Freud's psychological defense mechanisms. Psychological defense repression
CROWDING OUT(suppression; repression) - one of the types of psychological protection - a process as a result of which thoughts, memories, desires, experiences that are unacceptable for an individual are expelled from consciousness and transferred to the unconscious, continuing to influence the individual's behavior and are experienced by him as anxieties, fears, etc. According to Z. Freud - a process and a mechanism, the essence of which is the removal and removal from consciousness of a certain content, 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 purpose is the elimination of socially unacceptable inclinations from the 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 psychic consequences which may be regarded as transformations or products of forgotten memories and which otherwise remain incomprehensible. Repression actually breaks the connection of the repressed with consciousness and thus removes into the unconscious unpleasant or unacceptable memories and experiences that become unable to penetrate consciousness in their original form. However, repressed and repressed drives appear in neurotic and psychosomatic symptoms, such as 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 into consciousness, and besides, an unresolved conflict manifests itself as a high level of anxiety and a feeling of discomfort. Repression characterizes the infantilism and immaturity of the personality and is most often found in children and hysteroid neurotics. There are two stages of displacement: primary displacement and secondary displacement. The repression comes from the ego - more precisely, from the self-respect of the ego, or from the superego. When drive, aspiration, desire, ideas and their libidinal elements are repressed, they turn into symptoms, and their aggressive components into a feeling of guilt (=> a protective mechanism).
WIPE: STAGE(two stages of displacement) - There are two stages:
1) primary repression; 2) repression is secondary.
SECONDARY REMOVAL- according to Z. Freud - repression itself, refers to mental derivatives (derivatives derived from something that previously existed) of a repressed idea associated with attraction, or thoughts originating from other sources, but associated with these ideas.
REPLACEMENT PRIMARY- according to Z. Freud - the first phase of repression, which consists in preventing the mental representation of attraction from entering consciousness.
REPLACEMENT SEXUAL- one of the essential features of a hysterical character, consisting in going beyond the normal increase in resistance against sexual attraction - such as shame, disgust, morality, and, as it were, an instinctive avoidance of intellectual engagement in a sexual problem, in striking cases reaching complete ignorance of the sexual, up to the achievement of puberty.
(Golovin S.Yu. Dictionary of practical psychologist - Minsk, 1998)
When we have a feeling of strong, but directly opposite aspirations (motivations), we experience an internal conflict. Psychological protection is those mechanisms that stabilize our state, preserve our idea of ourselves. Thus, these are such actions of our consciousness, in which it rejects or changes unfavorable information about itself or about others.
For the first time, defense mechanisms were identified by Z. 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, imbued with faith in the power of the human personality - "Ego-Psychology". A. Freud identifies the following defense mechanisms: denial, repression, projection, introjection, regression, reaction formation, isolation, destruction, the struggle of the "I" with itself, conversion and sublimation.
* See: Freud A. Psychology I and defense mechanisms: Per. from English. - M.: Pedagogy, 1993.
Let's dwell on some of the most "working" psychological defense mechanisms.
Crowding out -this is such a mechanism, as a result of which thoughts, memories or experiences that are 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 themselves 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 alarm are transferred to another object. So, for example, aggression towards superiors is sometimes vented on members of the employee's family. There is another type of substitution, when some feelings are replaced by directly opposite ones (for example, unrequited love can turn into hatred, sexual need can turn into aggression, violence). In television reports about football matches, we often see how an attacker who does not hit the enemy sends a bounced ball with a strong blow, and in any direction. Thus, the accumulated energy is discharged.
Identification -a protective mechanism in which a person sees himself as another, transfers to himself the motives and qualities inherent in another person. Identification also has a positive moment, since with the help of this mechanism the individual assimilates social experience, masters new properties and qualities for him. Each of us as a reader and viewer 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 upbringing, it is noticed that in the family the son identifies himself with his father, and the daughter with his mother. In labor relations, a young specialist finds an example for himself, a role model, i.e. a certain person to whom he can focus, striving 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 "ostrich position", 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 negation mechanism. Her options: "There is no danger, I do not see!"; "I can't hear anything, I can't see anything..."
Projection -it is most often an unconscious mechanism by 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. Own desires, feelings and personality traits, in which a person does not want to admit to himself because of their ugliness, he transfers (projects) onto another person. We know that the miser, as a rule, sees in other people primarily greed, stinginess, and the aggressive personality considers everyone around him cruel. On the basis of the operation of this mechanism, projective tests have been developed and applied by practicing psychologists.
Rationalization - a protective mechanism that has as its function masking, hiding from the consciousness of the subject himself the true motives of his actions, thoughts and feelings in the name of ensuring internal comfort, maintaining self-esteem, self-respect. Often this mechanism is used by a person in order to prevent the experience of guilt or shame. Under the action of this mechanism, there is a blocking of awareness of those motives that act as socially unacceptable or disapproved. A person, after some actions, actions dictated by unconscious motives, tries to understand them and rationally explain them, attributing to them more acceptable, nobler motives. Such attempts can be perceived as an excuse to others or to oneself for one's failure. Experiencing mental trauma, a person protects himself by overestimating or devaluing the significance of the traumatic factor in the direction of its reduction. Let us recall the well-known Aesop's fable, arranged by I.A. Krylov "The Fox and the Grapes" Unable to get tasty fruits, the Fox reassures himself that the grapes are green.
