Question

When Jordan was one year old, he and his father were in a car accident. Neither he nor anyone else in the car was seriously injured, and as an adult he has no memory of the event, though his father developed anxiety around cars as a result. Jordan is now 26 years old. Despite not having been in any car accidents since he was one year old, Jordan has recently begun experiencing anxiety every time he gets in a car. According to psychoanalytic theories of personality, why is Jordan experiencing anxiety?

Answer 1

Answer: Despite not having any conscious memory of the accident, the thoughts in his subconscious still affects his behavior (Jordan still remembers it in his subconscious)

Explanation: Jordan is most likely going through what is called memory Repression. Memory Repression is when an individual unconsciously pushes a painful memory of an event out of his or her consciousness to the extent that they are no longer aware of the existence of such memories even though it might still unconsciously affect their behaviors.

Jordan unconsciously pushed memories of the accident out of his subconscious, he is no longer aware of such accident but his behavior is still unconsciously affected by it ( anxiety around car). This scenario best illustrates a good example of memory Repression.