Repression
Repression is the unconscious forgetting of painful ideas, impulses, or memories in order to protect the psyche from being overwhelmed by them. Unlike a deliberate decision to avoid thinking about something, repression happens without the person's awareness that anything has been pushed out of mind, and it overlaps considerably with denial.
Illustration
A woman finds she has almost no memory of a period of significant family conflict during her teenage years, an entire chapter of her life reduced to a hazy blank, even though relatives who lived through it alongside her recall the events in vivid, painful detail.
Related phenomena
References
- Casey, P. & Kelly, B. (2019). Fish's Clinical Psychopathology, 4th ed. Appendix II, 'Defences and Distortions'.