Reactive formations. This is a very interesting and familiar mechanism to many of everyday practice. Its essence lies in the transformation of the traumatic motive into its opposite. Sometimes unreasonable, inexplicable hostility towards someone is transformed in relations with this person into a special courtesy, emphasized politeness. And vice versa, sympathy, maybe even love interest, is shown as hostility, deliberate ignorance and even tactlessness. So, psychologically literate teachers and parents, in the aggressive pursuit of their classmate by a teenage boy, "read" the feeling of falling in love, regard it (and this is true in most cases, everyone can remember something like that) as a courtship ritual characteristic of adolescents.
Regression -a psychological defense mechanism, consisting in the fact that a person in his behavior, when reacting to very responsible situations, returns to early, childish types of behavior that were successful at that stage. Regression is the return of a person from higher forms of behavior to lower ones. Thus, an adult in difficult conditions seeks to avoid internal anxiety, to lose a sense of self-respect. Often, regression is assessed as a mechanism that is negative for the personality (for example, infantilism). Infantile (lat. infantilis - infantile, childish) in psychology is understood as a feature of the mental make-up of a person, in which traits characteristic of an earlier age are found, such as emotional instability, immaturity of judgments, capriciousness, subordination, lack of independence.
There are other mechanisms of psychological defense of a person. 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. Knowing the mechanisms of psychological defense will help us work with our consciousness, understand their manifestations in the behavior and consciousness of other people.
German: Verdrüngung. - French: refoulement. -English: repression. 6n. - Italian: rimozione. - Portuguese: recalque or recalcamento. Spanish: repression.
o A) In the narrow sense of the word - an action by which the subject tries to eliminate or retain in the unconscious representations associated with drives (thoughts, images, memories). Repression occurs when the gratification of a drive is in itself pleasant, but may become unpleasant when other demands are taken into account.
Repression is especially evident in hysteria, but it also 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 underlying 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 ("a part instead of a whole"), and in secondly, because the theoretical model of repression was for Freud the prototype of other defense mechanisms.
o The distinction between these two meanings of the term "repression" appears to be something inevitable if we recall how Freud himself in 1926 assessed his own use of the concepts "repression" and "protection": "I believe that we have reason to turn again to to the old term "defense" to designate any methods used by the ego in conflicts that can lead to neuroses, while "repression" we call that special method of protection with which we were best acquainted at the beginning of our chosen path of research "(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 the texts written earlier "The Interpretation of Dreams" (Die Traumdeutung, 1920), the frequency of the use of the words "repression" and "protection" is approximately the same. However, they are used only occasionally 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 protection in hysteria and that he thereby took the particular for the general. First of all, Freud then specified 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 disorder, while in psychosis Freud draws attention to such mechanisms as rejection (verwerfen) (both representation and affect) or projection. In addition, the word "repression" sometimes denotes ideas torn from consciousness, which form the core of a separate group of mental phenomena - this process is observed both in obsessive-compulsive disorder neuroses and in hysteria (2).
The concepts of protection and repression both go beyond any particular psychopathological disorder, but they do so in different ways. Protection from the very beginning acted as a generic concept denoting a trend "... associated with the most general conditions for the operation of a mental mechanism (with the law of constancy)" (Za). 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 kinds of disorders and is not at all only a defense mechanism inherent in hysteria; it arises because every neurosis presupposes its own unconscious (see this term), based precisely on repression.
2) After 1900, the term "protection" is used less often by Freud, although it does not disappear completely, contrary to Freud's own statement ("instead of protection, I began to speak of repression") (4), and retains the same generic meaning. Freud speaks of "protective mechanisms", of "struggle for the purpose of protection", 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 consciousness” [of certain mental contents] (6a). In this sense, repression is sometimes seen by Freud as a special 'defense mechanism', or rather as a 'special 'drive fate' used for defensive purposes. In hysteria, repression plays a major role, while in obsessive-compulsive disorder it is included in a more complex process of defense (6) Therefore, it should not be assumed, 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. words are repression into the unconscious.
However, the mechanism of repression, studied by Freud at its various stages, is for him the prototype of other defensive operations. Thus, describing the case of Schreber and identifying the special defense mechanisms in psychosis, Freud simultaneously speaks of three stages of repression and seeks to build his theory. Of course, in this text the confusion between repression and defense reaches its highest level, and fundamental problems lie behind this confusion of terminology (see: Projection).
3) Note, finally, that, having included repression in the more general category of defense mechanisms, Freud, in a commentary on Anna Freud's book, wrote the following: "I have never doubted that repression is not the only means by which the self can carry out its intentions However, repression is unique, since it is more clearly delimited from other mechanisms than other mechanisms from each other "(8).
"The theory of repression is the cornerstone on which the whole edifice of psychoanalysis rests" (9). The term "repression" occurs in Herbart (10), and some authors have suggested that Freud may have been familiar with Herbart's psychology through Meinert (11). However, repression as a clinical fact makes itself known already in the very first cases of hysteria treatment. Freud noted that patients have no control over those memories that, emerging in memory, retain all their vividness for them: "It was about things that the patient would like to forget, inadvertently pushing them out of his consciousness" (12).
As we can see, the concept of repression was initially correlated with the concept of the unconscious (the very concept of the repressed for a long time - until the discovery of unconscious defenses of the I - was for Freud a synonym for 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 escape the subject and, as a "separate group of mental phenomena," obey their own laws (primary process*). The repressed idea is the first "nucleus of crystallization" capable of inadvertently attracting painful ideas to itself (13). In this connection, repression is marked by the seal of the primary process. In fact, this is precisely what distinguishes it as a pathological form of defense from such ordinary defenses as, for example, avoidance (3b), removal. Finally, repression is immediately characterized as an action that presupposes the preservation of a counterload, and always remains defenseless against the power of unconscious desire, seeking to return to consciousness and action (see: Return of the Repressed, The Formation of a Compromise). Between 1911 and 1915 Freud sought to construct a rigorous theory of the repression process, delimiting 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 Verdröngung, 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 "primal repression": it does not refer to the drive as such, but only to the signs that represent it, which are inaccessible to consciousness and serve as a support for the drives. This is how the first unconscious core is created as a pole of attraction for the repressed elements.
