal lecture work are created. Such a comparison is suitable for the task that, according to S. Freud, “falls to the lot of the doctor in the psychoanalytic treatment of neuroses.”

As psychoanalysis emerged and developed, S. Freud introduced various clarifications into the understanding of repression. On the approaches to psychoanalysis, he preferred to talk about defense rather than repression, which was reflected, in particular, in his article “Defensive neuropsychoses” (1894). Subsequently, he shifted the focus of his research to the level of advancing the theory of repression, according to which: what is repressed remains capable; one can expect the return of the repressed, especially if the person’s erotic feelings are added to the repressed impression; the first act of repression is followed by a long process, when the fight against the drive is continued in the fight against the symptom; During therapeutic intervention, resistance appears, acting in defense of repression. Thus, in the article “Repression” (1915), S. Freud put forward the idea of ​​“primary repression”, “repression in the aftereffect” (“pushing after”, “post-repression”) and “return of the repressed” in the form of neurotic symptoms, dreams, erroneous actions .

Later, the founder of psychoanalysis again returned to the concept of “defense” in order to establish the relationship between defense mechanisms and repression. In particular, in the work “Inhibition, Symptom and Fear” (1926), he emphasized that there is every reason to again use the old concept of “protection” (in the Russian editions of this work, translated under the title “Fear”, instead of the concept “ protection" uses the term "reflection") and includes repression as "one special case". Along with this clarification, he identified five types of resistance (three emanating from the Ego, one from the It, and one from the Super-Ego), among which “resistance of repression” belonged to one of the types of resistance of the Ego.

In his latest works, for example, in “Finite and Infinite Analysis” (1937), S. Freud once again drew attention to the problem of repression and noted that “all repressions occur in early childhood,” representing “primitive protective measures of the immature, weak I". In subsequent periods of human development, new repressions do not arise, but old ones are preserved, to the services of which the ego resorts, striving to cope with its drives. New conflicts are resolved through “post-repression.” The real achievement of analytical therapy is the “subsequent correction of the initial process of repression.” Another thing is that, as S. Freud noted, the therapeutic intention to replace the previous ones, which led to the emergence of the patient’s repression neurosis, with reliable forces of the Self “is not always realized in full.”

The idea expressed by S. Freud in his work “Inhibition, Symptom and Fear” that repression is one of the types of defense served as an impetus for the disclosure of the mechanisms of defense of the Self by other psychoanalysts. The daughter of the founder of psychoanalysis, A. Freud (1895–1982), published the book “Psychology of the Self and Defense Mechanisms” (1936), in which, along with repression, she identified nine more defense mechanisms, including regression, projection, introjection and others. Subsequent psychoanalysts began to pay special attention to defense mechanisms. As for S. Freud, in his work “Finite and Infinite Analysis” he emphasized: he never had any doubts that “repression is not the only method that the Ego has for its purposes,” but it is something “ completely special, more sharply different from other mechanisms than they differ from each other.” The essence of analytical therapy remains unchanged, since the therapeutic effect, according to S. Freud, is associated with the awareness of what is repressed in the It (unconscious), and the repressed is understood in the broadest sense.

When considering the psychoanalytic understanding of repression, it is necessary to keep in mind that S. Freud’s interpretation of it was refined as psychoanalysis developed. This concerned not only the relationship between protection and repression, but also the driving forces that set in motion the process of repression. After the founder of psychoanalysis carried out the structural division of the psyche into the Id, the Ego and the Super-Ego, he was faced with the question of which psychic authority should be correlated with repression. Answering this question, he came to the conclusion that repression is the work of the Super-Ego, which “carries out repression either itself, or on its instructions, the I obedient to it does it.” This conclusion was made by him in his “New Series of Lectures on Introduction to Psychoanalysis” (1933), which contained various additions to his previous views, including an understanding of dreams, fear, and the components of the psyche.

Ego defense mechanisms.
Psychological defenses are functional elements of the normal psyche. For normal successful adaptation, they must be flexible, diverse and effective. The predominance of certain types of defenses determines the characterological characteristics of the individual.

