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THE THOMIST A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY EDITORS: THE DoMINICAN FATHERS oF THE PROVINCE OF ST. JosEPH Publishers: The Thomist Press, Washington 17, D. C. VoL. XXV OCTOBER, 196~ No.4 A THOMI$TIC ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPT OF REPRESSION A KEY idea in the theory of psychoanalysis is the idea of repression, the concept of a dynamic and unwitting expulsion of certain images, ideas and affects from the consciousness of the mind. From one point of view, repression is invoked to account for the existence of unconscious thoughts and motivations; from another, it is conceived as a primary agent of neurotic states and of behavior which is more or less pathological; and from still another, it it allotted an important role in normal psychological growth and development. From any of these points of view, it is a phenomenon worthy of close study. The evidence concerning repression is tqday so varied and extensive that its existence can no longer be reasonably doubted. Nevertheless, the concept has not been universally accepted by psychologists, outside of the psychoanalytic schools, and possibly to some extent because there are still problems to be solved in understanding precisely what repressiOn Is. 468 464 MICHAEL STOCK It is not likely that many descriptions of repression will be found in text books of scholastic psychology, and this is unfortunate . The psychoanalytic investigations and descriptions of repression are, after some years of refining and re-defining, worthy of serious attention. This present article will attempt to summarize the salient features of the theory of repression, and show how it might fit into a scholastic development of psychology, and, in particular, into the psychology of St. Thomas Aquinas. I. DEsCRIPTION oF REPRESSION FROM PsYcHOANALYTIC LITERATURE . A. The General Idea of Repression. Repression belongs generically to the category of psychological reactions which in psychoanalytic literature_ are called mechanisms of defence. The context in which mechanisms of defence are discussed is mental anguish, which is variously termed mental pain or psychological tension or anxiety. Given a state of mental distress, distinct from physical pain, the mind might adopt, or perhaps we should say, experience, a psychological response whose aim is to escape from the disagreeable situation. The various psychological respon!les (about ten are generally recognized) are the mechanisms of defence, among which repression holds a unique place. There are many ordinary kinds of responses which people might employ to diminish mental distress. They might try to work it off, or to dist:.;act themselves with pleasures, or go to sleep, or talk it over with a friend-these are not mechanisms of defence. The term is restricted to largely spontaneous and indeliberate psychological reactions which work almost like reflexes (hence the term ' mechanism ') and which in fact succeed in one way or another in overcoming mental pain. One of the more commonly recognized mechanisms of defence is projection. By this reaction, a person who is experiencing a disagreeable feeling of hatred for another, escapes the sense of guilt by attributing the hate to the other; he begins to believe A THOMISTIC ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPT OF REPRESSION 465 that he is hated. Another defence mechanism is reaction formation : a person overcomes disagreeable feelings of hate by overcompensating expressions. of kindness and benevolence, and vehement protestations (to himself and others) of his good will. A third mode of defending against an unwanted feeling of hate towards another is to turn it against oneself, to let it expend its force in self-recriminations. All of these mechanisms have one thing in common-they distort a feeling or attitude and make it unrecognizable to its possessor. Repression, which is like them in being an attempt to escape a disagreeable feeling, differs in its mode of operation. It does not distort 11 feeling, image or idea; it simply expels it from consciousness. It is crucial to the concept of repression to understand that it does not annul or annihilate the feeling or idea that it expels. It simply removes it from the sphere of awareness. It is a negating action vis-a-vis internal perception, a blocking off or inhibiting of consciousness concerning some mental phenomenon . The phenomenon persists afterwards in...

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