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The cardinal premise of the defense mechanism construct is that intrapsychic maneuvers are devised by the ego to avoid the negative psychological effects of anxiety. From an analytic perspective, there can be no virtual redress to an event that elicited the anxiety response. Regret or remorse do not modify or ameliorate the anxiety/memory constellation that resulted from psychological injury. Phenomenologically, an event becomes inaccessible (and unmodifiable) as soon as it transpires; all that is left is the memory of the event and its repercussions—fantasied or actual. The only tool available to the ego in coping with past events (and their emotional casualties) is the defensive function, since the only residue of the event is the experienced pain that is alive and current.
The precipitating factor of the defensive maneuver is usually a disturbing emotion. Typically, the dynamic agent is fear, guilt, or some other related threat to the ego. It can therefore be expected that defensive mechanisms be concentrated in the affective domain as well. As a rule, defenses associated with normal functioning do involve the modification, distortion, or predication of emotions.
Defense minimizes the effects of a threatening experience by shifting information from the conscious to the unconscious. Not only is it the goal of defense to relegate threat to the unconscious, but the very mechanism involves a process that is unconscious as well. Repression is the defense whose dynamics correspond uniquely to this goal and process. Colloquially referred to as “forgetting,” repression typically focuses on affect or memories that have the potential to disturb the individual.
In the early psychoanalytic literature, repression is synonymous with defense