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In order to define the Infantile and to examine its role in the analytic relationship, I considered this concept from both its developmental and structural status. I based my position on Freud’s view of a double Unconscious, together container of the repressed and drive source. I also used jointly both Freudian models of the psychic apparatus, that I do not consider as exclusive from each other, but as complementary, although not always easy to put together. This led me to consider the peculiarities of the criteria for the termination of the analyst’s personal analysis, and to try and describe the economic situation of repression in the psychoanalyst at work. By observing the impact of the Infantile-of-the-analysand upon the system PCS-CS of the psychoanalyst, I dealt with the odds and ends of the lack of representation and I tried to examine the situation and the future of the blind spots issued from such an impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After more than a year of pandemic, SARS-CoV-2 (Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2) remains a relevant health care and society issue. Movements doubting the dangerousness or the existence of the virus have emerged and became a challenge to social cohesion. About 3487 individuals (434 Corona doubters and 3053 non-doubters) have participated in an online survey (predominat age group: 35–45 years). Particularly, COVID-19-related anxiety, generalized anxiety (Generalizied Anxiety Disorder Screener, GAD-7), depression (Patient Health Questionnaire, PHQ-2) and functional/adherent safety behaviour were assessed. COVID-19 doubters describe less functional safety behaviour. Fear of the virus is evident, similar to non-doubters. Generalized anxiety and depression were significantly higher in doubters. Repression and denial as psychological defence mechanisms could be the unconscious psychological strategy for coping with the distress variables. The results point out that public strategies may only be successful in managing opinions and beliefs if they address fears and worries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author conveys his concerns on how to address mental illness among medical trainees. Topics mentioned include percentage of medical students affected by major depression during their schooling, the most common barriers to treatment reported by medical students, and factors that have been associated with burnout in medical school.

In this study, based on the 2 × 2 achievement goal framework (Elliot & McGregor, 2001), a four-dimensional classroom goal structure model (4CGS model) containing mastery-approach, mastery-avoidance, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goal structures was proposed and tested using the data of 941 7th-grade Taiwanese students. The results of exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and a discriminant validity test supported the independence of the four CGS constructs and revealed that the 4CGS model provided a far better fit than the other alternative models. Latent variable regression analysis disclosed differential associations between the 4CGS model and several important consequences (i.e., personal achievement goals, approach behaviors, and avoidance behaviors). Taken together, this study showed that CGS could indeed be divided into four distinct constructs that had differential predictive effects on these consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotional suppression has been defined as a mechanism that could be predictor of the coping response to physical illness, this response could block in the person a developing active strategies to manage their emotions. We described the case report of a 59 years-old woman, who showed at the last time diffuse somatic symptoms. Her psychobiography of significant personal losses, and her tendency to show emotional suppression as a basic coping style, masked a chronic depressive disease. These coping styles could be blocked the medical treatment and care of the patient, moreover than delayed the accurate diagnosis of the disease. It was highlight that the early assessment of these coping styles in front of emotional difficulties could be rescue positive coping responses, to allow the appropriate management of the disease and their health related behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The number of aggressive incidents committed by patients in (secure) mental health care is high. The present study examined the relation between institutional climate (support, growth, atmosphere, and repression) and aggressive incidents using data of 72 patients in a secure (forensic) mental health clinic and a clinic for prolonged intensive care. Longitudinal analyses showed that support from nurses was negatively associated with aggressive incidents. The relation between growth and aggressive incidents was mediated by support. Mental health nurses could have an important contribution to decreasing aggression incidents in secure mental health care facilities by offering support and possibilities for growth to the patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Domestic abuse is a worldwide public health issue with long-term health and social consequences. Nurses play a key role in recognizing and responding to domestic abuse. Yet there is considerable evidence that their responses are often inappropriate and unhelpful, such as trivializing or ignoring the abuse. Empirical studies have identified several reasons why nurses' responses are sometimes wanting. These include organizational constraints, e.g. lack of time and privacy; and interpersonal factors such as fear of offending women and lack of confidence. We propose, however, that these factors present only a partial explanation. Drawing on the work of Julia Kristeva, we suggest that alternative understandings may be derived through applying the concept of abjection. Abjection is a psychological defence against any threat (the abject) to the clean and proper self that results in rejection of the abject. Using