Repression is a term that is usually used by psychoanalysts to refer to suppression or avoidance of psychologically painful incidences. Despite its frequent use, psychoanalysts, as well as nonpsychoanalysts, use the term in reference to the various context that involves psychogenic amnesia or traumatic memory loss. In this paper, the use of the term by Sigmund Freud and Jennifer Freyd is examined to illustrate similarities as well as the differences in the utilization of the term. Freud uses repression in the illustration of psychoanalysis technique of his patients who presented neurological pathology after psychologically traumatizing events. Usually, Freud cases involved hysterical expressions. Freyd uses the term in the context of child abuse and molestation by trusted individual resulting in betrayal.
Freud views repression as an intentional activity of the ego (Freud 55). It is a motivated memory loss of traumatic events which the victim or patient wishes to forget. As a result, the victim pushes these events into the unconscious mind. Therefore, repression is a process of mental inhibition and suppression.
Repression, as used by Freud (15), is a defense mechanism against traumatic experiences. According to Freud, repression occurs when the ego pushes traumatic or disturbing events into the unconscious mind and keeps them inaccessible to the conscious mind under normal circumstances. To retain a semblance of normal function, the ego protects itself against undesirable elements by turning them away or keeping them at a distance from the conscious mind (Freud 55). The mind fends off these experiences so as to prevent the occurrence of displeasure from feelings of shame, self-reproach or psychical pain resulting from the association of the disturbing memories with the conscious part of the mind. Freud sees this as an expression of the normal and pathological behavior of the nervous system. Just as an individual would withdraw from a stimulus that causes physical pain, so does the nervous system take flight from occurrences that cause displeasure with an aim of minimizing distress. However, memories associated with the repressed events can be expressed unconsciously through dreams and hysteria (15). Unconscious expression of these memories indicates that the body remembers even though the mind may be blocked and protected (Freud 54) from the disturbing experiences. Also after repressing unfavorable memories into the unconscious mind, the ego prevents the memories from resurfacing by putting up “anti-cathexes” as a defense to avoid further damage to the ego (Freud 55). Any indication of threat or displeasure prompts the ego to cling to the “anti-cathexes” so as to defend itself. Freud refers to this element as resistance (Freud 55).
Similarly, Freyd perceives repression as an intentional process of the nervous system to defend itself from psychological trauma. She views traumatic or psychogenic amnesia as intentional, in that a victim is forced to or wishes to forget a traumatic event. She agrees with Freud that motivated forgetting is associated with fearful or unpleasant childhood memories (Freyd 316). However, as opposed to Freud, Freyd believes that motivated memory loss is selective and adaptive in that some information in inhibited and not forgotten in its entirety (Freyd 317).
Freyd agrees with the common definition (Freudian definition) of repression as “a psychological defense against psychological pain” (Freyd 311; Freud 55). However, she finds this explanation inadequate since it does not incorporate the evolutionary or functional adaptive reaction of animals to pain. According to Freyd (311), repression does not function as a means of merely getting rid of psychological torment for the sake of it. It is an adaptive mechanism of easing the psychological pain as well as a means of ensuring survival. Pain acts as a motivating factor towards adaptive behavior change. Freyd (310) believes that this motivation goes beyond avoiding and alleviating suffering. Repression as a defensive mechanism also seeks to fulfill the evolutionary goal of survival. Contrary to Freud’s belief that repression occurs to prevent further damage, Freyd believes that memory repression does not function “to reduce psychic pain per se” but to increase the odds of survival in cases where survival is dependent on the blockage of information and the corresponding psychic torture (Freyd 311). According to Freyd (312), there is a possibility that repression as a psychological defense does not get rid of or reduce pain but assists the nervous system to take up the numbing pain while blocking the information for survival reasons. To illustration the survival function of repression, Freyd uses the example of child abuse. When a child is abused by a trusted person, more so a primary caregiver, it becomes essential for him or her to ignore the abuse. The child continues to behave in a manner that will maintain attachment to the abuser because his or her physical and mental survival is dependent on it. As such, the brain responds by blocking the information about the abuse and its connection to attachment. This kind of information processing explains why it is possible for a child to experience multiple instances of abuse and forget the disturbing events yet recover the memories eventually (Freyd 313).
Freud uses repression to denote the response of the nervous system to suppress pathological events as a whole. In his theory, patients who have repressed the memory of certain traumatic events had no memory or did not wish to remember the events in their totality. In his illustration (Freud 13 & 14), he gives an example of the girl who had fallen in love with her brother in law. At her sister’s death bed, she is revolted by her thought that her brother in law was free to marry her. This triggered the repression of the events at the bedside, none of which she remembered when Freud came to treat her (Freud 14). Also, repression according to Freud occurs during or immediately after the occurrence of an unpleasant event. Freyd on the other, hand uses the term repression to refer to the ability of the nervous system to not only suppress the entire memory of the traumatic event but also the tendency of the brain to change or modify the events as a way of coping with them (Freyd 316). This infers that the repression or avoidance of memories is selective and adaptive “such that under certain circumstances that information is readily retrieved” (Freyd 317). Adaptive forgetting is, therefore, a process of inhibiting or suppressing memories as opposed to getting rid of them entirely.
In conclusion, Freud and Freyd appear to use the term repression to denote the intentional and defensive reaction of the nervous system to disturbing and traumatic events. However, Freud cites the goal of repression of entire experiences as the elimination of pain while Freyd interprets repression as an adaptive and selective process that is motivated by survival more that the alleviation of pain.
Works Cited
Freud, Sigmund. The Origin and Development of Psycho analysis. MIT OpenCourseWare. Web 29 Feb 2016.
Freud, Sigmund. “An Outline of Psycho-Analysis.” International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 21:27-84.
Freyd, Jennifer. “Betrayal Trauma: Traumatic Amnesia as an Adaptive Response to Childhood Abuse.” Ethics & Behavior, 4(4): 307-329.