Repression in the proper sense of the word (eigentliche Verdrängung), or, in other words, "repression in the aftereffect" (Nachdrängen), is thus a two-way process in which gravity 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, and so on. What is the effect of the act of repression? Not on attraction (14a), which belongs to the realm of the organic, going beyond the alternative "consciousness - unconscious", not on affect. An affect can undergo various transformations depending on repression, but it cannot become unconscious in the strict sense of the word (14b) (see: Suppression). Only "representations as representatives of attraction" (ideas, images, etc.) are repressed. They are connected with the primary repressed material - either born on its basis, or accidentally correlated with it. The fate of all these elements during repression is different and "quite individual": it depends on the degree of their distortion, on their remoteness from the unconscious core, or on the affect associated with them.
Repression can be viewed from three metapsychological perspectives:
a) from the point of view of the topic, although in the first theory of the mental apparatus repression is described as a blocking of access to consciousness, Freud nevertheless does not identify the repressing instance 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 involves a complex game of unloading*, overloading and counterloading* related to the representatives of the drive;
c) from the point of view of dynamics, the most important thing is the problem of motives for repression: why does an impulse, the satisfaction of which, by definition, should bring pleasure, gives rise to displeasure, and as a result, repression? (see about it: Protected).
CROWDING OUT
repression) The process (PROTECTIVE mechanism) by which an unacceptable IMPULSE or idea becomes UNCONSCIOUS. Freud distinguished between PRIMARY REPLACEMENT, by which the initial appearance of the instinctive impulse is prevented, and SECONDARY REPRESSION, by which the derivatives and latent manifestations of the impulse are kept in the subconscious. The "RETURN OF THE REPRESSED" consists in 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 ENVIRONMENTAL ADAPTATION depend on primal 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 STIMULUS, which is ANXIETY, and all this leads to a division of the personality into two parts. In Freud's early writings, the UNCONSCIOUS was sometimes referred to as "repressed". Repression differs from INHIBITION in that it involves the confrontation of two energy potentials (see QUANTUM; ENERGY): one that is contained in the repressed impulse and strives for release, and one that is enclosed in a repressive organ (CONTRATEXIS) and strives to continue repression; in other words, displacement is like a dam holding back the flow of a river, while deceleration is like turning off a light bulb.
CROWDING OUT
REPRESSION PROPER)
A protective process by which ideas are eliminated from consciousness. The repressed ideational content carries potentially tormenting drive derivatives and corresponding urges. They carry the threat of affectively painful excessive arousal, anxiety, or conflict. Freud's original postulate was that repression is only a pathological consequence of forgotten childhood sexual experiences being awakened in connection with the stressful events of adult sexual life. Soon, however, Freud expanded his view to see repression as a ubiquitous psychological phenomenon. In early psychoanalysis, the concept of "repression" was used as a generic term equivalent to protection. Despite the fact that repression still occupies a special place among defense mechanisms, its early understanding must be distinguished from the later, limited one, which was proposed by Freud in 1926.
Primary repression is a developmental stage in the phenomenon of repression rooted in childhood. (This also includes the repression that occurs in adult traumatic neuroses.) Such primary repressions are attributed to the immaturity of the mental apparatus of the child. Primary repression is hypothesized to be 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 urges are countered in other ways, for example, by transformation into their opposite or by turning on the subject himself. At first, Freud believed that primary repression ended with the acquisition of speech, but in 1926 he argued that this occurs with the formation of the superego, which is more consistent with theory in general, clinical experience and a variety of observed phenomena, including ordinary childhood amnesia.
In the topographic model, the repression barrier was placed at the junction of the unconscious and preconscious systems, and in the structural model, at the junction of the id and the ego.
In explaining primary regression, Freud considers two processes. Some early impressions and the desires they generate are "primarily repressed" because the formation of secondary processes is still far from complete. He called it a "passively set aside" "commit" object. The forces involved in this continue to have an indirect, at times very profound, impact on mental life, but their ideational representatives, due to the insufficiency of preconscious representations, are not available to consciousness. The later fulfillment of these desires causes displeasure due to the discrepancy between the primary and secondary processes and, therefore, in connection with the norms and prohibitions of the latter. In the future, the associated impulses become objects of the same repression forces; 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 displeasure. He also added the suggestion that it is a reaction to painful overstimulation of the immature psychic apparatus. It is clear that Freud considered both the earlier and later formulations to be correct, and his assumptions are confirmed by clinical experience. In both cases, the primary repression is seen as arising from countercotexis. It is believed, however, that the actual repression also involves the elimination of energy (that is, decathexis) of the unconscious ideation that takes place and functionally replaces the ideation.
Primary repression makes available to repression proper the emotionally charged ideas of late childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. This phenomenon arises as a result of either subsequent intrapsychic stimulation or stimulation from the external environment. Initially, it was assumed that early primary repressions attracted subsequent associated ideas, which then became the object of the forces of repression. They also attract ideas that arise as a result of the disharmony of adult mental life, caused by the conflict of drives and norms or prohibitions ("two-stroke" theory). According to the first theory of anxiety, Freud believed that drives associated with repressed ideational representations could 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 give rise to alarm signals caused by a number of threats in the course of development.