examples from our own domestic abuse research, we contend that exposure of nurses to the horror of domestic abuse evokes a state of abjection. Domestic abuse (the abject) transgresses established social boundaries of clean and proper. Thus when exposed to patients' and clients' experiences of it, some nurses subconsciously reject domestic abuse as a possibility (abjection). They do this to protect themselves from the horror of the act, but in so doing, render themselves unable to formulate appropriate responses. Rather than understanding the practice of some nurses as wilfully neglectful or ignorant, we argue that through a state of abjection, they are powerless to act. This does not refute existing evidence about nurses' responses to domestic abuse. Rather, as a relatively unknown concept in nursing, abjection provides an additional explanatory layer that accounts for why some nurses respond the way they do. Crucially, it elucidates the need for nurses to be supported emotionally when faced with the transgressive practice of abuse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a 3-tiered, prevention-oriented framework, Tier II (secondary, targeted) interventions are designed for students whose problem behaviors have not responded to Tier I but are not severe enough to warrant an individualized Tier III intervention. Tier II interventions are implemented similarly across students receiving the intervention and can be delivered in an individual or group format. There are myriad such interventions in the literature; however, relatively few are designed for implementation in a 3-tiered framework. Further, there are limited evidence-based options available for students who engage in avoidance of instructional activities. In this article, the authors present a framework for conceptualizing Tier II interventions for these students. The authors define key features of evidence-based interventions for this population, systems needed to support implementation, and efficient means for progress-monitoring Tier II interventions. A case study exemplifying implementation of a Tier II intervention for avoidance is illustrated. Directions for future research and practice are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines Freud's concept of repression and the relationship between repression and substitutive formation as it presents itself in Freud's writings. The author shows that Freud gives at least four different meanings to the term 'repression': Freud uses it interchangeably with defense, as a consciously intended forgetting, as a specific unconscious mechanism of defense, and to describe the consequence of defense mechanisms leading to substitutive formations. The inconsistencies in this relationship are discussed and clarified, and Freud's economic and linguistic attempts at founding repression are subjected to critique; the need of a primal repression as a necessary condition for repression proper is pointed out. In developing Freud's linguistic foundation of repression further, the author presents defense as a semantic displacement. Ideas are excluded from the realm of the concepts that belong to them historically. These presentations become unconscious, that is, repressed, in that they can no longer be identified as 'cases' of these conceptual internal contents. At the same time they are displaced into the extensions of concepts whose internal contents do not belong to them originally. It is by virtue of the internal contents of these concepts that the displaced elements as substitutive formations once again attain consciousness, albeit a false one. The author suggests dismissing repression as a specific defense mechanism of its own; to reversing Freud's thesis that repression, as a rule, creates a substitutive formation into its opposite; and recognizing that the mechanisms used to build substitutes, as a rule, create repression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a retrospective survey, we studied a sample of 1,679 college women to determine whether reports of prior forgetting of childhood sexual abuse, physical abuse, and other traumas could be explained by trauma severity and individual differences in the use of defensive emotion-regulation reactions (i.e., repressive coping, dissociation, and fantasy proneness). Among victims of physical abuse (but not sexual abuse or other types of trauma), those who experienced severe abuse and used defensive reactions were sometimes more likely to report temporary forgetting of abuse but other times less likely to report forgetting. We also found unanticipated main effects of trauma severity on temporary forgetting. Our results provide an understanding of victims' experiences of forgetting by demonstrating the importance of considering unique effects of trauma type, different aspects of trauma severity, and victims' defensive reactions to trauma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past decade has seen substantial changes in the configuration of services for children and families in the UK. Most notably, the inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbié raised serious questions about the professional systems designed to safeguard children and the importance of professionals working effectively together to protect children. The research informing this paper was undertaken with a group of childcare social work practitioners and explored their everyday work experiences of the post-Climbié introduction of the Every Child Matters agenda and Integrated Children's Services. Through the application of psychodynamic and systemic concepts to the research findings, the paper identifies new perspectives on barriers to effective integrated working and makes suggestions for working practices that may overcome them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the degree to which the phenomenological experience of dream intensity and its components are correlated with repression, splitting, and other defense mechanisms. The Dream Intensity Scale, Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, Splitting Scale, Defense Style Questionnaire-40, and other related measures were administered to 583 subjects. It is demonstrated that repression as a personality trait is inversely and moderately related to the quantitative aspect of dream intensity (i.e., frequencies of dream awareness, nightmares, and multiple dreams in a single night) but does not influence qualitative sensory experiences in dreams (e.g., hearing sounds in dreams). Moreover, the present findings indicate that the more repressed people are, the less likely they are to report splitting and immature defenses, and the less frequently they experience dreams, with the effect of repression on defenses being greater than that on dream intensity. Accordingly, if both dreams and defense mechanisms are the critical materials to work through in a treatment, then starting with the former may be conducive to the therapeutic progress by provoking less resistance from the client. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at bringing out the relation between nihilism and the psychologized society. To accomplish this end, I reconsider Anthony Giddens' Modernity and Self-Identity (MSI) for his theory of the psychologized society and begin by discussing the issue posed by Giddens in MSI. According to his theory, modernity has been constructed by reflexive movements through the mediation of the expert system, one of which is "psychology," and is based upon the institutional repression of existential questions. Thus, we can see that in general, "psychology" has contributed to maintaining nihilism despite providing some opportunities to overcome nihilism. The same recognition can be seen in the works of Viktor Frankl, the founder of existential analysis, which criticizes psychologism and aims to help clients realize the meaning of their lives in order to overcome nihilism. Moreover, repressed existential questions have returned. There is an increase in the number of people who are concerned about "life politics," bringing to the fore repressed existential questions such as "how should I live?" From the arguments of Giddens and Frankl, it seems correct to conclude that "psychology," directly or indirectly, has urged people to conquer nihilism by seeking for the meaning of life. However. according to Martin Heidegger, the very act of seeking the meaning of life is the essence of nihilism. On the basis of his ontology, I show that the psycohologized society falls under two types of nihilism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, general levels of experiential avoidance are primarily measured by the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire - II (AAQ-II), but it includes items of questionable comprehensibility. The Avoidance and Fusion Questionnaire for Youth (AFQ-Y), previously validated as a measure of experiential avoidance with children and adolescents, was investigated as a measure with adult college students. The AFQ-Y evidenced adequate reliability (α = .92) and appropriate convergent and divergent validity in this sample. Interestingly, AFQ-Y and AAQ-II scores, though significantly related, were not so closely related as to say they measure the same construct. The implications of this and future directions for measurement development are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theories from diverse areas of psychology assume that affective stimuli facilitate approach and avoidance behavior because they elicit motivational orientations that prepare the organism for appropriate responses. Recent evidence casts serious doubt on this assumption. Instead of motivational orientations, evaluative-coding mechanisms may be responsible for the effect of stimulus valence on approach-avoidance responses. Three studies tested contrasting predictions derived from these two accounts. Results supported motivational theories, as stimulus valence facilitated compatible approach-avoidance responses even though participants had no intention to approach or to avoid the stimuli, and the valence of the response labels was dissociated from the approach and avoidance movements (Study 1). Stimulus valence also facilitated compatible approach-avoidance responses when participants were not required to process the valence of the stimuli (Studies 2a and 2b). These findings are at odds with the evaluative-coding account and support the notion of a unique, automatic link between the perception of valence and approach-avoidance behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article documents the attitudes—especially those of loyalty—among Gulag prisoners and returnees toward the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), and seeks to ascertain how their incarceration subsequently influenced those sentiments. It is paradoxical that some prisoners—many of whom were falsely convicted—endured gruelling, barely survivable, lengthy terms of labour camp and prison and emerged maintaining their loyalty toward the system of government that was responsible for their imprisonment. With the materials that have become available, we can now begin to understand this phenomenon. Explanations include the 'traumatic bond' (Stockholm Syndrome), communism (the Party) as a surrogate for institutionalised religion, cognitive dissonance and functionalism. This issue may offer insight into the larger question of how repressive regimes are maintained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: High-throughput gene expression experiments are widely used to identify the role of genes involved in biological conditions of interest. MicroRNAs (miRNA) are regulatory molecules that have been functionally associated with several developmental programs and their deregulation with diverse diseases including cancer. Methodology/Principal Findings: Although miRNA expression levels may not be routinely measured in high-throughput experiments, a possible involvement of miRNAs in the deregulation of gene expression can be computationally predicted and quantified through analysis of overrepresented motifs in the deregulated genes 39 untranslated region (39UTR) sequences. Here, we introduce a user-friendly