Repression

 

I was not surprised by the recent assassination attempt.  Our current political situation  is congruent with our nation's history of  political violence .  The hostile, aggressive and toxic  rhetoric by Trump  reinforces  fear, anxiety, and  enables violence among his tribe .  And, why should he be immune  to the insanity from the crazies?  Further, craziness is illustrated by the following:1.  We have an inordinate amount of guns and  killings’ along  with the rise of anti-Semitism. 2. We also have the largest military budget in the world.  What happened to  moral sensibility ? 3.Too many are gullible to the false, misinformation, conspiracy and hate from domestic and external sources like anti social media. Briefly,  anxiety and fear are associated with aggression.   Four-legged animals, instinctively , either fight ,flight or freeze when threatened.  However,  our superior development and evolution of the cortex with cognitive capacity allows us to repress fear and anxiety as one of our coping and reactive  mechanisms . Additionally, aggression is  also seen as being acquired in that it is learnable based on rewards, punishments and imitation  and frequently as  revenge  for some previous act..  Aggressionhas also been characterized as an ego need and viewed as a reaction to frustration when one's goals or desires are thwarted .  In other words, there are many  motivational aspects and components of aggression. For a more enlightened understanding of aggressive acts, behaviors and consequences , the variable  repression is  significant  and beneficial. This essay is directed at repression , one of the ego defenses. 

Fear is associated with something external like being in an earthquake, being trapped in fire, or encountering a lion with her cubs.  Years ago I was on the trail running and I encountered a mother lion with her two cubs.  I eventually turned around and slowly grabbed a branch while looking over my shoulder, expecting an attack.  I was terrified and so frightened that I had difficulty running after leaving that scene.  

Anxiety is also fear , but it is personal and subjective.  It's shortness of breath, feeling a powerful , inescapable danger and feeling helpless.  In my lion experience I experienced both fear and anxiety.  The anxiety was related to being attacked, mauled and left on the trail just like what happened to other runner years. That event occurred near the 16 mile marker on that  Western States trail.

Anxiety can be hypochondriacal.  It can be a fear of developing some physical  incurable disease, cancer, dementia, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, etc. Anxiety can also be related when there is notice of a fire in your area and receiving information to evacuate.  With anxiety, there are at least two factors always present and  include an overpowering danger , being defenseless against it and/ or not having the ability to be  in control.

Sometimes, the danger ,which is the helplessness , results from outside sources like the potential presidential election of the criminal, a threat to democracy, a lawless society, the threat to the truth, etc.  Anxiety can also be a threat that comes from our own impulses like being fearful to engage in certain behavior, express an opinion, or an impulse to hurt another..  Moreover, it's clear that fear ,the danger in reality , like the lion and the feeling helpless can be conditioned by  that reality and on the other hand, anxiety is a danger generated by intrapsychic factors that go on in the mind like feeling helplessness, which is conditioned by one's attitude, belief, previous experience, and other factors of encountering a lion and being unarmed..

Intrapsychic factors suggest that aggressive or sexual impulses have the  power to provoke anxiety.  This means that the expression,acting out of the impulse would result in a violation , collision that would affect the interest of another person.  That behavioral expression against somebody might be hostile and likely to hurt or humiliate another, the hostile impulse may be  the cause of the anxiety..Examples from growing up include being angry at one's parents or siblings.  The verbal or physical expression of anger or hostility toward the more powerful others may be fearful because of a potential or likely negative reaction by the other.  It's common in childhood to experience anger when things don't go one's way.  An older sibling may take away the toy or engage in some other activity.  To express aggression and hostility toward the older sibling  may result in being beaten up.by them  There are many situations and experiences during the early years where one’s words  or actions are dangerous to express against the more powerful .  When one is fearful and anxious and does not express anger or aggression against another, that is called repression.

The internal experiences of repression, results, and reinforces the already given feeling of defenselessness which means that others can take advantage of the situation.  After a while, one's awareness of one's hostility may be unbearable and conflictual because if one loves and needs the other person, the expression of hostility becomes problematic.  So when one expresses this conflict that one has with the other person how often can one compromise , bite their tongue and just take it .With the buildup and non expression or frustration of not saying a word, often the individual doesn't realize one's own hostility or rage toward the other person.  And what often happens is an explosion or erection that's likely related to some other situation or what seems to be out of the blue.  Someone may be aware or not aware of their own hostility and rage.  In other words, over time, repression of hostility interferes and becomes expressed toward outside sources.  So new anger is constantly generated.

With the buildup of anxiety, anger because of the repression results in a need to get rid of the negative feelings which are basically a threat to one's security.  One way to get rid of the inner turmoil is the ability to project one's own hostile impulses to the outside world.  In other words, with repression one pretends, so to speak, that the destructive impulses come from the outside ,not me  and/or some other source or something else not related..  The projection also serves as a need for self-justification.  It's not me that wants to cheat ,steal , discriminate and exploit  but it’s the criminal justice system, Biden, or  it's the left  that wants to do these things to me..  I'm a good guy .I’m making America great, it's them that are the enemy.  They stole the election for me.  They want to lock me up

In other words,projection is unconscious - they want to do for me what I really want to.do to them.  When repression reaches neurotic proportions, the projections can be directed in many different ways.  In other words, if one really feels hostility towards one's spouse, the projection definitely is not directed towards her. Instead, it’s displaced towards somebody  or something else.  Obviously, the repressed anxiety and hostility is not manifested every time the process takes place over one's lifetime.  Additionally, other activities may serve as a “protection “ against the hostility which might be hitting  that golf ball over and over again or verbalizing , tweeting, lies, hate , being wounded and so forth

Neurotic individuals experience  relentless hostility , anxiety and repression that become interwoven and  experienced. It’s  anxiety  that is commonly  based on the feeling of being menaced . The individual  becomes easily provoked  and  hostility is common  but  is not always expressed in healthy ways.. Examples of  fear, anxiety with repression may include but are not limited to : 1.Excessive amount of high velocity gun purchase 2. Hate and prejudice expressed on  anti social media; 3.Tweets 4, Being bullied 5. Obesity 6, Drug and alcohol  abuse 7.Suicide gestures and completions. 

PS

Linda and I just returned from Donner Lake visiting  lovely Pat and Mike , kayaking , and discussing the past , present and future.  Then we learned about that 20-year-was not old enough to to vote , legally purchase alcohol, but  irresponsible , emotionally sick ,, and intellectually  capable to accurately shoot an automatic  firearm and  committ suicide . That  factual information covers  just a portion of our insane,nonsense  and contradictory laws. He walked  with  a  loaded rifle , dressed in camouflage gear near the presidential rally. That weapon was his father's.  Was that his camouflage gear ?  Who paid for the ammunition, gear and practice at a  target practice facility ?  Did he attend that facility alone? There is a psychological history that's been lost with his death.  Yes, the FBI is going to come up with a limited psychological story at best . Perhaps an irrelevant motive ?  Unfortunately, we won't know the full story regarding this mentally sick kid. This story is  old and repetitive .

Reference

Horney, Karen.  The Neurotic Personality of Our Time.