ABSTRACT
Sigmund Freud conceived of the process whereby access of threatening material to consciousness is denied as a form of internal 'censorship'. Self-censorship is an act of disguise, of tricking and overcoming the censorship's constraining power. As Michael Levine demonstrates, Freud continuously displaced the position of the psyche's censorship, until it becomes impossible to pinpoint one stable and clearly defined place where the censoring activity could be located. Freud used political imagery whose apparent simplicity is not only persuasive, but also deceptive. However, thereby he created a discourse which mirrors the dialectics of power in the external, social world in a precise manner. The institution of a governmental agency such as a censorship always generates an intricate interplay of coercion and resistance, of opposition and the overcoming of opposition. From a political point of view, Freud was right to present censorship as an institution which is part of a framework whose processes are interconnected and dialectical, rather than fixed and determinate.