web-server, DIANA-mirExTra (www.microrna.gr/mirextra) that allows the comparison of frequencies of miRNA associated motifs between sets of genes that can lead to the identification of miRNAs responsible for the deregulation of large numbers of genes. To this end, we have investigated different approaches and measures, and have practically implemented them on experimental data. Conclusions/Significance: On several datasets of miRNA overexpression and repression experiments, our proposed approaches have successfully identified the deregulated miRNA. Beyond the prediction of miRNAs responsible for the deregulation of transcripts, the web-server provides extensive links to DIANA-mirPath, a functional analysis tool incorporating miRNA targets in biological pathways. Additionally, in case information about miRNA expression changes is provided, the results can be filtered to display the analysis for miRNAs of interest only. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of sublimation is essential to Nietzsche and Freud. However, Freud's writings fail to provide a persuasive notion of sublimation. In particular, Freud's writings are confused on the distinction between pathological symptoms and sublimation and on the relation between sublimation and repression. After rehearsing these problems in some detail, it is proposed that a return to Nietzsche allows for a more coherent account of sublimation, its difference from pathological symptoms, and its relation to repression. In summary, on Nietzsche's account, while repression and pathological symptoms involve a disintegration (of the self), sublimation involves integration. The article concludes with a brief consideration of some post-Freudian accounts of sublimation that represent a return to a more Nietzschean approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Treatment readiness has been shown to predict entry and success in drug treatment programs. Objective: To examine the association between treatment readiness (defined as engaging in activities to control one's drug use) and enrolling in drug treatment. Methods: Longitudinal data collected through face-to-face interviews (March 2004-February 2007, NIDA-funded) from 585 injectors in Baltimore were analyzed. Results: Avoiding buying drugs and drug-related people and places were associated with entering treatment at follow-up. Also, the more activities one engaged in, the greater likelihood of entering drug treatment. Conclusions and Scientific Significance: These findings suggest that practicing behaviors to control one's drug use may be a beneficial strategy for getting ready for treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Matriculation is referred to in the sense of entry to further education and plays with the subjunctive, 'What if Foulkes had conceptualized the matrices as being structure of mind?' This article constructs a group-analytic psychical structure of the individual mind made up of the Personal, Dynamic and Social Matrices. Resonance between the matrices is then recognized as a source of psychic energy with sufficient power to lift the repression barrier causing painful affects and memories to come into consciousness. This article develops Foulkes' concept of resonance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alexithymia is a dimensional personality construct that encompasses a cluster of cognitive and affective characteristics relating to difficulty identifying and describing feelings, limited imaginal capacity, and having an externally oriented thinking style. Attempts to explain the etiology of high levels of alexithymia have resulted in disagreements regarding the relationship between alexithymia and psychological defense mechanisms. Much of the previous research suggests strong associations between alexithymia and immature or maladaptive defense styles. To examine these relationships using correlations, multiple regression and factor analytic techniques, three nonclinical populations in Australia and Canada were studied with a view to evaluating the association of defense mechanisms and response styles with alexithymia. Our results support the association of alexithymia with emotional inhibition, but extend those associations to immature defense styles and aspects of social desirability. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 64: 318–331, 2008 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Design and methods. This experimental study examined expressive writing (EW) in a community sample with social constraints on self-expression. Gay men (N = 62) were assigned randomly to describe gay-related thoughts and feelings (EW) or to write objectively (CTRL). Self-reported symptoms and physician visits were assessed at baseline and 1- and 2-month follow-ups. Results. Significant Group × Time interaction for somatic symptoms indicated buffering effect of EW. EW reduced gay-related avoidance, relative to CTRL. Avoidance and symptom changes were significantly, positively associated. Conclusions. Consistent with inhibition theory, EW reduces chronic avoidance and buffers stress-related physical symptoms in stigmatized groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Repression is associated in the literature with terms such as non-expression, emotional control, rationality, anti-emotionality, defensiveness and restraint. Whether these terms are synonymous with repression, indicate a variation, or are essentially different from repression is uncertain. To clarify this obscured view on repression, this paper indicates the similarities and differences between these concepts. Repression is the general term that is used to describe the tendency to inhibit the experience and the expression of negative feelings or unpleasant cognitions in order to prevent one’s positive self-image from being threatened (‘repressive coping style’). The terms self-deception versus other-deception, and socially related versus personally related repression refer to what is considered to be different aspects of repression. Defensiveness is a broader concept that includes both anxious