The language of repression

Repression is a mechanism through which a person expels from their consciousness thoughts, feelings or desires that are inadmissible. That is, everything that cannot be tolerated to feel, think or desire.

With an example we can understand repression better. Suppose there is someone who has a stable partner, with whom he feels happy. But he suddenly feels attracted to another person and perceives this as a threat. He then decides to expel that idea from his consciousness, to pretend that it never happened.

Until then, everything is very good. The problem is that there is a psychic law: The repressed does not disappear, but continues to act from the unconscious. In fact, repressed contents, precisely because they have been repressed, acquire an unusual force.

Everything repressed returns. Desire is not eliminated by removing it from consciousness. It takes different forms to manifest itself again and again. Repression has its own language and these are its main expressions.

Dreams, a language of repression

At the moment of sleep, consciousness stops being that sentinel that is constantly telling you which thoughts and feelings you should admit and which ones you should not. During sleep the censorship is lifted and the unconscious is fully expressed.

Sometimes, those repressed contents are directly exposed while you sleep. For example, the person dreams that he did not let that someone he liked pass by, but that he is in a more than compromising situation with him.

If what is repressed has a greater degree of complexity, or refers to contents that are truly intolerable for the subject, the dream will also have a more enigmatic composition. The literal scenes no longer appear, but each element appears symbolized or hidden. They are those dreams that seem to have no head or tail. In many other cases, it is not even possible to remember what was dreamed.

The failed acts

They are called “failed acts”, although in reality they are “successful acts”. The repressed does not return only in dreams, it also does so through concrete actions. that we do “unintentionally” in our daily lives.

Returning to the example that we have been addressing, a failed act would be, for example, that instead of dialing the couple’s phone number, one “accidentally” calls the person who arouses attraction and is perceived as threatening.

Everything we do “unintentionally, willingly” corresponds to the concept of a failed act or an accomplished act, a form of repression.. Failed because that was not what we consciously proposed. Achieved, because deep down that was what we wanted to do.

The slips linguae or slips calami

They operate in a very similar way to failed acts, but they appear only in the realm of language. They are involuntary “errors” when speaking (lapsus linguae) or writing (lapsus calami).. I remember one. He wanted to write to his girl “You are beautiful.” But, unintentionally, he left out a letter and ended up writing “You are her.”

Or when someone wants to say “the money is yours” and changes a letter, also altering the meaning: “the money is yours.” With that subtlety, possession passes from a second to a third person. There are also memory lapses, in which something is momentarily forgotten that should not have been forgotten. For example, the name of the boss or even a child.

neurotic symptoms

Neurotic symptoms are another type of repression. They are more or less absurd actions that we undertake in our daily lives, or inexplicable situations that occur to us. without knowing why. What they express is that desire that we repress and that strives to manifest itself.

For example, a person who constantly feels that a fire is going to break out and checks the stove hundreds of times. Or someone who goes back three or four times to check if he left the door closed, because he has the impression that he left it open.

There are also cases such as an employee who was treated badly by his boss and wanted to respond, but did not have the courage to do so. Then he becomes hoarse, or begins to feel discomfort in his throat.

The jokes

Jokes express what is repressed not at the individual level, but within the social framework. This form of repression reveals feelings of rejection, challenges taboos or lays bare collective desires.

There are many xenophobic, sexist, etc. jokes that allow you to express feelings or ideas that would otherwise be socially censored. That is precisely where the grace of many of them lies. For example, the well-known joke that Jacques Lacan alludes to in one of his expositions: “Between the sublime and the ridiculous there is only one step. That passage is called the English Channel.”

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Images courtesy of Daria Petrilli