Repression: anatomy, purpose, and irony

The Ego and the Id, Chapter 1

Here’s something: its’s that bastard ego which is doing all the repressing.

“It is to this ego that consciousness is attached… From this ego proceed the repressions, too.”

The act of repression: activating resistances upon certain mental and emotional tracks, keeping them away from our conscious processes.

The analyst’s work is all about bringing what is repressed to the fore, allowing the patient to let go of their resistances and see how much mental energy was given to the singular task of bridling some feeling, memory, or idea.

I feel the truth of this irony, even if I can’t name a specific example in myself: my whole life can be exhausted by what it takes to repress some feeling or thought or memory; and I would do that despite the fact that repression is meant to keep its object from taking over my life in the first place.

Even if I broaden the concept to the act of hiding things in general, it feels true: whatever I attempt to cover up, comes to dominate.