repress
rih-PRESS
/rɪˈprɛs/
To unconsciously exclude distressing thoughts, memories, or impulses from conscious awareness.
Repression is typically an involuntary, unconscious coping mechanism, unlike suppression, which is a conscious decision to push thoughts away.
The story behind the word. From Latin 'reprimere', formed from 're-' (back) and 'premere' (to press). In late 19th-century psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud adopted the German term 'Verdrängung' to mean forcing unacceptable ideas out of consciousness, which English translators rendered as 'repression'.
Word relationships
- stifle: Stifle implies suffocating or choking back an emotion immediately and often consciously.
- subdue: Subdue means bringing something under control by active force or willpower.
- express: Express means actively putting feelings or thoughts into words or action.
- confront: Confront implies directly acknowledging and facing difficult emotions or facts.
Commonly confused with
- suppress: Suppress is a conscious, intentional pushing down of thoughts, whereas repress happens automatically without conscious control.
Word family
- repression (noun): The act of repressing or the state of being repressed.
- repressive (adjective): Inhibiting or serving to repress emotions or freedoms.
Collocations
- repress memories
- repress desire
- repress trauma
- repress anger
Idioms & expressions
- bottle up emotions
- bury your head in the sand
Example sentences
- "Trauma survivors may unknowingly repress distressing memories of an accident until triggered years later." Clinical psychology context
- "Throughout the novel, the protagonist attempts to repress his guilty memories of the war." Literary analysis context
Memory hook
To REPRESS is to PRESS back memories into your REAR mind. Press down back into the dark.
When not to use
Do not confuse with 'suppress' when describing deliberate, intentional suppression of feelings.
Fun facts
- Freud considered repression the cornerstone on which the whole structure of psychoanalysis rests.
Related words
Explore more words
suppress, subconscious, internalize, retain, compulsive, impulsive
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