This is something of a cautionary tale; dealing with repressions that have been created during childhood and working through them when necessary is an established and powerful form of therapy. It is well-recognised that the ensuing catharsis can provide profound and lasting alleviation of symptoms.

But when the repression was created within the adult psyche, things may be quite different...

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Adults can suffer repression, if the trauma is great enough - and it must be a huge surge of emotion to create adult repression. It's usually called amnesia, and there're problems here for the unwary therapist.

Unless you're absolutely certain you know what you're doing, don't even consider trying to remove an amnesiac block from a client. We should always remember that a repression is a naturally occurring event, otherwise it wouldn't happen. It occurs because at the time of the repression it's the only way that trauma can be dealt with without our emotional system going into overload. If we remove a repression, we need to be certain that our client can deal with the trauma this time round, either because of better resources, maybe because of the passage of time, or perhaps because we can give them a different viewpoint.

Sammy - A Case History

When I hadn't been in practice very long, and I was still at the stage of 'I can do that' which some of us go through, I had a young man called Sammy (not his real name of course) come to me two years after a serious motor bike accident in which his best friend had died. Sammy had broken a lot of bones and been in hospital for some considerable time, and had no actual recall of the event at all. He had not worked since and was suffering from depression, anxiety and poor concentration, among other symptoms. His doctor had referred him to me, assuming that, since he had been a confident and happy person before the accident, it must have been this that had caused his problems. I was inclined to agree, though had I known then what I learnt as a result of his coming to see me, I might have travelled a different road in his therapy.

For the first three sessions, not a lot happened. There were a few 'flashbacks' to times that he and his best friend - whose name was Nick - had shared, and a very brief memory of the morning of the day of the accident. Sammy started to feel worse, and expressed doubts that this type of therapy would work for him. I assured him that it would, in time, and he duly presented himself for his fourth session with me. It was during this session that we came to the moment of truth - that magical moment of enliberation and enlightenment. Only it wasn't; well not at first, anyway. The first thing I knew of it was when his hypnotic flush began to deepen. Then his voice became a whisper as he remembered getting onto the pillion seat of his friend's machine outside the school. Nick had told him they were taking the usual route home, which meant that at a certain fork in the road, they would take the route to the left.

His face began to contort as he remembered Nick driving at 80mph in a 30mph area; Sammy was very scared, but had not wanted to admit this to Nick, so had hung grimly to the underside of the seat. Then they approached the fork in the road, far too fast. For some reason or another that would never be understood now, Nick decided to take the other direction - the right fork. Only, Sammy, who was by now very frightened indeed, threw himself to the left... and felt the bike slip, then buck. He screamed out and clutched at the arms of my recliner as he 'felt' himself become airborne, then a moment later vividly remembered hitting the ground and sliding for a good few yards. And it was then that he collapsed in a flood of sobbing, gasping and retching. 'I killed him!' he shouted. 'Oh no! Oh no! It was all my fault, I leaned the wrong way! I killed Nick!' Nick had catapulted of the bike, head first into a post and was killed outright.

Now I didn't believe that Sammy's leaning the wrong way had been the cause of the accident, but he certainly did. It was his truth.

No new resources

And that's when I realised I was in trouble. Because this young man had no more resources now to deal with his guilt feelings than he had at the time of the accident. You see, when we release a repression that's been created in childhood, it's easy.

The adult can view the event with adult resources, adult understanding, and from a distance of years of emotional development. Hindsight more often than not allows him/her to deal with the whole thing there and then.

Sometimes, we need to work through it, but overall, the client will do most of the work. But young Sammy was already adult at the time of the accident with precisely the same level of understanding and resources as he had now. Those resources were ineffective enough that in order to preserve sanity, the memory had to be repressed. And he was my responsibility now, weeping and shivering in my recliner and waiting for me to perform some magic cure. I had to somehow alter his belief system - and I got lucky; my own subconscious came to the rescue, as if some far wiser soul than I was guiding me 'Why did you lean to the left?' I asked. Sammy sobbed, not answering. I asked him again, then again, until he finally muttered that he'd thought they were turning left. I made him tell me again, then I repeated: 'You thought you were turning left. Why did you think you were turning left?' Because Nick had said so, was Sammy's reply. 'So,' I said quietly, 'Why on earth would you have leaned to the right?'

He actually started to say: 'Because Nick turned - ' before the penny dropped. 'But I couldn't've known,' he whispered. 'I couldn't possibly have guessed. I can't even think why he did turn to the right... Oh God, it wasn't actually my fault at all, was it?'

By the end of the session, he had a new belief - that Nick, for reasons we would never understand, had very nearly killed him. This was obviously more tolerable than the belief that he had killed Nick. I asked him if he could forgive Nick his mistake and he readily did so. This was a bit crafty, really, because the act of forgiving his friend clearly absolved Sammy of any sort of blame whatsoever.

All's well that ends well...

So it all turned out all right in the end. But supposing Sammy really had done something that had caused the accident? Supposing I hadn't got lucky enough to find a 'solution'? Because it was luck. Thinking on your feet stuff like that doesn't necessarily work out and it's certainly not a recommended way of working.

So if you get asked to deal with adult repressions - amnesia - watch out! It might very well turn nasty unless, as I said, you know exactly what you're doing. You need to be ready for every eventuality and have a variety of skills, as well as a silver tongue!