Fairbairn's understanding of repression was quite different in some fundamental respects from Freud's. In Freud's early theorizing, the center of the repressed was an actual experience, the memory of which, because of its traumatizing impact, could not be allowed into consciousness. As Freud shifted from the theory of infantile seduction to the theory of infantile sexuality, he began to conceive of the center of the repressed as forbidden impulses, too dangerous to be allowed access to consciousness. Memories may very well be repressed as well, but they were now understood to be repressed not because of their traumatic nature in itself, but because they are associated with conflictual, forbidden impulses.

r6|z0N%^-ZW0Fairbairn saw the center of the repressed as neither memories nor impulses but relationships, ties to features of the parents that cannot be integrated into other relational configurations. Memories and impulses may also be repressed, but not primarily because they are traumatic or forbidden in their own right; rather, they are representative of, and threaten to expose, dangerous object ties.心理学空间0g-@C1o3D[w|

For Freud, the repressedwas composed of impulses, but the repressor was composed essentially of an internal relationship, the alliance between the ego and the superego. The ego, concerned with reality and safety, and the superego, concerned with morality and punishment, combined to block forbidden impulses from access to consciousness. For Fairbairn, both the repressedand the repressorwere internal relationships. The repressed was part of the self tied to inaccessible, often dangerous features of the parents; the repressor was a part of the self tied to more accessible, less dangerous features of the parents.

Zachary, a young man seeking analysis because of considerable unhappiness in his romantic relationships, illustrates Fairbairn's view of conflict as taking place between conscious and unconscious relationships rather than discrete impulses and defenses. His parents were married for only a few years. His mother was the favorite daughter of a very wealthy businessman; his father was ambitious and charming, from a poor background, and had courted and won the mother despite her family's disapproval of him. When Zachary was three years old, his mother discovered what seemed to be clear evidence of her husband's multiple infidelities. She operated in conjunction with her father and his lawyers to banish her husband from the family home and access to the family finances. He quickly became an exiled, dark character, whom Zachary had only limited access to. His mother remarried, in short order, someone who was from her own social class and known for his integrity and virtue.心理学空间E1U|u6Qr

Zachary had extremely idealistic notions of love and marriage, which no woman ever seemed to be able to live up to or fulfill. He was serially monogamous, but tormented by fears that he would never be able to commit himself to one woman. One key dimension of his experience in analysis was a gradual acquaintance with a dreaded aspect of himself modeled on his identification with his father. He began to realize that he both feared and longed to be like him, sexual, promiscuous, irresponsible, a version of himself he had kept carefully hidden, both from others and from himself. Memories of good times with and warmth toward his father were uncovered; various sexual impulses and fantasies were revealed. But the real danger, consistent with Fairbairn's understanding of repression, was in the connection of all of this material to his libidinal attachment to his father. Given the vicissitudes of his early history, he could never allow himself to become aware of how internally bound to him he was; even now, such a realization seemed dangerous and threatening to his conscious sense of who he was (shaped in relation to his mother and stepfather) and what made it possible for him to be liked and cared for by other people.www.psychspace.com心理学空间网