In PSYCHOANALYSIS, a DEFENCE MECHANISM and a crucial concept in Freudian theory. The essence of repression is the blotting out from CONSCIOUS awareness of disturbing feelings and impulses arising from the ID. They are submerged in the UNCONSCIOUS where they invariably get up to mischief.
Repression is at the root of many NEUROSES including, most strikingly. AMNESIA. Indeed FREUD considered repression the price we pay for civilisation, and psychoanalysis, by making the unconscious conscious, the only way to come to terms with this dilemma. Contrast with INHIBITION.
