Under what conditions is repression (of the unconscious according to Freud) possible?
We will not discuss here whether or not young children have an Oedipus or Electra complex — let’s assume that they do. Another thing is important: if Freud is taken literally, then in young children there is no unconscious according to Freud. Indeed, according to Freud, the unconscious can appear only under a combination of certain conditions, namely:
- the child began to understand the requirements of adults to him,
- adults present their demands in such a way that they come into conflict with the wishes of the child,
- a child for resisting the demands of adults is punished, and so seriously that it causes horror in the child’s soul and he is forced to hide his desires even from himself.
It is clear that all this depends on the age, and even more so — on the specific child and specific parents in a particular family.
The very fact of the conflict between what the child wants and what is now required of him is natural. An adult sees this, fixes it and makes a decision: change his desires, or try to change the requirements in his favor, or find some third, flexible, sometimes completely inventive solution.
For example, arrange a game and competition: who will get mom now? Dad or child?
One way or another, adults know how to resolve conflicts. A person with a more childish consciousness, instead of resolving the conflict (theoretically), can choose to hide from it or hide it, repress it, even creating a special unconscious for this.
The more negative and intolerant a person’s consciousness is, the more he fights both with others and with himself, the more he has such a repressed unconscious. The more friendly, positive and accepting consciousness, the less there is a need to repress anything, the less such a repressed unconscious.
Well, a child wants to have a mother and kill his father… Lord, what only children don’t want! Parents smiled, distracted the child from these nonsense and occupied him with other games. Even if the child then insists on his desires, then this comes in the form of whims and crying, which is quite natural for the vast majority of families. And the child does not need any unconscious here.
The need to repress socially unacceptable desires and feelings arises in a child in an environment that forbids and suppresses them in a harsh and aggressive way. In a family where the attitude towards the child is demanding, but warm and understanding, the child does not need to hide anything from adults and himself.
In the space of the inner world of a person, thoughts and feelings that are incompatible with the rules of human society can always appear.
Freud described them in sufficient detail.
If a person has a habit of resolving an internal conflict by force, then the conflict develops into a war and, with a high probability, will end with the exclusion of unacceptable content. However, with other internal strategies, other outcomes are possible. For example, if suddenly a young person feels that aggressive thoughts and feelings about his parents have come into his head, he can say to himself: “Wrong! I’m good! I won’t think of these nonsense anymore, ”smile and occupy myself with something more efficient. And he does not need to displace these thoughts from himself into the unconscious: he played with them and put them aside. A civilized person does not fight with himself, resolving internal conflicts that arise in a peaceful and reasonable way. Internal conflicts can sometimes be resolved in a civilized way, without being forced out.
And not only do they not create, but even without authoritative suggestions from outside they do not find such repressions in themselves. In civilized people, according to Freud, the unconscious in any form is absent.
However, it is not difficult to come up with something for yourself, for example, to assume the presence of unconscious internal characters, and if it is also beneficial, then adults do it.