defensiveness and repression; the essential difference is whether negative emotions are reported or not. Concepts that are sometimes associated with repression, but which are conceptually different, are also discussed in this paper: The act of suppression, ‘repressed memories,’ habitual suppression, concealment, type C coping pattern, type D personality, denial, alexithymia and blunting. Consequences for research: (1) When summarizing findings reported in the literature, it is essential to determine which concepts the findings represent. This is rarely made explicit, and failure to do so may lead to drawing the wrong conclusions (2) It is advisable to use scales based on different aspects of repression (3) Whether empirical findings substantiate the similarities and differences between concepts described in this paper will need to be shown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The philosophical debate on self-deception has always had on the background the truth likeness of Freud's theory of repression. In the recent years, renewed interest in the study of autobiographical memory has delivered new empirical evidence of the nature and workings of a repression mechanism (mainly Anderson's effort), that partially vindicates Freud's theory, and offers a new ground for philosophical discussions of self-deception. In this paper, I present this empirical work and discuss its implications for self-deception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses Sartre's critique of Freudian models of repression as inherently regressive. Sartre's critique is itself criticized but demonstrated to raise fundamental issues about the nature of consciousness and the postulation of mental mechanisms in psychological explanation. Sartre's argument involves the assumption that rational control over two thought contents requires a meta-representation over those contents, not simply their co-instantiation. It also seems to require, for the operation of a mental mechanism, that such a mechanism be explicitly represented not implemented. These assumptions are traced to the claim that mental states we are conscious with are those we are also conscious of. All three assumptions are rejected but are shown to involve a representative error about consciousness and rational control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the psychoanalytic setting, patients can develop a strong reaction to the therapeutic opportunity to gain new knowledge about themselves. This reaction to knowledge is manifested in the patient by walling it off, splitting it off, or attacking it and erasing it from one's internal experience. The avoidance of knowledge can be the result of various phantasy states that bring on defensive postures. Knowledge can be experienced as a persecutory threat to be avoided and defended against. Knowledge can also elicit depressive concerns of loss and separation. Issues of dependence and autonomy can be equated with knowledge and therefore learning must be warded off. As a result of any or all of these internal threats, the ego can instigate a moratorium on thinking and creativity, a shutdown on feeling, thinking, and learning. As will be shown in the case material, wanting to know can be offset by a greater defensive need to not know. Through projective identification cycles, knowledge is placed into the analyst and experienced as dangerous, unobtainable, or a gift one deserves to be given rather than earned. The patient in the case example demonstrates a more paranoid experience of knowledge and a more paranoid avoidance of learning and change. When paranoid phantasies drive the patient to destroy object—relational links between self and analyst, the transference becomes colored with the phantasy of knowledge being equal to dangerous dependence that leads to destruction of either self or object. Therefore, curiosity and learning are to be avoided. Change is no longer a safe option. Psychic change can only occur when past and current knowledge are allowed to be part of the ego's self object↔world. In other words, Psychic change is possible when the ego is less restrictive and open to new self↔object experience. Therefore, the ego must tolerate conflicted feelings and thoughts about the self and others for knowledge to be allowable and accessible. This is the core struggle for many patients and must be identified through interpretation of transference and phantasy for gradual working through to become a viable possibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional theories of coping emphasize the value of attending to and expressing negative emotion while recovering from traumatic life events. However. recent evidence suggests that the tendency to direct attention away from negative affective experience (i.e., repressive coping) may promote resilience following extremely aversive events (e.g., the death of a spouse). The current study extends this line of investigation by showing that both bereaved and nonbereaved individuals who exhibited repressive coping behavior--as measured by the discrepancy between affective experience and sympathetic nervous system response--had fewer symptoms of psychopathology, experienced fewer health problems and somatic complaints, and were rated as better adjusted by close friends than those who did not exhibit repressive coping. Results are discussed in terms of recent developments in cognitive and neuroimaging research suggesting that repressive coping may serve a protective function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical research since the year 2000 on trauma and autobiographical memory in adults is reviewed and related to four enduring controversies in the field: Whether traumatic memories are inherently different from other types of autobiographical memory; whether memory for trauma is better or worse than memory for non-traumatic events; whether traumas can be forgotten and then recalled later in life; and whether special mechanisms such as repression or dissociation are required to account for any such forgetting. The review concludes that trauma and