Return of the Repressed

The return of the repressed is the process whereby repressed elements, preserved in the unconscious, tend to reappear, in consciousness or in behavior, in the shape of secondary and more or less unrecognizable "derivatives of the unconscious." Parapraxes, bungled or symptomatic actions, are examples of such derivatives. Beginning with The Interpretation of Dreams (1900a), Freud always emphasized the "indestructible" nature of unconscious material, as likewise the irreducible character of memory traces. If we have no memories of...