Repressed Desire

Repression is a defense mechanism in which people push difficult or unacceptable thoughts out of conscious awareness. Repressed memories were a cornerstone of Freud’s psychoanalyticframework. He believed that people repressed memories that were too difficult to confront, particularly traumatic memories, and expelled them from conscious thought. This idea launched a long controversy in the field of psychology. The notion that people repress traumatic memories that can be recovered in therapy has been discredited. There is ample evidence that people remember traumatic experiences even if they wish they could forget them and that memory is more malleable than previously believed. Outside of the repressed memory debate, people may refer to repression colloquially, describing the tendency to push difficult feelings down or avoid confronting certain emotions or beliefs. Tune is and explored how repressed desires can creep into our life of denial!