ABSTRACT
Every repression restricts an instinct in such a manner that its activity in reality is rendered permanently impossible to a lesser or greater extent. Often, the inhibition of the instinct is so insignificant that it is either not perceptible or so only by the most careful analytic investigation; in severe cases, this inhibition can drive men into the most tormenting confinement; indeed a severe psychoneurosis or psychosis belongs under some circumstances to the most dreadful things which can happen in life. In every repression, the life-force comes into some state of inhibited development, it may be in its activity as reproductive function or as nutritional instinct or in other interests.
