For example, a young child is bitten by a dog while playing at the park. He later develops a severe phobia of dogs but has no memory of when this fear originated. He has repressed the painful memory of the fearful experience with the dog, so he is unaware of exactly where this fear came from.
The notion of repressed memories, or the existence of memories that are so painful or traumatic that they are kept out of conscious awareness, has been a controversial topic in recent decades. While repression is a term frequently used in psychology, it is considered a loaded and controversial concept. It has long served as a core idea within psychoanalysis, yet there have been a number of critics who have questioned the very validity and even existence of repression.
However, some research suggests that these distortions may have a beneficial impact in some circumstances. It is also important to note that even if repression does exist and certain things are hidden from awareness, this does not mean that this process necessarily contributes to mental disorders.
Yet one review of the research concluded that distorting reality in this way most often helps improve an individual's psychological and social functioning. Research has found that people who have what is known as a repressive coping style tend to experience less depression and cope better with pain.
While it was thought that psychoanalysis helped people by surfacing repressed memories, it is currently believed that there are many other therapeutic actions that contribute to the success of any type of psychological therapy, psychoanalysis or otherwise. Repressed memories came to the spotlight during the s and s when a number of high-profile cases involving recovered memories of childhood abuse captured media attention. Researchers such as Elizabeth Loftus have repeatedly demonstrated that false memories of events that did not actually happen form quite readily.
People are also prone to confabulation of memories in some cases. People may fully believe that such memories are accurate, even though the events did not actually occur as remembered. Freud himself noted that people sometimes experienced a "recovery" of repressed childhood memories during the course of psychoanalytic therapy. In his book "Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis," he concluded that "these scenes from infancy are not always true.
Indeed, they are not true in the majority of cases, and in a few of them they are the direct opposite of the historical truth. One of the key assumptions in the classic tradition of psychoanalysis has been that traumatic memories can be repressed.
However, most research has found that trauma actually tends to heighten memory of the painful event. In many cases, trauma can actually strengthen the memory of an event. People may develop post-traumatic stress disorder PTSD as a result of these traumatic experiences, causing them to experience vivid flashbacks of the events.
Rather than experiencing repression of the painful memories, people are forced to relive them again and again. This does not necessarily mean that memories of these events are completely accurate. Memory distortions are common, especially because the encoding, storage, and retrieval processes are prone to errors. While Freud believed that lifting repression was the key to recovery, this has not been supported by research.
Instead, some experts believe that bringing repressed material to light can be the first step toward change. Understanding something, after all, is not enough to fix a problem. But it can lead to further efforts that can lead to real relief and lasting changes.
Ever wonder what your personality type means? Sign up to find out more in our Healthy Mind newsletter. The question of "representation" in the psychoanalytical and cognitive-behavioral approaches. Some theoretical aspects and therapy considerations.
Front Psychol. Reconsidering unconscious persistence: Suppressing unwanted memories reduces their indirect expression in later thoughts.
Repressive coping style: Relationships with depression, pain, and pain coping strategies in lung cancer outpatients.
Lung Cancer. Misrepresentations and flawed logic about the prevalence of false memories. Appl Cogn Psychol. Strange D, Takarangi MK. Memory distortion for traumatic events: The role of mental imagery. Front Psychiatry. American Psychiatric Association. Brewin CR, Andrews B. Psychological defense mechanisms: The example of repression. The Psychologist. Rofe, Y. Does repression exist? Memory, pathogenic unconscious and clinical evidence. Review of General Psychology. Your Privacy Rights.
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We and our partners process data to: Actively scan device characteristics for identification. I Accept Show Purposes. Table of Contents View All. Table of Contents. What Is Repression? Latest Thinking. McKinnon to disparage government policies that suppressed economic growth in emerging markets. Financial repression is an indirect way for governments to have private industry dollars pay down public debts.
A government steals growth from the economy with subtle tools like zero interest rates and inflationary policies to knock down its own debts. Some of the methods may actually be direct, such as outlawing the ownership of gold and limiting how much currency can be converted into foreign currency. In , economists Carmen M. Reinhart and M. Belen Sbrancia hypothesized in a National Bureau of Economic Research NBER paper, entitled "The Liquidation of Government Debt," that governments could return to financial repression to deal with debt following the economic crisis.
Financial repression can include such measures as direct lending to the government, caps on interest rates, regulation of capital movement between countries, reserve requirements, and a tighter association between government and banks.
The term was initially used to point out bad economic policies that held back the economies in less developed nations. However, financial repression has since been applied to many developed economies through stimulus and tightened capital rules following the —09 Financial Crisis.
Reinhart and Sbrancia indicate that financial repression features:. The same paper found that financial repression was a key element in explaining periods of time where advanced economies were able to reduce their public debt at a relatively quick pace. These periods tended to follow an explosion of public debt. In some cases, this was a result of wars and their costs.
More recently, public debts have grown as a result of stimulus programs designed to help lift economies out of the Great Recession. The stress tests and updated regulations for insurers essentially force these institutions to buy more safe assets. Chief among what regulators consider a safe asset is, of course, government bonds. This buying of bonds helps, in turn, to keep interest rates low and potentially encourages overall inflation—all of which culminates in a quicker reduction in public debt than would have otherwise been possible.
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