英：repression; 法：refoulement; 德：Verdrangung
压抑的概念是精神分析理论中最基本的概念之一，它指的是某些思维或记忆借以被驱逐出意识之外并被禁闭于无意识之中的过程。弗洛伊德通过研究癔症病人的失忆症，而导致他首先假设了压抑的过程。后来，他又在原初压抑（primal repression; 即对于从未意识到其开端的事物的一种“神话性”遗忘，这是最初无意识借以被构成的一种原始“精神作用”）与次级压抑 (secondary re-pression; 即曾一度意识到的某种表象或知觉借以被驱逐出意识之外的具体的压抑作用)之间进行了区分。因为压抑并未摧毁作为其标靶的那些表象或记忆，而仅仅是把它们限定在无意识之中，所以受压抑的材料便总是倾向于以某种经过扭曲的形式而返回症状、梦境、口误，等等（即压抑物的返回）。
对拉康而言，压抑是把神经症与其他临床结构区分开来的基本运作。精神病患者进行排除 (foreclose),而性倒错者进行拒认 (disavow),唯有神经症患者才进行压抑 (repress).
究竞是什么遭到了压抑呢？拉康曾一度把所指说成是压抑的对象 (E, 55), 但是他很快便放弃了此种观点，并改而声称遭到压抑的永远是一个能指，而从不是一个所指 (S11,218)。这后一种见解似乎更接近于弗洛伊德的观点，即被压抑的不是“情感”（情感只能受到移置或转化），而是冲动的“表象代表”(ideational repre-sentative ) o
此外，拉康也采纳了弗洛伊德在原初压抑与次级压抑之间的区分：
(1)原初压抑 (德：Urverdrangung)是当需要被链接于要求时的欲望的异化 (E, 286)。它也是无意识的能指链条 (E, 314)。原初压抑是对第一个能指的压抑。“从他言说的那一时刻开始，从那一确切的时刻而非之前开始，我便理解到有压抑的存在。”（S20,53)拉康并未把原初压抑看作在时间上可定位的一种特定精神作用，而是将其视作语言本身的一种结构性特征一其必然的不完整性，说出“有关真理之真理”的不可能性 (Ec, 868).
(2)次级压抑 (德：Verdrangung)则是一个能指借以从能指链条中被删节掉的一种特定精神作用。次级压抑是像一则隐喻那样被结构的，而且总是涉及“压抑物的返回”，被压抑的能指从而假借各种无意识的构形 (即症状、梦境、过失行为、诙谐，等等)而重新出现。在次级压抑中，压抑与压抑物的返回“是同一回事”。
(refoulement) The concept of repression is one of the most basic conceptspsychoanalytic theory, and denotes the process by which certain thoughts or memoriesare expelled from consciousness and confined to the unconscious. Freud was first led tohypothesise the process of repression through his investigation into the amnesia ofhysterical patients. He later distinguished between primal repression (a 'mythical'forgetting of something that was never conscious to begin with, an originary 'psychicalact'by which the unconscious is first constituted) and secondary repression (concrete actsof repression whereby some idea or perception that was once conscious is expelled fromthe conscious). Since repression does not destroy the ideas or memories that are its target, but merely confines them to the unconscious, the repressed material is always liable toreturn in a distorted form, in symptoms, dreams, slips of the tongue,etc. (the return of therepressed).
For Lacan, repression is the fundamental operation which distinguishes neurosis fromthe other clinical structures. Whereas psychotics foreclose, and perverts disavow, onlyneurotics repress.
What is it that is repressed? At one point Lacan speaks of the signified as the object ofrepression (E, 55), but he soon abandons this view and argues instead that it is always asignifier that is repressed, never a signified (S11,218). This latter view seems tocorrespond more closely to Freud's view that what is repressed is not the 'affect' (whichcan only be displaced or transformed) but the 'ideational representative'of the drive.
Lacan also takes up Freud's distinction between primal repression and secondaryrepression:
- Primal repression (Ger. Urverdrangung) is the alienation of desire when need isarticulated in demand (E, 286). It is also the unconscious signifying chain (E, 314). Primary repression is the repression of the first signifier.'From the moment he speaks, from that precise moment and not before, I understand that there is repression' (S20,53). Lacan does not see primary repression as a specific psychical act, localisable in time, butas a structural feature of language itselfnamely, its necessary incompleteness, theimpossibility of ever saying 'the truth about truth' (Ec, 868).
- Secondary repression (Ger. Verdrangung) is a specific psychical act by which asignifier is elided from the signifying chain. Secondary repression is structured like ametaphor, and always involves the return of the repressed', whereby the repressedsignifier reappears under the guise of the various formations of the unconscious (i.e.symptoms, dreams, parapraxes, jokes, etc.). In secondary repression, repression and thereturn of the repressed 'are the same thing'.