Consider a person, who was raised in a stressful environment where their emotional needs were neglected and they rarely had any form of emotional support. To cope with the constant emotional distress, without their awareness, they forget about the painful incidents associated with their childhood. However, as an adult, they begin experiencing disturbing dreams and feel constantly dispirited or exhausted.
They struggle with emotional intimacy in their bonds and feel like they don’t belong. They are unable to pinpoint the source of their distress. In this case, they unconsciously employed the psychological defence mechanism called repression to avoid dealing with the pain and neglect they experienced during childhood. As they didn’t address or process those emotions and memories, the repressed memories resurfaced during adulthood and continue to impact their mental health.
What is Repression?
Repression is a commonly used defence mechanism in which our mind blocks and pushes difficult or distressing emotions, memories and thoughts from our awareness. Typically, an unconscious mechanism, it can also be learned or habituated by people who want to avoid feeling unwanted or unbearable emotions.
Repression is confused with another commonly known defence mechanism called denial, in which a person denies or refuses to accept certain aspects of reality, even when they know that reality is different or contrary to their perception. While denial is a refusal to admit the truth, repression can be a form of unconsciously avoiding certain emotions. Together repression and denial can be a dangerous combination and may be tamper or alter a person’s perceptions of reality or the truth.
Read More: Defence Mechanism: What They Are And Why We Use Them
Freud’s Perspective of Repression

To understand the deeper shades of repression, let’s delve into its origins. The father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud was the one who conceived the psychological concept of repression and deemed it as the foundation and an important part of the structure of psychoanalysis. He believed that the emotions, desires and memories that we repress can re-emerge later in distressing forms such as anxiety, depression, problems in cognitive functions, sleeplessness and disturbing dreams. He also theorized that when we are reminded of the things we repress, anger and aggression can manifest in destructive patterns.
To illustrate and comprehend the parts of the mind, Freud used the parts of an iceberg as a metaphor. The conscious mind is represented by the tip of the iceberg visible above the water. The submerged part of the iceberg which is still visible, is likened to the preconscious mind. The huge part of the iceberg that lies hidden underwater is equated to the unconscious mind.
While the unconscious mind might be buried and not accessible, its contents can still impact our behaviour in some ways. He mentioned that using techniques like free association and dream analysis can bring the repressed thoughts or desires into our conscious mind.
Why do we Repress?
To protect themselves from distress or trauma, people often use repression as a defense mechanism unconsciously. We cope with difficult situations by repressing our emotions or memories for numerous reasons:
1. Desire for Control
People want to maintain a sense of control over their lives, particularly with emotions or memories that destabilize them. By avoiding some memories or emotions, they feel a temporary sense of security in their life. For example, a person who was subjected to a traumatic experience might repress the powerful emotions and pain that they associate with the incident and avoid addressing or processing anything that makes them feel like they’re losing control over themselves.
2. Conditioning during early childhood
Early childhood experiences can shape a person’s patterns of repression. As children, we observe and learn that some emotions are not encouraged by our parents, peers and the community we lived in. As time progresses, we might repress those emotions that were not deemed acceptable by others. Example: A child who was punished for crying due to sadness might learn that repressing their sadness is the best way to avoid being reprimanded again. They might continue this pattern of repression in their adulthood too. This would adversely affect how they perceive the world as they never felt emotionally safe to express the emotions that were rejected or denied by their parents or peers.

3. Attachment Style
Research suggests that the attachment style that an individual possesses can be associated with whether they would repress their emotions. Individuals with an avoidant attachment style are more likely to use repression as a coping mechanism. They prefer to avoid vulnerability and this leads to them repressing feelings of sadness, pain, anger or anxiety that they experience in relationships. Repressing their emotions can cause a strain in how they cope with the challenges that a relationship can bring and also affect the emotional intimacy in their bonds.
When there is a fear of rejection or abandonment, people tend to avoid expressing emotions that could threaten the relationship to preserve the bond they have but the cost of repression is quite high. For example, someone in a coercive relationship may not want to “rock the boat” and due to the fear of repercussions of conflict, they repress their feelings of frustration or sadness.
People having an anxious attachment style might also repress, when they feel an overwhelming fear of being abandoned or rejected. An individual with this attachment style would normally seek a lot of reassurance in their relationships but their profound feelings of insecurity or anxiety might be repressed unconsciously. Avoiding these overwhelming emotions can intensify their feelings of distress and make them feel helpless over a period of time.
4. Denial of situations
While denial is one of the stages of processing grief, when we ignore obvious signs that contradict our beliefs, this can be dangerous to our mind as we are essentially rejecting the truth or the reality of a situation, to avoid pain. For example, a person struggling with alcohol abuse may deny that they are drinking excessively and insist that they can quit at any point of time, even though the reality is that their drinking habit is damaging their health and their personal relationships.
Denial and Repression are both coping mechanisms that function by protecting an individual from distressing thoughts or emotions, but they are not the same. While denial is a conscious choice made by an individual, repression is generally an unconscious process that happens without the person’s awareness.
Denial is visible through outward behaviours, such as ignoring facts that contradict the person’s core beliefs or refusing to converse about problems that are affecting others or themselves. Repression affects a person’s internal system by making some difficult emotions or memories inaccessible or invisible to their conscious mind.

