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After reading this article you will learn about:- 1. Concept of Repression 2. Operation of Repression 3. Types 4. Advantages and Disadvantages 5. Measurement.
Contents:
- Concept of Repression
- Operation of Repression
- Types of Repression
- Advantages and Disadvantages of Repression
- Measurement of Repression
1. Concept of Repression:
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Repression is the key concept of psychoanalysis and it is closely connected with the Freudian concept of anxiety. Practically speaking almost the whole field of psychoanalytic psychology clusters around this concept. Freud, the great revolutionary, the grand master and the competent doctor of human mind was the first to speak of it, to throw light on it and to show its usefulness and importance.
The concept of repression propounded by Freud is classic in that its importance still now is unchallenged. Repression has been the only concept to explain so many problems of human personality starting from forgetting to psychoses.
It has also been one of the most important concepts to highlight the process of unconscious. It is the central theme in dreams, in anxiety, in psychoses and neuroses and in free association, and in interpretation of dreams.
Repression is a very important defence mechanism as it provides protection to the ego from sudden dangerous and stressful experience, until the person become used to the shock. Previous psychologists considered repression as the most important defence mechanism. This view was discarded by later psychologists who view that various defence mechanisms are used to suppress the repressed desires.
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Repression consists in excluding impulses and their ideational representation from consciousness. Repression occurs when some wish or idea or impulse show the tendency or threaten to come up.
When some unconscious desires make an attempt to come to the conscious or reality level, it creates unbearable conflict resulting in anxiety for the ego. The said ideas, wishes and impulses are not consciously rejected but they are inhibited in deeper levels of personality.
The ego has in-fact to deal with three forces, the Id, the external reality and the Superego. To maintain peace and order the ego has to expel ideas, impulses and wishes that are compatible with the reality principle or the rules of the super ego. Of course it is not uncommon that repression is done against super ego, in which case the disliked idea is forced back to the unconscious region of the ego.
Finally, repression may occur against reality as well as in ‘which case the repressed idea is put back to the preconscious. Of course, the intensity of the painfulness or unwelcomeness of the situation may force it deep down into the unconscious. In such cases it involves hysteria and dual personality.
According to Wolman (1979) “Repression is a vehement effort that has been exercised to prevent the mental process in question from penetrating into the conscious; as a result it has remained unconscious.”
Repression is thus a primitive device of the ego to maintain its integrity. It is as C. Hull remarks “the nullifying or restraining of a cathexis by an anticathexis, It is one of the methods by which the ego tries to counter act or master an impending disaster or threat by adopting a method of denial, falsification or distortion of reality instead of adopting realistic problem solving methods. The danger and threats that beset the ego, and arouse anxiety are almost unending and intermittent.”
So it is but normal to expect that the ego would use among other methods repression. Repression in fact helps the individual to control dangerous and unacceptable desires as well as reduces the anxiety arising out of such desires.
But one has to keep in mind that repression after all is not a method of real problem solving. It only deters the problem. Naturally, if the ego takes recourse to it almost always or rather too often, it is more likely that it would result impoverishment of the ego, or the personality in general and lead to many worse consequences.
2. Operation of Repression:
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Repression is a topographic, dynamic conception. What has been repressed, tends to find outlets for discharge. Freud has given some hints about the operation of repression. According to him all mental processes are processes in which some energy is accumulated, stored, blocked and discharged.
Some forces whether conscious or unconscious present the discharge of the energy. These repressing forces called defence mechanisms resist always the discharge of repressed energy.
Repression really starts with an inner perception of this tension. May be such tendencies are opposed to the code system learnt in childhood and stored in super ego. The ego is therefore terribly afraid of them and attempts its best to reject them.
There lies the motive of repression. Alexander (1950) therefore views that the ego acts on the cue given by the super ego, rejects the condemned id tendencies and produces repression.
The ego is always afraid of the super ego and as such leads to repressed desires and wishes which have been deemed disapproved since childhood. It is thus based on censorship. Alexander further says, “This censorship which functions automatically in the face of unacceptable tendencies is a primitive kind of unconscious judgement which excludes certain tendencies from consciousness and operates schematically being incapable of suitable differentiation and so reacts regardless of their actual and sometimes important differences. It is therefore more like a conditioned reflex than like a deliberate judgement.”
