Repression

In repression, the person is expelling or withholding an idea or feeling from the consciousness. Primary repression is when ideas and feelings are restrained before they have reached consciousness. In secondary repression what was once experienced at a conscious level is excluded from awareness. The repressed material is not forgotten, and it may be present in symbolic behavior. This defense mechanism differs from suppression since it effects conscious inhibition of impulses to the point of losing and not just postponing wished goals. In repression conscious perception of instincts and feelings is blocked. (Sadock, 2003)

(T.J.)

• Sadock, B.J., Sadock, V.A. Kaplan & Sadock’s synopsis of psychiatry. Ninth edition, Philadelphia; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 2003.

• FlashbackFlashbacks are spontaneous, transitory recurrences ...
• ReexperiencingReexperiencing means that the traumatic event is persistently reexperienced ...

Texts:

• Niemand zeugt für den Zeugen (“Levi’s paradox”, cultural and political representation of the victims, and the secondary witness problem, from Auschwitz to Srebrenica) by Stevan Vuković

Artworks:

• WDWTW? (Who Did What To Who?) by Alejandro Duque