non-trauma memories differ substantially, but only in clinical and not in healthy populations. Whereas involuntary memory is enhanced in clinical populations, voluntary memory is likely to be fragmented, disorganised, and incomplete. Progress in experimental and neuroimaging research will depend on analysing how task performance is affected by the interaction of voluntary and involuntary memory and by individual tendencies to respond to trauma with increased arousal versus dissociation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anxiety and avoidance dimensions of adult attachment insecurity were tested as moderators of treatment outcome for interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). Fifty-six participants with major depression were randomly assigned to these treatment conditions. Beck Depression Inventory—II, Six-Item Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression scores, and remission status served as outcome measures. Patients higher on attachment avoidance showed significantly greater reduction in depression severity and greater likelihood of symptom remission with CBT as compared with IPT, even after controlling for obsessive-compulsive and avoidant personality disorder symptoms. Results were replicated across treatment completers and intent-to-treat samples. These results suggest that it is important to consider the interaction between attachment insecurity and treatment type when comparing efficacy of treatments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Repression has become an empirical fact the is at once obvious and problematic. Fragmented clinical and laboratory traditions and disputed terminology have resulted in a Babel of misunderstandings in which false distinctions are imposed (e.g., between repression and suppression) and necessary distinctions not drawn, (e.g., between the mechanism and the use to which it is put, defense being just one). ‘Repression’ was introduced by Herbart to designate the (nondefensive) inhibition of ideas by other ideas in their struggle for consciousness. Freud adaptive repression to the defensive inhibition of ‘unbearable’ mental contents. Substantial experimental literatures on attentional biases, though avoidance, interference, and intentional forgetting exist, the oldest prototype being the work of Ebbinghaus, who showed that intentional avoidance of memories results in their progressive forgetting over time. It has now become clear, as clinicians had claimed, that the inaccessible materials are often available and emerge indirectly (e.g., procedurally, implicitly). It is also now established that the Ebbinghaus retention function can be partly reversed, with resulting increases of conscious memory over time (hypermnesia). Freud's clinical experience revealed early on that exclusion from consciousness was affected not just by simple repression (inhibition) but also a variety of distorting techniques, some deployed to degrade latent contents (denial), all eventually subsumed under the rubric of defense mechanisms (‘repression in the widest sense’). Freudian and Bartlettian distortions are essentially the same even in name, except for motive (cognitive vs. emotional), and experimentally induced false memories and other ‘memory illusions’ are laboratory analogs of self-induced distortions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Repression continues to be controversial. One insight crystallized by the commentaries is that there is a serious semantic problem, partly resulting from a long silence in psychology on repression. In this response, narrow views (e.g., that repression needs always be unconscious, must yield total amnesia) are challenged. Broader conceptions of repression, both biological and social, are considered, with a special stress on repression of meanings (denial). Several issues — generilizability, falsifiability, personality factors, the interaction of repression with cognitive channel (e.g., recall vs. dreams), and false-memory as repression — are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study attempted to identify individual and contextual factors associated with outcomes in a group of 63 latency-aged children disclosing sexual abuse (SA). Children reporting SA were found to display greater internalizing and externalizing behavioral difficulties as well as more sexualized behaviors relative to same-age non-abused peers. Mothers also reported these children as less socially competent than their peers. Family contextual factors appeared to be associated with behavioral difficulties and made a unique contribution to the prediction of externalizing and sexualized behaviors. Of the personal variables, avoidance coping was found to be linked to poorer outcomes. In examining possible factors linked to ‘resilient’ outcomes in a 6-month time-frame, family conflict and avoidance coping were found to be associated to clinical status in children reporting SA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One familiar form of argument for rejecting entities of a certain kind is that, by rejecting them, we avoid certain difficult problems associated with them. Such problem-avoidance arguments backfire if the problems cited survive the elimination of the rejected entities. In particular, we examine one way problems can survive: a question for the realist about which of a set of inconsistent statements is false may give way to an equally difficult question for the eliminativist about which of a set of inconsistent statements fail to be ‘factual’. Much of the first half of the paper is devoted to explaining a notion of factuality that does not imply truth but still consists in ‘getting the world right’. The second half of the paper is a case study. Some ‘compositional nihilists’ have argued that, by rejecting composite objects (and so by denying the composition ever takes place), we avoid the notorious puzzles of coincidence, for example, the statue/lump and the ship of Theseus puzzles. Using the apparatus developed in the first half of the paper, we explore the question of whether these puzzles survive