3. Types of Repression:
There are two types of repression:
1. Primary repression
2. Secondary repression
i. Primary Repression:
Primary repression is totally unconscious and has never been conscious. When the ego is threatened with pain owing to anxiety provoked by frustration of primitive and tabooed impulses, it sends back the desires to the dark chamber of unconscious.
The primal repression is excluded from unconscious material that was never conscious. Primal repression is innately determined barriers which are responsible for keeping a large part of the Id permanently unconscious.
ii. Secondary Repression:
Secondary repression is otherwise known as the repression proper or after expulsion. The repression proper is that which once came to the conscious but has been sent back to the unconscious due to the threat of the super ego.
The aim of repression proper is to abolish objective, neurotic and moralistic anxiety by denying or falsifying the existence of the internal or external threat to the ego’s safety. It is this aspect of repression that is mostly dealt with its psychoanalytic psychology.
4. Advantages and Disadvantages of Repression:
Advantages:
Repression helps the ego to maintain a balance between reality and consciousness on one hand and conflict between impulsive desires and consciousness on the other hand.
Disadvantages:
As long as a happy balance is maintained repression is alright. But frequent attachment to repression does not yield healthy result. It produces results in the opposite direction.
i. Anxiety:
Anxiety is aroused by dangerous impulses from within. It is an internalised fear. The impelling force behind anxiety is repression. Hence to understand anxiety which very often seems to be free floating and hence apparently in explicable, one has to search for the repression behind them. Studies on neurotics have revealed that anxiety is very often a result of repressed fear of castraction.
A study conducted by Sommerschield and Reyher (1973) has demonstrated the role played by repression in helping the individual to be free from anxiety. Evidences also indicate that when repression fails, stronger and more maladaptive defences are applied.
ii. Neuroses:
One of the most powerful causes of neuroses is excessive repression. The repressed impulses breakthrough the light embraces of the ego and manifest themselves in overt behaviour. These revolutionary and forceful breakings though appear as characteristics, are marked with irrationality, lack of coordination with the rest of the personality.
The pivort and dynamic factor in neuroses is this repression by which the ego like an autocratic ruler attempts to drive away all the unacceptable impulses from its territory. In childhood the ego is quite weak and hence repressions are multifareous. These in later life become problems and in extreme cases manifest as neurotic symptoms, irrational anxiedes, obsession and impulsive behaviour.
Freud first understood the significance of guilt in neurotic criminals and spoke of crimes committed from a sense of guilt. This in-fact comes out of displacement of guilt coming out of repressed conflicts usually Oedipus in nature. Thus, to clearly understand neuroses we need a clear understanding of the repressed forces behind it. Repression plays a very important role in neuroses.
iii. Dreams:
The repressed desires and impulses are always in search of a chance to come up for manifestation. In sleep when the censorship of the ego is bit less vigilant those desires come up in disguise. Freud has already pointed out that dreams are attempts of repressed wish-fulfilment. And it is a fact. To add to this it can be viewed that repression often makes the dream unintelligible and un-explicably useless.
iv. Psychoanalytic Therapy:
The most important role played by repression is psychoanalytic therapy. Repression plays a central role in anxiety, in the impoverishment of the ego, in resulting neuroses and psychoses, in dreams, in amnesia, where unpleasant memories are repressed and forgotten.
The main tool of such therapy is free association and this is an attempt to bring up unconscious repressed motives, impulses, emotions and desires in the conscious level and to give the patient a new orientation.
In free association the therapist is counting on the tendency of the unconscious to betray its repressed content. The patient; a grown-up man, can now well recognise a lot of his behaviour by analysing his repressed wishes and what he cannot recognise, the therapist adds at the right moment by his interpretation and exploration.
By removing the repressed forces an insight comes to the mind of the patient and he tries to solve his problems more consciously.
The patient can now take recourse to better means such as sublimation and repression making readjustments of instinct and impulses in a healthy manner. The patient usually turns his emotions and attitude towards the analyst which is called transference. It is usually a feeling of dependence on the analyst. Over compensation may make it the other way around. Transference is necessary and it cannot be denied.