Hypertrophy with a sharp predominance of some defenses over others, their rigidity - contributes to social maladaptation and mental disorders of various levels - from neuroses to psychoses.

A person whose behavior...

From the standpoint of psychoanalysis, what is repressed from consciousness is experienced and forgotten by a person, but retains in the unconscious the inherent psychic energy of attraction (cataxis). In an effort to return to consciousness, the repressed can become associated with other repressed material, forming mental complexes. On the part of the I (Ego), constant expenditure of energy is required to maintain the process of repression. Violation of the dynamic balance when the protective mechanisms - anticathexes - are weakened - can lead to...

In this case, information from the outside is repressed or distorted, which the individual does not want to perceive, because it is unpleasant for him, painful, and destroys his ideas about himself. Here the situation is controlled by the Super-I. The super-ego makes the individual “blind”, “deaf”, “insensitive” to aversive, i.e. alarming, threatening information. This information, if I perceive it, threatens to disrupt the existing balance, the internal consistency of mental life. This consistency is structured by authority...

As strong as the impulses of attraction are, so strong must be the force of repression. The force of action of the drive must be equal to the force of reaction of repression.

But this drive driven inside does not cease to strive for its satisfaction. The repressed attraction does not cease to be a fact of all mental activity of the individual. Moreover, repressed attraction can significantly or even fatally influence an individual’s behavior.

To the censor of the Superego, who expelled, as it seemed to him, socially...

He is aware of reality only to the extent that it is necessary for his life as a member of society. In general, reality is realized by a person to the extent that it is necessary to ensure his survival.

On the contrary, a person ceases to be aware of external reality during sleep, although, if necessary, this awareness is easily restored. If a person is insane, then even in case of extreme necessity he is not able to fully comprehend external reality...

The first mental mechanism involved in the formation of depression, the principle by which our brain works normally, is called the “dominant principle.” The essence of the dominant principle is literally this: when one center of the brain is excited, it gradually becomes dominant and suppresses (inhibits) the work of other centers of the brain.

Moreover, the excitation arising in these non-dominant centers is redirected to maintain and strengthen the dominant center.

In other words, when...

Let's move on to the next important topic, revealed in a completely new way by N.A. Bernstein - the mechanisms of skill formation. This problem is very important for psychology, since the formation of skills is, as you already know, the basis of all learning.

The process of developing a skill is described in great detail by Bernstein. He identified many particular phases - about seven, which are combined into more general periods. For the first acquaintance, it will be enough to analyze these periods.

During the first period...

In the works of N.A. Bernstein brilliantly developed the problem of the mechanisms of organizing human movements and actions. While dealing with this problem, N.A. Bernstein discovered himself to be a very psychologically thinking physiologist (which is extremely rare).

As a result, his theory and the mechanisms he identified turned out to be organically combined with the theory of activity; they will allow us to deepen our understanding of the operational and technical aspects of activity.

N.A. Bernstein appeared in scientific literature as...

Repression– this is one of the main psychological secondary defenses, acts as motivated active forgetting. Repression is also called suppression and repression. S. Freud was the first to introduce this concept into science. He assured that repression is the main mechanism in psychology for the formation and development of the unconscious person. The function of repression lies in reducing the range of experiences of unpleasant emotions for the individual’s mental sphere by removing from the memories of consciousness those experiences and events that cause these difficult feelings. The idea of ​​this mechanism is this: something is forgotten, thrown out and stored away from awareness by the human psyche.

Repression in psychoanalysis

Ideas about repression occupied a large and significant place in the knowledge and concepts of mental activity in. By denoting such a mental mechanism as repression according to Freud, psychoanalysts mean an attempt by the psyche not to live in the sphere of reality of events that are traumatic and disturbing. The psychoanalyst stated that repression is an important defense mechanism against the gap between the Ideal-I and the Id, control over forbidden desires and impulses.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Sigmund Freud described his own vision of the process of repression, and for a considerable time he considered it his own right to primacy in this discovery. But, after some time, O. Rank, a Viennese psychoanalyst, found and studied the much earlier works of the German philosopher Schopenhauer, in which the above-described concept of repression according to Freud was similarly described, and showed it to him. The basic idea of ​​psychoanalysis is indeed based on the idea of ​​repression. His understanding of the existence of a necessary condition for repression - children's complexes, intimate desires of the child,...