the elimination of composite objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twenty-seven adults reporting "recovered memories" of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) were interviewed to determine (1) whether they perceived their CSA to be traumatic (e.g., terrifying, life threatening) at the time it occurred, (2) why they believe they "forgot" their CSA memories, and (3) whether they report current psychological symptoms, negative life effects, or both related to their abuse. Only 7% of the group described the abuse as traumatic at the time it occurred. Eighty-nine percent endorsed ordinary forgetting mechanisms (e.g., avoidance, lack of rehearsal, retrieval failure) to explain why they had forgotten their abuse. Seven subjects met criteria for current CSA-related PTSD and all reported multiple negative life effects related to their abuse (i.e., difficulty trusting others, sexual problems, shame). Data are consistent with the hypothesis that (1) C SA that is "forgotten" and then "remembered" was not necessarily traumatic at the time it occurred, (2) CSA can be forgotten via normal forgetting mechanisms, and (3) it may be the retrospective interpretation of the event as traumatic, rather than the event itself, that mediates any subsequent impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individual differences in women's avoidant and vigilant style in coping with the threat of rape were explored in four studies. In the first study, 97 women read a rape scenario and completed measures of cognitive vigilance and avoidance. They also provided ratings of fear of rape and anticipated coping problems in case of sexual assault. Vigilance was associated with significantly higher levels of fear of rape and anticipation of more severe coping problems. No effects were found for cognitive avoidance. Study 2 replicated these findings with a sample of 275 women. In addition, it showed that high vigilance was associated with significantly more rape-preventive behaviors. Study 3, including 172 women, was an online study on the effect of cognitive coping style on fear of rape, anticipated coping problems, and two behavioral measures of rape avoidance. High vigilance was related to higher levels of fear of rape, anticipation of more severe coping problems, and more rape-preventive behaviors. Finally, Study 4 (N=210) showed that individual differences in cognitive coping style affected rape-related affect and behavior in the absence of a rape scenario, underlining the chronic salience of the threat of rape for women. Vigilance was positively related to fear of rape, rape-avoidance behavior, and anticipated coping problems. In contrast, a negative relationship was found between cognitive avoidance and fear of rape, rape-avoidance strategies, and anticipated coping problems. Across the four studies, no evidence was found for an interactive effect of cognitive avoidance and vigilance, as suggested by the construct of repression versus sensitization. The findings are discussed in the light of previous research on repression-sensitization in coping with threatening information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is the record of a reflexive process which attempts to understand the meaning of my resistance to psychodynamic therapy. Through the method of reflexive research process and using a narrative style, I explore how repressed experiences from an abusive childhood were recalled to my conscious mind, how I began to understand the transference and its effect on the therapeutic relationship and finally how I came to recognize the resistance and appreciate the potential contained within such understanding. The paper concludes with a brief description of the ways in which this experience has influenced my practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper deals with the object of psychoanalysis, trying to define the elementary conditions of this object in both practice and theory. The author emphasizes the notion of the object as a lack, and the concepts of repression and transference. He showns how the psychoanalytic conception of the object could enlighten some aspects of the contemporary clinical field. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Over a century ago, Freud proposed that unwanted memories can be excluded from awareness, a process called repression. It is unknown, however, how repression occurs in the brain. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify the neural systems involved in keeping unwanted memories out of awareness. Controlling unwanted memories was associated with increased dorsolateral prefrontal activation, reduced hippocampal activation, and impaired retention of those memories. Both prefrontal cortical and right hippocampal activations predicted the magnitude of forgetting. These results confirm the existence of an active forgetting process and establish a neurobiological model for guiding inquiry into motivated forgetting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whereas Peter Fonagy almost dismisses the importance of repression and the recovery of repressed and suppressed memory, the author believes that the analysis of repression retains importance in clinical psychoanalysis. Transference is a return of the repressed, with repressed memories embedded within a fundamental unconscious fantasy constellation. Moreover, transference is an essential, but not the only, route to the understanding and analysis of the patient. Nor should transference be confused with the real or new analytic relationship. The author does not regard the dynamic unconscious as definitely registered and retrieved in procedural memory, awaiting further research. A focus on the present 'self with other' model of therapeutic action neglects pathogenesis and the importance of childhood and its psychoanalytic reconstruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study which examined whether the discrepancies between physiological and emotion responses to stress in repressors and sensitizers can be experimentally induced. Method; Results; Discussion.