Neither we can do without it as it is the essence of psychoanalytic therapy. What is urgent is the resolution of transference. Because as soon as the patient is able to understand his repressed attitudes, emotions and impulses, he readjusts himself and maintains a stronger and balanced personality. This is the aim of Psychoanalysis as a method of treatment. Dream interpretation is also important in this field of therapy.
5. Measurement of Repression:
Psychologists have conducted a number of experiments to measure repression experimentally. Meltzer, Jersild, Stagner, Leeper and others, designed a gross study to measure recall of real life experiences both pleasant and unpleasant.
All the above investigators den onstrated in varying degree a greater recall for the pleasant than the unpleasant experiences directly related to the strength of affect attached to the experience.
Stagner obtained a very much more finer measure of recall by asking the subjects to write different series of items say colour, order etc. with each experience. After three weeks the subjects were reminded of the original description of the experiences and were asked to recall the items. The difference was clearly in favour of better recall of those associated with pleasant experience.
Koch made another experiment in support of the repression hypotheses. College students were given a series of 10 minutes quizzes. They rated it in a five point scale. After five weeks again the students were asked to recall them and it was found that the grades associated with most satisfying feelings was best recalled while other grades having unpleasant feelings could not be recalled.
According to Freud, Rosenzweig and Mason unpleasant and unfinished tasks are less remembered by ego involved subjects because failure creates anxiety and hence repression of unpleasant experiences become obvious. Further, Freudian theory of repression says that all ideas and behaviours that produce ego anxiety tend to be pushed out of the conscious mind into the unconscious, hence there is repression.
Forgetting of unpleasant experiences thus indicate the function of repression. But many experimental defenders of traditional psychology were quick to prove Freud wrong, to their own satisfaction.
Another technique used for measuring repression experimentally is that of Sharp and Flangan. Here the subjects were given three sets of words namely religious, sexual and neutral and it was found that the subjects recalled more of the neutral words than words having religious and sexual bias.
The assumption to explain the obtained result was that religious and sexual words tapped already existent repression by the after expulsion of specific words which were repressed. But there has been the following criticism. ‘The differential recall of religious and neutral words might have been a result of sheer conscious embarrassment of speaking forbidden words.
The subjects might have perceptual defence and perhaps have felt awkward in recalling tabooed words.’ Therefore, it will merely be a partial view if we generalize that they have forgotten the sexual words because of repression. In fact, according to the criticism of many, this does not clearly indicate repression.
In 1938 Sharp developed another quite ingenious method from the case histories of a group of neurotics. She secured two lists of words that related to serious emotional problems in their lives. It was found that the lists related to gratification were better recalled compared to other lists. Sharp found similar results in a group of normal adults. The evidence of repression is also found in the field of psychopathology.
A further experiment was done where college students were told a test to be intelligence test though it was not so. Those who failed in the test were unable to recall the same test afterwards, while who passed could recall it.
Though psychologists and psychopathologists have attempted to conduct several studies on the concept of repression, it is still an open question how far these experiments have been successful to prove the concept of repression. An experimental error unavoidable in such experiments invalidates rigorous interpretation in term of Freudian Theory.
Considering the experiments carried out to unravel the mystery of repression as a psychoanalytic concept in the experimental and behavioural psychology, it is remarked that the general difficulty with these experiments, is that their design does not satisfy thoroughly the requirements necessary from the psychoanalytic point of view.
In casting these accounts one is driven to the conclusion that experimental psychology has not yet made major contributions to these problems. Of course it cannot be denied that no contribution has been made. No doubt, psychologists have made attempts and they have contributed at least something to support experimentally the existence of psychoanalytic concepts.
Conclusion:
Repression is the key concept of psychoanalysis, and it is primal of all ego defences. For maintaining a balance between reality, superego and id desires repression is used. Repression being related to anxiety lies at the root of psychoses, it is a determining factor in dream and very important factor in Psychoanalytic therapy.
In short, repression is the basis and most important concept of Psychoanalytic Psychology. Thus, Freud rightly remarked “It is possible to take repressions as a centre and to bring all elements of Psychoanalytic theory into relation with it.”