Freud in his own works did not single out a single designation for this process. The scientist declared it as the possibility of a mental act to become aware of what remains unconscious; as a turn to a deeper and earlier stage of the formation of a mental act, a process of resistance; forgetting, during which it becomes impossible to remember; protective function of the individual psyche. Based on the above, a similarity between repression and regression and resistance in traditional psychoanalysis is revealed. The psychoanalyst noticed during the lecture that, despite the significant similarities, repression contains dynamic mental processes, interacts with spatial position, and regression has a descriptive characteristic.

It is the main manifestation of such a process as repression. In his science, Freud studied repression as a consequence of the influence of external factors and internal impulses, which is incompatible with his moral views and aesthetic positions. This confrontation between the individual’s desires and his moral principles leads to intrapersonal conflict. Such events, personal feelings that attracted to an internal conflict are removed from the individual’s consciousness and forgotten by him.

On the human path of life, a traumatic event or experience occurs, at this moment the conscious mind makes a decision that this experience interferes with it, and it is not worth keeping in memory everything connected with it. And then, accordingly, it is forgotten, pushed into the depths. In place of this memory, an emptiness arises and the psyche tries to restore the event in, or fill it with something else: fantasy, another reality from the individual’s life, which could have happened at another time.

Freud clearly presented examples of repression in psychology using the model of his lecture. He told how, during a lecture, one of the students behaved inappropriately: he spoke, made noise, and disturbed others. Then the lecturer declares that he refuses to continue giving the lecture while the offender is in the audience. Among the listeners there are several people who take upon themselves the responsibility of throwing the noisemaker out the door and constantly being on guard, not letting him back. In essence, the unwanted person was forced out. The teacher can continue his work.

This metaphor describes the individual's consciousness - what is happening in the audience during a lecture, and the subconscious - what is behind the door. The listener, kicked out the door, is outraged and continues to make noise, trying to get back into the audience. Then there are two options for resolving this conflict. The first is that there is a mediator, perhaps the lecturer himself, who negotiates with the offender, and on mutually beneficial terms the conflict is resolved, then what is repressed by the psyche into the subconscious returns to the person’s memory with healthy awareness. A psychotherapist can act as such a mediator.

The second option is less friendly - the guards do not allow the displaced intruder to enter, they calm him down outside the door. Then the expelled person will try to get back into the audience, using different methods: he can slip through when the guards are resting, change clothes and pass unrecognized. Using such a metaphor, we imagine those repressed memories that at different times and periods will appear on the surface of memory in a changed image. We all use repression, forget the traumatic, suppress unwanted feelings. The difficulty lies in the fact that until the last moment a person does not know what he has forgotten will turn out to be on the surface. The individual himself does not understand what can be repressed. On the surface we can see certain psychotic or neurotic reactions, symptoms of diseases.

Various neuroses are examples of repression in psychology. Psychotherapists, in particular, say that everything secret necessarily becomes a neurosis. Studying the neurotic disorders of his patients, Freud came to the conclusion that complete repression of unwanted desires, feelings, and memories was impossible. They were removed from the individual’s consciousness, but continued to be in the subconscious and send signals from there. For the process of recovery of a neurotic personality, it is necessary to eliminate the symptom of the disease in the same way that the event was repressed from consciousness into the subconscious. And then, by overcoming the opposition of the individual, to restore what was repressed in the consciousness and in the chronology of the person’s memory.

Psychoanalysts in therapy with neurotic clients first work with the obvious, then, removing one layer after another, delve into the individual’s subconscious until they encounter enormous resistance. The presence of resistance is the main signal that therapy is moving in the right direction. If mental resistance is not passed, the result will not be obtained.

Starting to work with neurotic and hysterical personalities, Freud came to the understanding that repression would be the cause. As he accumulated knowledge, his version underwent changes; he began to believe that the mechanism of repression was the result of anxiety, and not its cause.