The dynamic balance established by repression can be destroyed due to changes in the strength of the drive (for example, during puberty or during aging), external stimulation corresponding to previously repressed ideas, or changes in the repressing structure (I), caused, for example, by illness, sleep, maturation. If the repressive forces open the way, then the return of the repressed may cause neurotic symptoms, erroneous actions and dreams of the 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 another direction. Finally, repression can force mental organization to shift towards more primitive levels of need or structure (regression).
Repression was the first neurotic defense described by Freud in the 1890s (Freud, 1895, 1896). This notion of repression is still thought to apply to cases of hysteria. "Repression" is also an important psychoanalytic concept that goes beyond defense theory, since it is closely related to the unconscious, developmental theory, major and minor psychopathology, and increasingly sophisticated models of treatment that consider the removal of repression important.
SUPPRESSION (SUPPRESSION, REPRESSION)
one of the types of psychological protection is a process, as a result of which thoughts, memories, desires, experiences that are unacceptable to the individual are expelled from consciousness and transferred to the unconscious, continuing to influence the behavior of the individual and are experienced by him as anxieties, fears, etc. According to Z. Freud - process and mechanism, the essence of which is the removal and removal of a certain content from the 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 purpose is the elimination of socially unacceptable inclinations from the consciousness. But at the same time, the “traces of memories” are not destroyed: what is repressed cannot be directly remembered, but continues to influence and influence mental life under the influence of some external stimulus; it leads to psychic consequences which may be regarded as transformations or products of forgotten memories and which otherwise remain incomprehensible. Repression actually breaks the connection of the repressed with consciousness and thus removes into the unconscious unpleasant or unacceptable memories and experiences that become unable to penetrate consciousness in their original form. However, repressed and repressed drives appear in neurotic and psychosomatic symptoms, such as 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 into consciousness, and besides, an unresolved conflict manifests itself as a high level of anxiety and a feeling of discomfort. Repression characterizes the infantilism and immaturity of the personality and is most often found in children and hysteroid neurotics. There are two stages of displacement: primary displacement and secondary displacement. The repression comes from the ego - more precisely, from the self-respect of the ego, or from the superego. When drive, aspiration, desire, ideas and their libidinal elements are repressed, they turn into symptoms, and their aggressive components into a feeling of guilt (=> a protective mechanism).
CROWDING OUT
One of the mechanisms of psychological defense, characterized by the prevention, exclusion from consciousness of an unconscious impulse that excites tension and anxiety. The repressed impulses are, as a rule, unacceptable for 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. V. can also be attributed to affective amnesia.
Synonym: repression (Late Latin repressio - suppression).
CROWDING OUT
displacement) - (in psychology) the replacement of one type of behavior with another; most often, relatively harmless behavior is replaced by one that can harm others (for example, instead of kicking a stone, a person starts kicking a cat).
CROWDING OUT
The main meaning here comes from the root of the verb to repress, which in various contexts means to omit, suppress, control, censor, exclude, etc. Therefore: 1. In all deep areas of psychology, the classical Freudian model is further developed: a hypothetical mental process or operation that performs the function of protecting 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 this mechanism keeps some mental content from reaching consciousness, but its very operation lies outside the realm of consciousness. In classical psychoanalytic theory, it is seen as a function of the ego, and several processes are involved in it: (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-producing content of the psyche is forcibly removed from consciousness and kept from reappearing; and (c) secondary repression, in which elements that might 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 on an unconscious level, making itself felt through projections in a latent symbolic form: in dreams, parapraxes and psychoneuroses. Within these analytical branches of psychology, this term has a fairly clear scope of use and is opposed to 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 a dominant group or individual.
crowding out
repression). According to Freud, the mechanisms by which the ego removes unacceptable and unexpressible impulses, imaginary guilt for committed "misconduct" and other thoughts that traumatize the personality into the unconscious. They are hidden there from the consciousness of a person, but they continue to disturb him in the same way.
CROWDING OUT
REPRESSION)
In Freud's early writings, the term originally referred to any defensive activity, but then its use became limited to a specific type of defense, when the activity of the psyche or the content of desires, fantasies, events of early childhood is eliminated from consciousness by a process that the person is not aware of.
crowding out
the psychoanalytic terms "repression" and "repression" are used in the books by Perls, Goodman, Hefferlin "Practice on Gestalt Therapy" and "The Theory of Gestalt Therapy" [Perls, Hefferlin, Goodman (16), Perls (19)]. Perls later argued against 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:
CROWDING OUT
the process of detachment from consciousness and retention outside its mental contents, one of the mechanisms for protecting a person from conflicts that are played 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, Z. Freud wrote that "the theory of repression is both the cornerstone on which the building of psychoanalysis is based, and the most important part of the latter."
In his work “On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement” (1914), Z. 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 disease state, which coincided with the psychoanalytic understanding of repression. It is possible that Z. 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 get 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 “displaced from him” (it is known that during the last year of his studies at the gymnasium, he used the textbook of G. Linder).
Z. Freud's ideas about repression really formed the basis of psychoanalysis. So, in the work “Studies of Hysteria” (1895) published jointly with J. Breuer, he expressed the idea that some kind of psychic force not located on the part of the I initially “displaces the pathogenic idea from the association”, and subsequently “prevents its return to memory ". In The Interpretation of Dreams, he developed this idea: the main condition for repression ("pushing back") is the presence of a child 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 pernicious renunciation of psychic domination."
