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This article guides you about how repression protects from anxiety.
The act of birth and the separation of the child from the mother have been strongly emphasised by Rank (1932) in the development, of frustration. The central feature of Rank’s doctrine is that the act of birth is an individual’s first experience of anxiety. The trauma of birth, the pangs of separation and the anxiety experience constitute the central feature of Otto Rank’s doctrine.
The child is quite safe and secured inside the mother’s womb. For his food, breathing and personal security he solely depends upon the mother. But from the moment of birth, the baby experiences terrible anxiety because birth is an act of separation from the mother. Besides breathing, keeping body temperature and doing several other things independently, the very act of birth creates anxiety as it is a painful process.
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The intensity and violence of an anxiety experience depends upon the degree of trauma which the to be born baby experiences during and at the time of birth. Just as the fear of castration produces intolerable anxiety in the child because it signifies separation of the child from the mother, so also the act of birth creates anxiety.
Anxiety, which is the core concept of neuroses, is a signal or warning of a dangerous, fearful and painful situation. At first Freud viewed that when the sexual urge is not satisfied there is accumulation of libido resulting in anxiety experience.
Hence, he thought anxiety had a somatic basis. But later on, he changed his view and said; anxiety develops in the ego as a reaction to the disturbances of instinctual life. Thus anxiety has a multidimensional basis being both somatic and psychological.
It is held by various psychologists that anxiety is an affective state of the ego and as such can be felt by the ego only. The earliest outbreaks of anxiety occur before the super ego has been differentiated from the ego.
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In the childhood, the ego of the child is very weak. Thus, with a slightest trouble, the ego experiences anxiety. This anxiety may emerge in two ways. Firstly when the situation of danger occurs which may be a direct effect of traumatic factor and secondly, it acts as a signal to prevent a traumatic or dangerous situation from occurring.
The ego though is the seat of anxiety, anxiety arises in relation to the Id and Super ego. Because of the contradictory and divergent demand the ego can no longer sustain and hence it becomes impossible for the ego to maintain integrity. When the ego begins to breakdown there is beginning of anxiety.
Anxiety and repression, the two key concepts of psychopathology are related. In the childhood, the individual experiences possible frustration and many of his needs and desires remain unsatisfied. Further, the anxiety experienced during the different stages of psychosexual development and the phallic stage in particular has terrible adverse effect upon the ego.
But since the ego of the child has not developed fully by this time, and is not able to face various fearful situations, it becomes a victim to the so called fearful situations and many of his unsatisfied desires. As the childhood of the individual has to pass through many anxiety provoking situations, maximum degree of repression is found in the childhood.
By using the force of repression, the child saves himself from the clutch of terrible anxiety. Though anxiety paves the way for repression, whenever the force of repression is used by the ego, anxiety state vanishes. There is a second way by which the relationship between anxiety and repression can be traced.
As the child grows, his ego gradually becomes stronger, and the super ego develops as the representative of parental authority. Though the ego becomes stronger day by day, in order to maintain the integrity it has to repress certain desires, wishes and impulses which are considered to be antisocial.
Consequently, when the ego finds that the super ego is threatened with pain, owing to anxiety provoked by frustration of primitive and tabooed unconscious impulse, it applies the force of repression.
Among the desires repressed, some are successful and some are unsuccessful. In unsuccessful repression the individual has not only no idea of the existence of the impulse, but is completely unaware of any discomfort arising from its frustration, but those repressed desires which are unsuccessful, they remain dynamically in the unconscious and always try to come out.
Whenever repression either becomes unsuccessful or excessive, it tries to come out to the surface. At this high moment, the ego is warned through the signal of anxiety that the repressing forces are at the point of coming out. From this angle, repression is also related with anxiety. It works as a signal and makes the ego conscious of the dangerous situation ahead.
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When the ego is strong, it tries again to repress the repressing forces by the use of various defences in an economical fashion. But when the ego becomes weak, it breaks down, the repressed forces come out and it tries to dissolve the anxiety by various abnormal symptoms.
.nxiety and repression are therefore highly related and both depend upon each other for their function and existence.
The problem whether anxiety causes repression or repression causes anxiety has also been discussed by psychoanalysts. Freud previously viewed that in repression, the psychical representative of the instinct is distorted, displaced while the libido belonging to the instinctual impulse is transformed into anxiety.
But with further studies Freud himself withdrew his previous view and in his book “Inhibition, Symptoms and Anxiety” Freud says “it was anxiety which produces repression and not as I formerly believed, repression which produces anxiety.”
This view of Freud clarifies the fact that anxiety is experienced, and then repression occurs. It has also been previously discussed that the first experience of anxiety of the child is the act of birth. This anxiety is the prototype of all the later anxiety provoking situations. This also proves that anxiety occurs first and then repression.
It has also been mentioned that when the ego is not able to face the unbearable and terrible anxiety, he applies the force of repression. Freud has therefore viewed that it is always the ego’s attitude of anxiety which is the primary thing and which sets repression going. Anxiety never arises from the repressed libido.
The question of repression arises only when anxiety is caused. It cannot be denied that the libido belonging to the id processes is subjected to interruption at the instigation of repression. We can still maintain that in repression anxiety is produced from the libidinal cathexes of its instinctual impulses. Though anxiety causes repression when the repressing forces become excessive, they try to come out.
This being a case of unsuccessful repression, the ego gets a danger signal in terms of anxiety that the repressing forces are coming out. When the ego experiences anxiety, it attempts to use various defence mechanisms to press the repressing forces again to the dark chamber of unconsciousness. Thus, repression in some cases also causes anxiety. However, anxiety is undoubtedly the nucleolus of repression.