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Concept
Repetition compulsion
Summary
Repetition compulsion is the unconscious tendency of a person to repeat a traumatic event or its circumstances. This may take the form of symbolically or literally re-enacting the event, or putting oneself in situations where the event is likely to occur again. Repetition compulsion can also take the form of dreams in which memories and feelings of what happened are repeated, and in cases of psychosis, may even be hallucinated.
As a "key component in Freud's understanding of mental life, 'repetition compulsion' ... describes the pattern whereby people endlessly repeat patterns of behaviour which were difficult or distressing in earlier life".
Sigmund Freud's use of the concept of "repetition compulsion" (Wiederholungszwang) was first defined in the article of 1914, Erinnern, Wiederholen und Durcharbeiten ("Remembering, Repeating and Working-Through"). Here he noted how "the patient does not remember anything of what he has forgotten and repressed, he acts it out, without, of course, knowing that he is repeating it ... For instance, the patient does not say that he remembers that he used to be defiant and critical toward his parents' authority; instead, he behaves in that way to the doctor".
He explored the repetition compulsion further in his 1920 essay Beyond the Pleasure Principle, describing four aspects of repetitive behavior, all of which seemed odd to him from the point of view of the mind's quest for pleasure/avoidance of unpleasure.
The first was the way "dreams occurring in traumatic neuroses have the characteristic of repeatedly bringing the patient back into the situation of his accident" rather than, for example, "show[ing] the patient pictures from his healthy past".
The second came from children's play. Freud reported observing a child throw his favorite toy from his crib, become upset at the loss, then reel the toy back in, only to repeat this action. Freud theorized that the child was attempting to master the sensation of loss "in allowing his mother to go away without protesting", but asked in puzzlement "How then does his repetition of this distressing experience as a game fit in with the pleasure principle?".
Official source
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