5. Avoiding Vulnerability
When we have a fear of being vulnerable with other individuals due to past experiences of rejection, we tend to repress our feelings to protect ourselves from getting hurt again. For example, a person involved in an intimate relationship who was betrayed by their partner would repress feelings of hurt or trust to avoid being hurt or betrayed again. In this scenario, repression serves as a temporary reprieve from suffering.
How does Repression affect our health?
Repression can have a long-term impact on our well-being when the repressed material is not processed or addressed appropriately. Some of the significant ways that repression can influence our physical and mental health are:
1. Psychosomatic Effects
Psychological stimuli such as trauma, repressed memories, emotions and thoughts have a direct influence on our body. This leads to physical conditions that cannot be completely clarified through symptoms of medical ailments alone and are known as psychosomatic symptoms. When some emotions like grief, anxiety, or fear are repressed, the body may store them in the form of physical tension or stress. Our emotional experiences have a direct influence on our body and its functions. The presence of psychosomatic symptoms indicates that there is something unresolved emotionally that needs to be immediately addressed and processed.
Psychosomatic symptoms that are related with repression are:
- Respiratory issues ranging from chest pain to panic attacks and hyperventilation.
- Frequent or unexplained headaches which progress to migraine.
- Physical tightness, pain or tension in the back, shoulders, or neck regions.
- Gastrointestinal issues that include digestion issues, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and stomach ulcers.
- Due to the distress caused by repression, skin issues such as acne, eczema and psoriasis can occur.
- Chronic fatigue and numbness are common for someone who often represses their feelings.
2. Psychological issues
Repression can feature in mental health challenges and conditions that are closely tied to unresolved trauma, stress and anxiety. The repressed memories or emotions often contribute to symptoms of psychological disorders such as anxiety, depression and complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD).
- Prolonged repression of intense emotions can heighten the feelings of anxiety and resurface as disturbing dreams, panic attacks or other forms of stress and anxiety due to the underlying sense of conflict or uneasiness caused by repressed memories.
- When we hold back emotions like grief or persistent sadness, we end up feeling emotionally numb or feel detached from our emotions. Without an outlet for those emotions, we begin feeling hopeless and isolated, exacerbating despair and depression.
- As repression involves the fear of rejection or abandonment, it can damage a person’s self-esteem and affect their overall mental well-being. For example, someone who represses their anger may avoid confrontations and instead display passive-aggression, resentment and struggle to communicate their unmet needs.
- Obsessive or compulsive behaviours such as binge-eating, substance abuse, or other addictions can be a way of coping or distracting people from their emotional pain. Numbing their repressed emotions by engaging in these behaviours will lead to self-destructive patterns. Most of the time, the person is unaware that their coping patterns are driven by repressed emotions or unresolved trauma or grief.
- Long-term repression might leave a person feeling emotionally unavailable or unable to express their desires, which would affect how they connect with other people.
- Repressed memories can resurface unpredictably as disturbing flashbacks or nightmares or intrusive thoughts. These are the main symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a mental condition related to unresolved trauma from past or recent experiences.
How to handle Repression?
- Practicing mindfulness can help us to be more aware of current thoughts and emotions in which may help us to release repressed emotions. Meditation, deep breathing and psychosomatic techniques can reduce the emotional distress or physical tension that are characterized by long-term repression.
- Art, music, writing and other expressive forms can provide an outlet for unresolved emotions, and facilitate a healthier way to express our repressed emotions without the need to verbalize them
- Trauma-focused therapy such as EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) or Somatic Experiencing can be helpful for people who have repressed memories of complex trauma. These therapies facilitate processing of traumatic memories and release the intensity or tension. For example, individuals who undergo EMDR process their emotions or memories in a way that reduces the emotional charge associated with the traumatic incident. The repressed memories are then integrated into conscious mind without overwhelming the person.
Conclusion
Repression is a defense mechanism that may protect us from confronting painful memories and provide temporary relief but it has a steep cost over time. Repression can be illustrated by the metaphor of locking something inside a box and losing the key and the box becoming inaccessible. We can develop healthy coping strategies, build emotional resilience, and counter repression by working with professionals trained to handle repressed memories. By addressing and processing our repressed thoughts and emotions, we can heal from our unresolved issues and lead more satisfying lives.
FAQs
1. What is Repression?
Repression is a coping mechanism that involves the unconsciously pushing away distressing thoughts, emotions, or memories from our conscious awareness. It is a process that helps individuals to avoid psychological suffering. While repression provides temporary relief, over time, it can lead to psychological and physical problems because repressed emotions or experiences remain unresolved.
2. Does repression only affect our mind?
Repression can have a long-term impact on our psychological health when the repressed material is not processed or addressed appropriately but can also adversely affect our physical health. Common manifestations of repression in our body include migraines, headaches, gastrointestinal issues, breathing troubles, panic attacks and skin issues like acne, eczema, etc.
3. Why do we repress?
We repress our emotions for various reasons such avoiding vulnerability, to feel a sense of control, due to a fear of rejection or abandonment, to avoid reminders of traumatic incidents.
4. How can I tell if I have repressed emotions?
Repressed emotions manifest as unexplained physical symptoms, difficulty in expressing needs/desires, or engaging in avoidant behaviours (based on a fear of rejection or abandonment). You can approach a trauma-informed therapist who can guide you in exploring and addressing these underlying issues, if you suspect that you have repressed emotions or memories.
5. How to handle Repression?
Repression can be countered by practicing mindfulness, self-compassion and undergoing trauma-focused therapy or other approaches of counselling such as Gestalt therapy that deal with unresolved past experiences. Other ways to handle repression is to sue expressive forms of art, writing, music, etc to express our deeper and repressed memories or emotions.
References +
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