How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #1
We therefore tell him that the success of the psycho-analysis depends on his noticing and reporting whatever comes into his head and not being misled, for instance, into suppressing an idea because it strikes him as unimportant or irrelevant or because it seems to him meaningless. He must adopt a completely impartial attitude to what occurs to him, since it is precisely his critical attitude which is responsible for his being unable, in the ordinary course of things, to achieve the desired unravelling of his dream or obsessional idea or whatever it may be. (2.1.8)
For Freud, psychological repression goes hand-in-hand with its cousin, self-censorship. In Freud's view, as we mature, we learn to suppress, censor, and dismiss many of the thoughts and ideas that occur to us throughout our waking and dreaming lives—basically because we think those thoughts and ideas are silly, nonsensical, inappropriate, disturbing, or even truly horrifying. Freud argues that by recognizing and coming to terms with even the most disturbing of our thoughts and ideas, we can all have healthier mental lives.
Quote #2
King Oedipus, who slew his father Laïus and married his mother Jocasta, merely shows us the fulfilment of our own childhood wishes. But, more fortunate than he, we have meanwhile succeeded, in so far as we have not become psycho-neurotics, in detaching our sexual impulses from our mother and in forgetting our jealousy of our fathers. Here is one in whom the primaeval wishes of our childhood have been fulfilled, and we shrink back from him with the whole force of the repression by which those wishes have since that time been held down within us. (5.5.46)
Throughout The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud argues that we repress whatever ideas, desires, and experiences are most disturbing to us—in other words, whatever impressions seem to threaten our safety or sense of self.
Quote #3
Let us assume, then, that the suppression of the Ucs. is necessary above all because, if the course of ideas in the Ucs. were left to itself, it would generate an affect which was originally of a pleasurable nature, but became unpleasurable after the process of "repression" occurred. (7.5.15)
In Freud's view, as we mature, we learn to recognize that some of the wishes and ideas that we entertained as children are socially unacceptable for adults. Many of these wishes and ideas are sexual, but they also include things like extreme selfishness, greed, jealousy, hatred, and hostility. Freud says that because our adult selves have learned to view such wishes and ideas with displeasure, their expression results in "unpleasure," anxiety, and distress.