This paper follows the development of the concept of repression in Freud's theory and discusses the relationship between the notions of repression and unconscious in different moments of his work. It seeks to undo some frequent interpretative mistakes, such as the idea that Freud initially conceived the unconscious as identical to the repressed. It also emphasizes some important revisions which go often unnoticed to Freudian scholars, for example, the linking of primordial repression and real traumas in 1926, which brought as a consequence a relativization of the role played by sexuality and castration both in neuroses' etiology and in the psychical dynamics as a whole.
Unconscious; repression; primordial repression; trauma; anxiety