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5. Theory of Repression
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ego, superego, and id, these three entities work in a process of repression. Peter Barry in Beginning Theory
defined repression as the forgetting or ignoring of unresolved conflicts,
unadmitted desires, or traumatic past events, so that they are forced out of conscious awareness and into the realm of the unconscious Barry, 2009: 92-93.
repression Id is always considered as something which is too vulgar or not appropriate to be expressed directly. Therefore, it must be repressed so that it
would not come out in another inappropriate form. This function is run by superego. As the result of the repression, there comes the ego as the most proper
form of the expression of id. When something in human mind is repressed, it does not totally disappear.
it remains alive in the unconscious, like radioactive matter buried beneath the ocean, and constantly seeks a way back into the conscious mind, always
succeeding eventually Barry, 2009: 96. Freud once stated, There is always a return of the repressed. According to Freud s statement, each person will give the
way back to his repressed fear and wish. Freud explained that those repressed things might come back in the form of symptoms, dreams, or slips of tongue.
Basically, Lacan agreed with Freud s thought about repression. He did not state a radical differentiation from it. However, since Lacan presented a different
theory of subject, there are some things that are needed to be paid attention to. In Lacan s concept of repression, what to repress is the desire of a subject. A similar
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Barry, 2009: 106. In Lacanian analysis, the symptoms are identified from the speech that a subject speaks. Every single word and even letter is
showing the structure of subject s unconsciousness. By paying attention to subject s speech as a symptom in symbolic phase, the desire that a subject has
repressed can be associated with. that psychoanalytic theory inserts itself, seeking to uncover repressed
or overdetermined aspects of self-organization Elliot, 2002: 10. Psychoanalysis runs its function by paying attention to the forms of the returning repressed and
relating them to the other aspects of the person analyzed to eventually make an interpretation of what exactly exists in that person s unconsciousness. This