Discusses the attempts made by Karl Marx and Max Stirner to overcome the logic of the uncanny as a return of the repressed. Views of Sigmund Freud on the logic of uncanny; Forms of religious fanaticism; Differences between Stirner and Marx.

A longstanding hypothesis links affective and behavioral inhibition with cancer incidence and progression though it does not clarify psychometric distinctions among related constructs. We hypothesized that repressive-defensiveness, suppression, restraint, and distress would be separable factors in our sample of metastatic breast cancer patients. Our results support the discriminant validity of these constructs in our total sample, and the stability over 1 year in our control group. Using factor analysis, we found 4 separate factors at our prerandomization baseline corresponding closely to hypothesized constructs. Additionally, associations in a multi-trait, multi-occasion (baseline and 1 year) matrix met each of the 3 Campbell and Fiske (1959) criteria of convergent and discriminant validity. Future research testing the links between psychological, physiological, and survival outcomes with affective inhibition in cancer patients will be clearer when informed by these distinctions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores the construct validity of repression through an examination of the interrelations among indicators identified in previous research as being associated with the construct. Behavioral tasks and questionnaire administered; Definition of the concept of repression as a force or defense that functions to eliminate or prevent psychological pain.

Building from the theoretical literature, I posit here that repressors' reactions to perceived domestic threats in Argentina and Chile from the 1940s through the 1980s are determined in large part by four independent factors. incidence of collective political opposition. policy inertia, policy memory, and pervasive military control. The model works reasonably well in both countries Findings for the two latter, interactive factors in particular suggest a way that analysts can go beyond the typical additive approach to modeling state repression (repression as a function of factor X1 + factor X1 factor + Xi to include temporal interactive affects into their analyses. I argue that this approach presents a new and promising direction in our quest to understand the dynamic nexus between repressors and their opponents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four groups were identified on the basis of high or low scores on trait anxiety and defensiveness obtained under standard conditions. They subsequently completed the same questionnaires under "bogus pipeline" conditions designed to elicit honest responding. Trait anxiety scores did not change significantly for any group between the two test conditions, suggesting that trait anxiety scores obtained under standard conditions are not subject to deliberate distortion. In contrast, defensiveness scores were significantly lower in all four groups under bogus pipeline conditions, especially for the repressor (low trait anxiety, high defensiveness) and defensive high-anxious (high trait anxiety, high defensiveness) groups. It was concluded that most repressors are self-deceivers, in terms of trait anxiety, rather than other-deceivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the relationship between repressive coping style as defined by Weinberger (1990)—low reported anxiety and high reported defensiveness—and several individual difference measures related to general coping styles. Twenty-nine studies looking at cognitive, behavioural, and individual difference factors associated with repressive coping were tabulated and reviewed. In the current study 116 women and 32 men were administered a questionnaire including measures of personality, ways of coping, self-monitoring, interpersonal influence, and locus of control to further explore the repressor coping style. Two measures, as opposed to the usual one, were used to categorize repressors: the use of anxiety and social desirability measures of Weinberger, Schwartz and Davidson (1979) and the Gudjonsson (1981) method using Neuroticism and Lie scales from the EPQ(R). Analysis of variance showed that repressors reported using more positive/healthy and less negative/unhealthy coping styles. The results did not change substantially when more extreme scoring groups were used. Factor analysis of the scales revealed six clear factors relating to ways of coping; again, repressors scored highly on the factor denoting positive coping. It was also found that the Lie and Neuroticism scales of the revised EPQ personality questionnaire of Eysenck, Eysenck and Barrett (1985) could be used as a substitute for anxiety and defensiveness to predict repression with considerable success. However results from both one- and two-way analysis of variance indicated that the two different ways of classifying repressors was not totally inter-changeable as the overlap in results occurred only with highly significant effects. The results are discussed in the light of previous investigations into repression which suggested that repressors report an overly optimistic way of coping in order to avoid negative affect. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]