Z. 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 a mental act; pathogenic process, manifested in the form of resistance; a kind of forgetting, in which memory "wakes up" with great difficulty; one of the protective devices of the individual. Thus, in classical psychoanalysis, repression showed similarities with such phenomena as regression, resistance, and a defense mechanism. Another thing is that, along with the recognition of similarities, S. Freud at the same time noted the differences between them.
In particular, in 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 topically dynamic concept, and regression is purely descriptive. Unlike regression, repression deals with spatial relationships that include the dynamics of mental processes. Repression is the process that "is primarily characteristic of neurosis and best characterizes it." Without repression, the regression of libido (sexual energy) does not lead to neurosis, but results in perversion (perversion).
When considering repression, Z. Freud raised the question of its forces, motives and conditions for implementation. The answer to this question boiled down to the following: under the influence of external circumstances and internal motives, a person has a desire that is incompatible with his ethical and aesthetic views; the collision of desire with the norms of behavior that oppose it leads to an 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 mind of a person as a carrier of an incompatible desire is subjected to repression into the unconscious; the idea and the memory associated with it are eliminated from consciousness and forgotten.
According to Z. Freud, displacing 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 by 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 the repression has prevented. Ultimately, repression turns out to be a prerequisite for the formation of a neurosis.
To illustrate the process of repression, one can use the comparison used by Z. Freud when he lectured on psychoanalysis at Clark University (USA) in 1909. In the audience where the lecture is being given, there is a person who breaks the silence and distracts the lecturer's attention with his laughter, chatter, and the tramp of feet. The lecturer announces that under such conditions he cannot continue lecturing. Several strong men from among the listeners take over the function of restoring order and, after a short struggle, put the violator of the silence out the door. After the violator of the order has been "forced out", the lecturer can continue his work. In order to prevent a violation of the order from repeating if the one who was put out of the audience tries to enter the lecture again, the men who have forced out the men 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 audience consciousness, and outside the door - the unconscious, then this will be an image of the process of repression.
The study and treatment of neurotic disorders led Z. Freud to the conviction that neurotics cannot completely repress the idea associated with incompatible desire. This representation is eliminated from consciousness and from memory, but it continues to live in the unconscious, at the first opportunity it is activated and sends a distorted substitute from itself into consciousness. Unpleasant feelings are added to the substitutive idea, from which, it would seem, a person got rid of due to repression. This substitutive representation is a neurotic symptom, as a result of which, instead of the previous short-term conflict, long-term suffering sets in. As Z. Freud noted in The Man Moses and Monotheistic Religion (1938), a previously repressed idea awakened under the influence of a new occasion 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 displacement scar, somewhere in a weak spot, it makes itself 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 the recovery of a neurotic, it is necessary that the symptom be translated into a repressed representation along the same paths by which the repression from consciousness into the unconscious was carried out. If, by overcoming resistances, it is possible to bring the repressed back into consciousness, then the intrapsychic conflict that the patient wanted to avoid can, under the guidance of the analyst, get a better outcome than he had previously obtained with the help of repression. In this respect, repression was considered by Z. Freud as a person's attempt "to escape into illness", and psychoanalytic therapy as "a good substitute for unsuccessful repression."
An illustration of analytical work can be the same comparison that was used by Z. Freud when lecturing at Clark University. So, despite the exclusion, the expulsion of the violator of the silence from the audience and the installation of a guard at the door does not give a complete guarantee that everything will be in order. A person forcibly thrown out of the audience and offended by his screams and knocking on the door with his fists can make such noise in the corridor that it will interfere with the lecture even more than his previous indecent behavior. It turned out that the displacement did not lead to the expected result. Then the organizer of the lecture takes on the role of mediator and restores order. He negotiates with the violator of silence and addresses the audience with a proposal to allow him back to the lecture, and gives his word that the latter will behave appropriately. Relying on the authority of the organizer of the lecture, the audience agrees to stop the repression, the offender returns to the audience, peace and silence come again, as a result of which the necessary conditions are created for normal lecturer work. 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."
With the formation and development of psychoanalysis, Freud introduced various refinements to the understanding of repression. On the approaches to psychoanalysis, he preferred to talk more about protection than about repression, which was reflected, in particular, in his article "Defensive neuropsychoses" (1894). Subsequently, he shifted the focus of research to the plane of putting forward the theory of repression, according to which: the repressed remains capable; a return of the repressed can be expected, especially if a person's erotic feelings are added to the repressed impression; the first act of repression is followed by a long process in which the struggle against the instinct finds its continuation in the struggle with the symptom; in therapeutic intervention there is a resistance that acts in defense of repression. So, in the article “Repression” (1915), Z. Freud put forward the idea of “primary repression”, “repression in aftereffect” (“pushing after”, “after 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 "protection" 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 use the old concept of “protection” again (in Russian editions of this work, translated under the title “Fear”, instead of the concept “ defense" uses the term "reflection") and include repression as "one special case". Along with this clarification, he identified five types of resistance (three emanating from the ego, one from the id, and one from the superego), among which "resistance of repression" referred to one of the types of resistances of the ego.
In his last works, for example, in the work “Finite and Infinite Analysis” (1937), Z. Freud once again drew attention to the problem of repression and noted that “all repressions occur in early childhood”, being “primitive protective measures of an immature, weak I". In subsequent periods of human development, new repressions do not arise, but the old ones persist, 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 analytic therapy is the "subsequent correction of the original process of repression." Another thing is that, as Z. 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 I "are not always carried out in full."
