repression

1. In psychotherapy, the active process or defense mechanism of keeping out and ejecting and banishing from consciousness those ideas or impulses that are unacceptable to the ego or superego. 2. Decreased expression of some gene product. [L. re-primo, pp. -pressus, to press back, repress]

- catabolite r. the decreased expression of an operon because of elevated levels of a catabolite of a biochemical pathway.

- end product r. catabolite r. in which the catabolite is an end product of a particular pathway.

- enzyme r. inhibition of enzyme synthesis by some metabolite.

- primal r. r. of material never in conscious thought.

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re·pres·sion ri-'presh-ən n

1) the action or process of repressing <gene \repression>

2 a) a process by which unacceptable desires or impulses are excluded from consciousness and left to operate in the unconscious compare SUPPRESSION (c)

b) an item so excluded

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n.

(in psychoanalysis) the process of excluding an unacceptable wish or an idea from conscious mental life. The repressed material may give rise to symptoms. One goal of psychoanalysis is to return repressed material to conscious awareness so that it may be dealt with rationally.

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re·pres·sion (re-preshґən) 1. the act of restraining, inhibiting, or suppressing. 2. in psychiatry, an unconscious defense mechanism in which unacceptable ideas, fears, and impulses are thrust out or kept out of consciousness. 3. gene r.