Psychological repression, also psychic repression or simply repression, is the psychological attempt by an individual to repel or refrain from one’s own desires and impulses towards pleasurable instincts.

by excluding the desire from one’s consciousness and holding or subduing it in the unconscious. 
Sexual repression is a state in which a person is prevented from expressing their sexuality. Sexual repression is often associated with feelings of guilt or sham being associated with sexual impulses.


What constitutes sexual repression is subjective and can vary greatly between cultures and moral systems. Many religions have been accused of fostering sexual repression.

Repression plays a major role in many mental illnesses, and in the psyche of average people.

People who become victims to psychological repression most of the time such people end up turning to distractive and dangerous behaviors for the sake of trying to express their repressed emotions. 

Some turn to drugs, some turn to pornography, some turn to infidelity, some engage into the act of going to visit prostitutes, so that they may relieve their internalized sexual desires or emotions. 


Therapy


Abnormal repression, or neurotic behavior occurs when repression develops under the influence of the superego, and the internalized feelings of anxiety, in ways leading to behavior that is illogical, self-destructive, or anti-social.