The idea expressed by Z. 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 singled out nine more defense mechanisms, including regression, projection, introjection, and others. Subsequent psychoanalysts began to pay special attention to defense mechanisms. As for Z. Freud, in his work “Finite and Infinite Analysis”, he emphasized: he never had any doubts that “repression is not the only method that the I has for its own purposes”, but it is something “ quite special, more sharply different from other mechanisms than they differ from each other. The essence of analytic therapy remains unchanged, since the therapeutic effect, according to Z. Freud, is associated with the awareness of the repressed in the id (unconscious), and the repressed is understood in the broadest sense.
When considering the psychoanalytic understanding of repression, it must be borne in mind that 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 superego, he faced the question of which psychic instance the repression should be correlated with. Answering this question, he came to the conclusion that repression is the work of the Superego, which "carries out repression either by itself, or on its instructions, it is done by the ego obedient to it." This conclusion was made by him in the "New cycle of lectures on introduction to psychoanalysis" (1933), which contained various additions to his previous views, including the understanding of dreams, fear, the components of the psyche.
crowding out- this is one of the main psychological secondary defenses, acts as a motivated active forgetting. Repression is also called suppression and repression. The first to introduce this concept into science was Z. Freud. He assured that repression in psychology is the main mechanism for the formation and development of an unconscious person. The function of repression lies in the reduction for the mental sphere of the individual of the spectrum of experiences of unpleasant emotions due to the removal from the memories of the consciousness of those experiences, events that cause these difficult feelings. The idea of this mechanism is as follows: something is forgotten, thrown out of 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 the activity of the psyche in. Denoting such a mechanism of the psyche as repression according to Freud, psychoanalysts mean an attempt by the psyche not to live in the realm of the reality of an event that traumatizes and disturbs. The psychoanalyst stated that repression is an important defense mechanism between the Ideal-I and It, 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 considered it his own right to primacy in this discovery. But, after some time, O. Rank, a Viennese psychoanalyst, found and studied the significantly earlier works of the German philosopher Schopenhauer, in which the concept described above, as repression according to Freud, was similarly described, and showed him this. In the basic idea of psychoanalysis, the idea of repression really lay down. 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 be aware of what remains unconscious; as a turn to a deeper and earlier stage in the formation of a mental act, the process of resistance; forgetting, during which it becomes impossible to remember; protective function of the personality psyche. Based on the foregoing, repression is found to be similar to regression and resistance in traditional psychoanalysis. The psychoanalyst noticed during a lecture that, despite significant similarities, repression contains dynamic mental processes, interacts with a spatial position, and regression has a descriptive characteristic.
There is the main manifestation of such a process as displacement. In his science, Freud studied repression as a consequence of the influence of external factors and internal impulses, which is inconsistent with his moral views and aesthetic positions. This confrontation between the desire of the individual and his moral attitudes leads to an intrapersonal conflict. Such events, feelings of the personality that attracted to the internal clash, are removed from the consciousness of the individual and are forgotten by him.
A traumatic event or experience occurs on a human life path, at this moment the conscious decides that this experience interferes with it, it is not worth keeping in memory everything connected with it. And then, accordingly, it is forgotten, forced out into the depths. In place of this memory, a void arises and the psyche tries to restore the event in, or fill it with another: a fantasy, a different reality from the life of an individual, which could happen at a different time.
Examples of repression in psychology Freud set forth in an accessible way on the model of his lecture. He told how during a lecture one of the students behaves inappropriately: he speaks, makes noise, interferes with others. Then the lecturer declares that he refuses to continue lecturing while the violator is in the audience. There are several people among the listeners who take it upon themselves to drive the noisy out the door and constantly be on guard, not letting him back. In fact, the objectionable person was forced out. The teacher can continue his work.
This metaphor describes the consciousness of the individual - what is happening in the audience during a lecture, and the subconscious - what is behind the door. The listener, expelled out the door, is indignant 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 an intermediary is found, perhaps it is the lecturer himself, who negotiates with the offender, and the conflict is resolved on mutually beneficial terms, then what is forced out by the psyche into the subconscious returns to the person’s memory with healthy awareness. The psychotherapist can act as such an intermediary.
The second option is less friendly - the guards do not let the forced out intruder in, calm him down outside the door. Then the expelled person will try to get back into the audience, using various methods: he can slip through when the guards are resting, change clothes and go unrecognizable. Using such a metaphor, we represent those repressed memories that at different times and periods will appear on the surface of memory in an altered image. We all use repression, we forget the traumatic, we suppress objectionable feelings. The difficulties lie in the fact that a person, up to the last moment, does not know what the forgotten will result in 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 disease.
Various neuroses are examples of repression in psychology. Psychotherapists in particular say that everything secret necessarily becomes a neurosis. Exploring the neurotic disorders of his patients, Freud came to the conclusion that the complete repression of objectionable desires, feelings, memories was impossible for him. They were removed from the consciousness of the individual, 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 carry out the symptom of the disease in the way in which the repression of the event from consciousness into the subconscious was carried out. And then, by overcoming the opposition of the personality, to renew what has been 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, they go deeper into the subconscious of the individual until they encounter tremendous resistance. The presence of resistance is the main signal that therapy is moving in the right direction. In case of not passing the resistance of the psyche, the result will not be obtained.
Starting to work with neurotic and hysterical personalities, Freud came to understand that repression would be the cause. In the course of the accumulation of 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 writings, Z. Freud brought refinements to the psychoanalytic vision of repression. At first, he studied this phenomenon exclusively from a defensive perspective. 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 defense of the individual's psyche.