In the course of his works, S. Freud introduced clarifications to the psychoanalytic vision of repression. At first, he studied this phenomenon exclusively from the perspective of defense. Further, repression in the psychoanalytic direction was presented in the following context: “primary repression,” “post-repression,” “return of the repressed” (dreams, neurotic reactions). Then again repression was studied as a possibility of psychological protection of the individual’s psyche.

The father of psychoanalysis argued that absolutely all repressions occur in early childhood, and throughout the next years of life, old repressed mechanisms are preserved, which have an impact on the mechanisms of coping with forbidden desires, impulses, and internal suppressed conflicts. New repressions do not arise; this occurs due to the “post-repression” mechanism.

Psychoanalytic views on repression have been formed and changed throughout the development of the science of psychoanalysis. As a result of designating the structure of the psyche, Freud determined that repression is the result of the activity of the Super-Ego, which is carried out by repression, or, at its direction, it is done by the submissive Self. Repression (or repression) is the basic mechanism, the ancestor of all defensive processes in the individual’s psyche.

Repression - psychological defense

Speaking about the defense mechanisms of the human psyche, we can identify one of the most important - repression or repression. As the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, argued: repression is the ancestor and forefather of all forms of defensive mental processes in psychology. The essence of repression is considered to be justified forgetting of something and keeping it under control in the subconscious. Such controlled forgetting can be applied to traumatic events, experiences, feelings, fantasies, associations that are associated with the experience.

Repression can be realized in two moments: it prevents the appearance of a negative reaction by removing traumatic memories and forbidden desires from the conscious part to the unconscious; holds and controls repressed desires, impulses, and drives in the unconscious.

Examples of repression in psychology are the so-called “war neuroses” or reactions, the experience of violence experienced by a person, when the victim cannot recall traumatic events, experienced feelings, or behavior in his memory. But a person is tormented by flashes of conscious or unconscious memories, flashbacks, nightmares or annoying dreams. Freud called this phenomenon “the return of the repressed.”

The next example of repression in psychology is the repression into the child’s subconscious of desires and impulses that frighten him and are forbidden from the standpoint of social and moral norms of upbringing, but are his normal development. Thus, during the development of the Oedipus complex, the child, with the help of his Super-Ego, suppresses (represses) sexual impulses towards one of the parents and the desire to destroy the other. He learns to repress forbidden desires into his unconscious.

Also, the phenomenon of repression in everyday life can include the speaker’s banal forgetting of the name of a person, with whom repressed subconscious unpleasant feelings and a negative attitude of the speaker himself are possible.

In all the examples of repression discussed above: deep trauma that interferes with a full life, a normal stage of development and banal forgetting in everyday life, the necessary natural psyche is visible. After all, if a person is constantly aware of all his feelings, thoughts, experiences, fantasies, then he will drown in them. This means that repression plays a positive function in the existence of an individual.

When will repression have a negative role and create problems? There are three conditions for this:

- when repression does not fulfill its main role (that is, to reliably protect repressed thoughts, feelings, memories so that they do not interfere with the individual’s ability to fully adapt to life situations);

- when it prevents a person from moving towards positive changes;

- excludes the use of other methods and opportunities to overcome difficulties that would be more successful.

To summarize, we can summarize: repression can be applied to a person’s traumatic experience; to, feelings, memories associated with the experience; to forbidden desires; needs that cannot be realized or punishment is provided for their implementation. Some events in life are repressed when a person behaves unsightly; hostile attitude; negative feelings, character traits; Edipov complex; Electra complex.

So that repression does not create problems for the individual in the form of uncontrolled memories, obsessive thoughts, neurotic reactions, symptoms of illness, a person needs to achieve a certain measure of self-identity and integrity of the personal “I”. If in early childhood a person has not had the experience of acquiring a strong identity, then the individual’s unpleasant feelings tend to be controlled using primitive defense mechanisms: projection, splitting, denial.

Not all situations associated with forgetting or ignoring relate to repression. There are problems in memory and attention that depend on other reasons: organic changes in the brain, individual traits, selection of important information from unimportant.