What is Repression? Defense Mechanisms & RedLines Game

Defense mechanisms are the ways the psyche attempts to reduce anxiety, shame, pain, guilt, or internal conflict. They are not "bad" in and of themselves. On the contrary, they are often exactly what helps a person avoid breaking down in moments when reality becomes too heavy.

If a person is in pain, frightened, or ashamed, the psyche can execute an internal maneuver: prevent the experience from reaching full awareness, change its form, explain it away with a more convenient story, project it onto another object, or hide it deeper.

One of the basic defense mechanisms is repression.

Repression is the motivated forgetting or ignoring of something that is too painful, unacceptable, or threatening to a person's self-image.

A person might not remember a specific event. Or they might remember the facts but have no access to the feelings. Or vice versa: they might feel anxiety, tension, shame, or anger, but not understand what it is connected to. This is not ordinary absent-mindedness or laziness of memory. There is an internal reason for repression: a certain thought, impulse, fantasy, desire, or memory is perceived as dangerous to acknowledge.

Important: Repression works like an internal door: part of the experience ends up behind it. But the lock on this door does not mean there is nothing behind it.

Repression serves an adaptive function. It helps a person endure what is impossible to fully process in a specific moment.

In adulthood, repression can also temporarily help. For example, during a crisis, a person might "pull themselves together," do what is necessary, and not fall apart emotionally. But if the repressed material never finds a place in conscious awareness, it begins to return through roundabout ways.

Repression does not destroy the experience. It merely pushes it out of the field of consciousness. Therefore, the repressed can return through:

A classic everyday example: a person "accidentally" forgets the name of someone they hold a hidden grudge or dislike against. On the surface, it looks like a minor detail. But sometimes such a detail shows that there is a feeling inside that refuses to be acknowledged directly.

Repression creates difficulties not on its own, but when it starts interfering with a person's life. Problems arise when it:

For example, a person says, "I'm not angry at all." But their voice becomes cold, their body tenses up, they forget to reply to messages, they are constantly late, or they commit passive-aggressive acts. The anger hasn't disappeared. It simply does not have permission to be conscious.

In traumatic experiences, repression can be linked to dissociation: the psyche seemingly splits the event into parts. A person might not remember specific details but live under the pressure of fragments: flashes of imagery, bodily reactions, fear, avoidance, nightmares, or sudden emotional waves.

In such cases, it is crucial not to pressure the memory or demand to "remember everything." Working with repressed material must be careful, gradual, and sufficiently safe. The goal is not to heroically break down the defense. The goal is to create conditions where the psyche no longer needs to hide this experience at such a high cost.

Repression and denial are similar, but they are not the same thing.

Denial The essence of this mechanism is that a person does not recognize an obvious fact of reality. Their focus of attention is directed at the external reality. Examples: "This didn't happen," "This is not a problem," "I am not an addict," "He is not acting cruelly."

Repression The essence of the mechanism is that the material is seemingly removed from awareness. The focus of attention is directed at internal material (desires, impulses, memories, affects). Examples: A person truly does not remember, does not feel, or does not understand why a situation triggered them so deeply.

In the game RedLines: Emotional Detective, repression can be seen through the behavior of the characters.

A character might say, "I am perfectly fine," but snap over a minor issue. They might not remember an important conversation, yet their body reacts with tension. They might "accidentally" miss a meeting where the truth had to be told. They might laugh at a painful topic because otherwise, they would have to feel shame or fear.

For the players, this turns into a detective task:

Thus, the game trains not only the knowledge of terms but also attentiveness to psychological clues.

Imagine a card: a husband constantly forgets his wife's requests, even though he sincerely says he loves her and doesn't want to fight. He forgets to buy medicine, forgets agreements, forgets important dates. When the wife gets angry, he feels offended: "I didn't do it on purpose."

On the surface, this might look like disorganization. But the emotional detective digs deeper: what exactly is he forgetting? In what situations? Is there hidden anger? Is there a fear of intimacy? Is it a passive protest against control? Could forgetting be a way of not admitting: "I don't want to do this," "I am angry," "I feel forced"?

Here, repression does not justify the behavior. But it helps us understand the mechanism: the feeling is not named directly, so it acts indirectly.

You do not work with repression through a forceful "remember immediately" or "admit the truth." Such an approach can only strengthen the defense.

In therapy, it is important not to break the defense, but to understand what function it serves. At one point, it might have helped you survive, maintain a connection, or avoid drowning in intense emotion. But today, it might be preventing you from seeing yourself, speaking directly, and building honest relationships.

Repression is not a lie, nor is it a weakness. It is the psyche's way of protecting a person from what seems too dangerous to be aware of. But everything repressed strives to return: through symptoms, repetitions, the body, relationships, dreams, forgetfulness, and strange "accidents."

The task is not to shame yourself for your defenses. The task is to learn to notice them from an Adult's perspective:

RedLines: Emotional Detective is a psychological board game by MriyaRun that helps explore hidden motives, emotional defenses, script roles, and violated boundaries through the safe stories of characters. It is a way to talk about difficult things not directly, but through play, observation, and live reflection.

But what once protected us eventually becomes our prison. Freedom can only be found by acknowledging these emotions, yet doing so directly is often too painful. To make this process safe, I created the RedLines game series. By analyzing the unique stories of the characters and their reactions, we create a space where, through observing others, we finally get the opportunity to take an honest look at ourselves.