The father of psychoanalysis proved that absolutely all repressions are made at an early age, and all the following years of life the old repressed mechanisms are preserved, which have an impact on the mechanisms of coping with forbidden desires, impulses, internal repressed conflicts. New repressions do not occur, this happens due to the mechanism of "after-repression".
Psychoanalytic views on repression have been formed and changed throughout the development of the science of psychoanalysis. As a result of the designation of the structure of the psyche, Freud determined that repression is the result of the activity of the Super-I, which the repression performs, or, at its direction, the submissive I does. Repression (or repression) is the basic mechanism, the ancestor of all the protective processes of the individual's psyche.
Repression - psychological defense
Speaking about the defense mechanisms of the human psyche, we can designate one of the most important - repression or repression. As the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, argued: repression in psychology is the ancestor and forefather of all forms of protective processes of the psyche. The essence of repression is the 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 ways: it prevents the appearance of a negative reaction by removing traumatic memories, forbidden desires from the conscious part into the unconscious; holds and controls in the unconscious repressed desires, impulses, drives.
Examples of repression in psychology are the so-called "military neuroses" or reactions, the experience of experienced violence by a person, when the victim cannot recall traumatic events, experienced feelings, and his behavior in 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, we consider the displacement into the subconscious of the child of desires and impulses that frighten him and are forbidden, from the standpoint of social and moral standards of education, but are his normal development. So, during the development of the Oedipus complex, the child, with the help of his Superego, suppresses (displaces) 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 be attributed to the banal forgetting by the speaker of the name of the person with whom repressed subconscious unpleasant feelings are possible, the negative attitude of the speaker himself.
In all the examples of repression considered above: a deep trauma that interferes with a full life, a normal stage of development and a 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 the 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 prevent the individual from fully adapting to life situations);
- when it prevents a person from moving towards the direction of positive changes;
- excludes the use of other methods and opportunities for overcoming difficulties that would be more successful.
Summing up, 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 are forced out of life when a person behaves unsightly; hostile attitude; negative feelings, character traits; Edipov complex; Elektra complex.
In order for repressions not to 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 the integrity of the personal "I". If in early childhood a person did not have the experience of gaining a strong identity, then the individual's unpleasant feelings tend to be controlled using primitive defense mechanisms: projection, splitting, denial.
Not all situations involving forgetting or ignoring are repressed. There are problems in memory and attention, which depend on other causes: organic changes in the brain, individual traits, selection of important information from unimportant.
Today we will start talking about Psychological defenses of a higher order .
The first defense that will be discussed will be
CROWDING OUT.
Probably everyone has heard about such a protective mechanism as "SPRESSION". “Oh, yes, you pushed it out,” we say to our acquaintances when they can’t remember something simple, like someone’s phone number or name, or where they put some thing.
If we try to give a short definition of this protection, we get something like this:
Repression is one of the psychological defenses of a higher order. It is characterized by the fact that during its implementation, unacceptable (frightening) drives, inclinations and experiences are eliminated (displaced) from the human consciousness and kept at a distance from it (consciousness).
Repression is the ultimate defense of the highest order. Research and description of this protection has a long history. It was one of the first to come to Freud's attention when he was studying the causes of symptoms in neurotic patients.
One of the first hypotheses was that if you make the unconscious conscious, find out something repressed (desires, drives, thoughts, information) behind the symptom, then the symptom disappears. This idea is repeatedly glorified in feature films, when the hero, with the help of an analyst, recalled and learned long-forgotten facts of life (usually associated with horrors, violence or catastrophes) and, as if by magic, turned out to be healthy. Unfortunately, this does not happen in reality.
If everything were so simple and the repressed desires, inclinations, thoughts and fantasies disappeared forever behind the doors of our consciousness and then never made themselves felt, then there would be much less mental and psychological suffering. But the story of the violent student continues.
Think about the fact that with the removal of the intruder and with the establishment of guards at the door, the matter may not yet be over. It may happen that exposed, distressed and determined not to reckon with anything, still occupies our attention. True, he is no longer among us, we got rid of his ironic laughter, of his remarks in an undertone, but in a certain respect the repression remained without result, since he makes an unbearable noise behind the doors, and his screams and pounding with his fists on the door interfere even more with my lectures than his earlier indecent behavior. Under these circumstances, we would gladly welcome our esteemed President, Dr. Stanley Hall, to assume the role of mediator and restorer of peace. He will talk to the unbridled guy and turn to us with a proposal to let him in again, and he gives his word that the latter will behave better. Relying on the authority of Dr. Hall, we decide to stop the repression, and here comes silence again. This is, in fact, a very appropriate representation of the task which falls to the lot of the physician in the psychoanalytic treatment of neuroses.
To put it bluntly, research on hysterics and other neurotics leads us to believe that they have not succeeded in repressing the idea with which an incompatible desire is associated. True, they eliminated her from consciousness and from memory.
[of course, from the part of memory that is accessible to consciousness - Dr_Grig] and thus, it would seem, they saved themselves from a large amount of displeasure, but in the unconscious, the repressed desire continues to exist and waits only for the first opportunity to become active and send from itself into consciousness a distorted, unrecognizable substitute. To this substitutive notion, those unpleasant feelings are soon added, from which one could consider oneself freed by repression. This representation, the symptom, which replaces the repressed thought, is spared from further attacks by the defensive ego, and instead of a short-term conflict, endless suffering ensues.
