Revue Française De Psychanalyse. XLII, 1978: What I Understand by and about Primary Repression. Ilana Schimmel. Pp. 479-498.

The concept of primary repression is an important but controversial aspect of Freudian theory. It is a thesis which Freud maintained even after the introduction of the structural hypothesis, according to Schimmel. Primary repression derives from an irreducible instinctual conflict and is a universal mechanism which is constitutive of the unconscious. This repression becomes repression proper (in our usual sense of selective and dynamic forgetting) only when attached to representations. Yet the concept of primary repression raises many problems. Schimmel focuses on the energic aspects, to which she believes topographical, structural, and dynamic considerations are subordinate in Freud's discussion of primary repression. She raises two central problems. The first is concerned with the relationship between representations and energy, how this linkage comes about, and how it comes to play a determining role in the development of repression. The second problem concerns the manner in which primary repression comes about when the repressing structure, the ego, does not yet exist. Schimmel argues for a diachronic view, a linear historical perspective on the development of the psychic apparatus. She suggests that these psychic categories have meaning and a topographical location only by virtue of