When an adolescent or an adult is engaged in resisting a conscious desire, he is not dealing with a repression nor is he in the least danger of creating a repression.
 C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952). copy citation

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Author C. S. Lewis
Source Mere Christianity
Topic danger repression
Date 1952
Language English
Reference
Note Adapted from a series of BBC radio talks made between 1942 and 1944
Weblink https://www.dacc.edu/assets/pdfs/PCM/merechristianitylewis.pdf

Context

“A repressed desire or thought is one which has been thrust into the subconscious (usually at a very early age) and can now come before the mind only in a disguised and unrecognisable form. Repressed sexuality does not appear to the patient to be sexuality at all. When an adolescent or an adult is engaged in resisting a conscious desire, he is not dealing with a repression nor is he in the least danger of creating a repression. On the contrary, those who are seriously attempting chastity are more conscious, and soon know a great deal more about their own sexuality than anyone else. They come to know their desires as Wellington knew Napoleon, or as Sherlock Holmes knew Moriarty;” source