To continue Freud's analogy, the troublemaker may be far more cunning. If suddenly there was no kind and wise Dr. Hall who could agree with him, then the student “forced out” from the audience can beat on the door of the audience, thus making further lecture impossible. He may try to fool the strict guards at the door, for example by sneaking into the auditoriums during lunch. Then history will repeat itself - he will again begin to make noise, stomp his feet, make jokes, and the guards will again have to make efforts to expel him from the audience. An offended troublemaker can change his appearance, put on a wig or a woman's dress and trick him into the audience and, remaining unnoticed, driven by resentment for his expulsion, can do some nasty things in the audience. If there are several expelled students, then they can unite and make noise outside the door together and do all sorts of dirty tricks.
From the point of view of psychoanalysis, the experience repressed from consciousness is repressed from consciousness - it is forgotten, but retains in the unconscious its inherent mental energy of attraction (psychoanalysts call this directed energy - cathexis). In an effort to return to consciousness, the repressed can be associated with other repressed material - this is how mental complexes are formed. I (Ego) is forced to constantly support the process of displacement and spends a lot of strength and energy on this process. (When the repressed material is clarified, it becomes easier for a person, including due to the fact that a lot of energy is released, which can be spent on life, and not keeping something out of consciousness).
Everything that is forced out of consciousness into the unconscious does not disappear there for good and is not disassembled into its constituent bricks, but is preserved and has a significant impact on the state of the psyche and human behavior. From time to time there may be a "return of the repressed" to the level of consciousness. These can be individual symptoms, dreams, erroneous actions, etc. Including when the defense mechanisms are weakened, the repressed information can return to consciousness. For example, during illness, with intoxication (for example, alcohol), or during sleep.
So. If the internal situation or external circumstances are very upsetting or confusing to the patient, it is possible that they will be deliberately sent into the unconscious. Repression can be applied both to the whole experience as a whole, and to its individual parts. For example, feelings associated with experience, or desires and fantasies associated with experience.
There are well-known examples of the global action of repression, for example, a person who has experienced violence does not remember at all what happened to him. These are also cases of post-traumatic stress, when repression acts in such a way that a person cannot remember specific shocking events that happened to him, but they cause him pain, depression and can break through in the form of flashes of memories.
Now, in therapy, the term repression is applied more to internal "ideas" than to trauma. (Although no one canceled the injury). With the help of repression, a child (and an adult too) copes with developmentally normal, but unrealizable and frightening desires and fantasies. For example, such may be the desire to destroy his recently born brother in order to stop his encroachments and completely possess his mother himself.
One more example. Two people are standing at the window with expensive luxury watches. One admires them and calmly fantasizes about how they could be stolen, while the other runs headlong from the shop window, in fear that he will not be able to control his desire.
Repression is an important means by which the child copes with developmentally normal but unrealizable and frightening desires. He gradually learns to send these desires to the unconscious. And if we follow our example, then a person who has not learned how to do it properly runs away from the window.
Modern analysts believe that for the normal functioning of the "repression" of the "I" (a region of the psyche) of a person must reach a certain level of development and strength, a person must achieve a sense of integrity and continuity of his own "I" before he can send disturbing thoughts to the unconscious and keep from consciousness his impulses.
In people whose early experiences prevented them from acquiring this strength, identity, and continuity, unpleasant feelings tend to be contained by more primitive defenses—denial, projection, splitting.
In all variants of displacement: 1) In cases of total forgetting of a severe intolerable trauma; 2) In normal developmental processes, allowing the child to abandon infantile aspirations and seek objects of love outside the family; and 3) In ordinary, and often funny, examples of the operation of repression, one can discern the basic adaptive nature of this process.
If one is constantly aware of one's entire arsenal of impulses, feelings, memories, fantasies and conflicts, one will be constantly flooded with them.
Problems arise only when protection ceases to be adaptive, and begins to interfere and create problems.
This happens when she:
1) Does not cope with its function (for example, to reliably keep disturbing thoughts out of consciousness so that a person can do business, adapting to reality);
2) Stands in the way of certain positive aspects of life;
3) Acts in a way that excludes other, more successful ways of overcoming difficulties. The ability to rely excessively on repression, as well as on other defense processes that often coexist with it, is generally considered a hallmark of the hysterical personality and, apparently, requires the professional help of a psychotherapist.
The opinion about what is being repressed in the human psyche and how this protection works has changed following the change in ideas about the structure of the psyche. In the beginning, Freud, as a psychotherapist and psychoanalyst, tried to make hysterical patients aware of the traumatic events of their lives in full detail. Recall the needs and the feelings they repress. The "unacceptable" information thus obtained was then discussed. In psychotherapy with such patients, Freud initially came to the conclusion that repression is the cause of anxiety. According to his original mechanistic model, the anxiety that often accompanies hysteria is due to the suppression of pent-up drives and affects. These feelings are not subject to discharge and therefore maintain a constant state of tension.
Later, when Freud revised his theory in the light of accumulated clinical observations, he changed his own version of the understanding of cause and effect, believing that repression and other defense mechanisms are the result rather than the cause of anxiety. In other words, the pre-existing fear gives rise to the need to forget, to repress. This later formulation of the understanding of repression as an elementary defense of the ego, a means of automatically suppressing the innumerable fears that are simply inevitable in our lives, has become a generally accepted psychoanalytic premise. However, Freud's original postulate of repression as the cause of anxiety is not without some intuitive truth: excessive repression creates as many problems as it solves.
The fight against repression, the clarification of forgotten material - some think this is psychoanalysis. Disappointing - it's not like that at all. Of course, films about psychoanalysts throw wood on the fire. This is not true. Clarification of the repressed material is small, probably not the main, although important, but only a part of psychotherapy
