Sign up to access the complete lesson and track your progress!
Unlock This CourseHave you ever tried really hard to forget something embarrassing that happened to you? Or found that you can't remember something traumatic, even though others say it definitely happened? This is called motivated forgetting - when our minds actively work to push away memories that are too painful, embarrassing, or threatening to deal with.
Sigmund Freud, the famous psychologist, believed our minds work on three different levels of awareness. Understanding these levels helps us see how and why we forget certain things on purpose.
Key Definitions:
Freud compared the mind to an iceberg. The tiny bit above water is our conscious mind - what we're aware of right now. The part just below the surface is pre-conscious - easily accessible memories. The massive hidden part underwater represents our unconscious mind - containing repressed memories and forgotten experiences.
The conscious mind contains everything you're aware of right now - your current thoughts, feelings and immediate memories. When motivated forgetting happens at this level, it's called suppression.
Suppression is like deliberately trying not to think about something. It's a conscious effort to push unwanted thoughts or memories out of your mind. Think of it as mental self-control - you know the memory is there, but you choose not to focus on it.
Trying not to think about an upcoming exam, deliberately avoiding thoughts about an ex-partner, or pushing away worries about a medical test.
Suppression often backfires - the more you try not to think about something, the more it pops into your head. This is called the "white bear effect."
Suppression requires constant mental effort and can be exhausting. It's like holding a beach ball underwater - it takes energy to keep it down.
Psychologist Daniel Wegner asked people not to think about white bears for five minutes. Participants rang a bell every time they thought about white bears. Results showed that trying not to think about something actually made people think about it more often. This demonstrates how conscious suppression can backfire.
The pre-conscious mind is like a mental filing cabinet. It contains memories and information that aren't in your immediate awareness but can be easily retrieved when needed. Motivated forgetting at this level involves selectively "misfiling" or avoiding certain memories.
Your pre-conscious mind stores vast amounts of information - childhood memories, learned skills, facts from school and personal experiences. Most of the time, you can access these memories when you need them, but sometimes your mind might make certain memories harder to find.
Sometimes we unconsciously avoid retrieving certain pre-conscious memories. For example, you might struggle to remember details about a day when something embarrassing happened, even though you remember other days from that time period clearly.
The unconscious mind is the deepest level of mental processing. According to Freud, this is where our most threatening and painful memories get locked away through a process called repression.
Repression is different from suppression because it happens automatically, without conscious effort. Your mind essentially hides traumatic or threatening memories so completely that you can't access them directly. It's like your brain's security system, protecting you from psychological harm.
Unlike suppression, repression happens without your awareness. Your unconscious mind decides certain memories are too dangerous and locks them away.
Repression serves as psychological protection, preventing overwhelming trauma from disrupting daily functioning and mental health.
Repressed memories may still influence behaviour, emotions and relationships, even though we can't consciously access them.
Research has shown that some people who experienced severe childhood trauma have no conscious memory of these events. However, they may still show signs of the trauma's impact through anxiety, relationship difficulties, or specific fears. This suggests that repression can completely hide traumatic memories while their effects remain.
Each level of consciousness handles motivated forgetting differently and understanding these differences helps explain why we forget certain things and remember others.
Process: Suppression
Awareness: Fully aware
Control: Deliberate effort
Success: Often ineffective
Process: Selective avoidance
Awareness: Partially aware
Control: Semi-automatic
Success: Moderately effective
Process: Repression
Awareness: No awareness
Control: Automatic
Success: Highly effective
Understanding motivated forgetting helps explain many everyday experiences and psychological phenomena.
You might notice motivated forgetting in various situations:
Students often report "going blank" during important exams, even when they studied thoroughly. This can be understood as motivated forgetting - the unconscious mind may block access to information when the pressure feels too threatening. The knowledge is still there (in pre-conscious memory) but anxiety prevents retrieval.
While Freud's model remains influential, modern psychology has developed more nuanced views of motivated forgetting.
Today's psychologists recognise that motivated forgetting is more complex than Freud originally suggested. Research shows that:
We don't just store and retrieve memories like files on a computer. Instead, we reconstruct memories each time we recall them, which can lead to changes and forgetting over time.
Motivated forgetting operates across all three levels of consciousness, each with its own mechanisms and effectiveness. From conscious suppression to unconscious repression, our minds have various ways of protecting us from distressing memories. Understanding these processes helps us recognise why we sometimes struggle to remember certain events and how our psychological defences work to maintain mental wellbeing.
Remember that while motivated forgetting can be protective, it's not always the best long-term solution. Sometimes, working through difficult memories with professional help can be more beneficial than trying to forget them entirely.