Refoulement

The Seba library treats Refoulement in 4 passages, across 3 authors (including Benveniste, Émile, Lacan, Jacques, Jung, Carl Gustav).

In the library

Ce qui subsiste alors du refoulement n'est plus qu'une répugnance à s'identifier avec ce contenu, mais le sujet n'a plus de pouvoir sur l'existence de ce contenu.

Benveniste argues that the lifting of repression does not abolish the repressed content but merely removes the subject's identification-refusal, demonstrating that language cannot annul what refoulement has deposited in the unconscious.

Benveniste, Émile, Problèmes de linguistique générale, I, 1966thesis

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ils n'en sauront jamais rien, même au sens du refoulement : car il s'agit en cet effet du mécanisme de la méconnaissance systématique en ce qu'il simule le délire, même dans ses formes de groupe.

Lacan distinguishes repression proper from systematic méconnaissance, arguing that the American ego-psychological betrayal of Freud operates at a more radical level of ignorance than repression, one that mimics collective delusion.

Lacan, Jacques, Écrits, 1966thesis

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parts of the psyche detach themselves from consciousness to such an extent that they not only appear foreign but lead an autonomous life of their own.

Jung's account of psychic splitting and autonomous complexes provides a structural parallel to the Freudian mechanism of repression without invoking the term directly, situating dissociation as the broader category within which refoulement operates.

Jung, Carl Gustav, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 1960supporting

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Freud's hope that the unconscious could be 'exhausted' has not been fulfilled. Dream-life and intrusions from the unconscious continue — mutatis mutandis — unimpeded.

Jung implicitly challenges the therapeutic ambition underlying the concept of lifting repression, noting that analytic work does not exhaust unconscious productivity, which qualifies the completeness of any resolution of refoulement.

Jung, Carl Gustav, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 1960aside

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