The Return of the Repressed: Pseudonymisation in the Digital Age

‘The psychodynamics of social networking is a term I use to describe how we unconsciously relate to each other online. It’s about how we project ourselves onto others and how we identify with them. It’s also about how we use social media to express parts of ourselves that we may not be able to express in other ways.’ — Aaron Balick

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It is from the forbidden fruit of Eden to the implicit prohibitions of anorexia nervosa that what is repressed has forever returned to haunt humanity. Psychoanalytic theory argues that these repressed impulses cannot be destroyed but rather linger in the unconscious, later emerging in disguised and disruptive forms. While such conceptualisations of repressed memory remain contentious, the digital age has undeniably forged new portals through which the repressed can re-enter the conscious debate. Behind a veil of pixels, partially anonymous users express forbidden desires, concealed identities, and unspoken urges that would otherwise have no safe harbour for release. The digital age enables a return of the repressed (RotR) by providing new platforms and technologies for expressing and communicating hidden or forbidden desires and conflicts. For example, people may use pseudonyms or avatars to create online identities that differ from their real ones and explore aspects of themselves that they normally repress or conceal in their offline lives. Another example is the phenomenon of cyberbullying, which involves using digital media to harass, threaten, or humiliate others. This may reflect the return of the repressed aggression or resentment that the perpetrators feel towards their victims or themselves.

I want to argue that the unique affordances of pseudonymisation in digital spaces not only enable or even energise increases of the RotR but also intersect with broader socio-technical complexities of surveillance and inequality. A focused analytical lens is applied, primarily grounded in psychoanalytic case studies, while honouring relevant interdisciplinary insights. This investigation comes with caveats, as no single theoretical paradigm can perfectly illuminate something as elusive yet ubiquitous as the cultural unconscious. Charting this digital frontier of the mind, however, promises vital perspective into both emerging individual pathologies and remedial steps.

To begin unfolding this complex dynamic, founding concepts may require definition. Psychoanalytic theory understands that human representations—desires, fears, and urges—may be censored by an operation or defence termed primal repression then repression proper. Through repression proper, impulses may become relegated—though never abolished, such representations are deemed indestructible—to the unconscious regions of the mind. However, these ‘impulses’ stay potent, later re-emergent in distorted forms through parapraxis, the oneiric, or otherwise affective disturbance as compromise formations.^[1] Some contemporary diagnosticians prefer to subsume or displace the clinical term repression or the phrase RotR under the term ‘dissociative amnesia.’^[2]

I also want to tentatively contend the digital era needs an updated psychoanalytics, as the myth of complete anonymity yoked to a reality of accessibility of online spaces facilitates these returns in new ways. Here, pseudonymity better signifies the separation between one’s online persona from their real identity, enabling increased perceived freedom. Probing the impact of pseudonymisation through case studies may illuminate this digital RotR. However, responsible examination obliges acknowledgement of the ethical stakes, as online architecture unequally distributes vulnerability and visibility across lines of power. A nuanced analysis should interrogate both the emancipatory and oppressive potentials.

To chart this complex topology, integrating perspectives from the psychoanalytic tradition and digital scholarship is a necessity. Psychoanalysis, in the broad sense, retains academic and therapeutic respectability despite its detractors. Learning from its evolution, including scientific and social advancements, promises enhanced understanding of contemporary unconscious dynamics. Meanwhile, digital humanities supply vital comprehension of how socio-technical environments shape human experience, often through unintended consequences. Synthesising insights across these fields, while keeping a focused relational psychoanalytic lens, allows systemic study of how and why the repressed returns so readily online. This investigation’s purpose is not merely conceptual but also ethical; to consider, that is, how digital systems or machine learning could foster human flourishing rather than inhibition or fear.

The rest of this essay will unfold as follows. First, definitions of main terminology will be supplemented by discussion of pertinent ethical debates regarding privacy and vulnerability. Then, the lineage of psychoanalysis will be sketched from its conception to its current therapeutic deployments. Afterwards, the digital landscape will be scrutinised as the newest host for the return of repressed impulses, especially under pseudonymity’s mantle. Case studies of online communities will illuminate these dynamics concretely. Finally, implications will be considered, emphasising how online architectures could evolve to enable human thriving, creativity, and connection rather than simply distortion. This pathway promises to elucidate both the emancipatory and pernicious potentials of digitally mediated repressed returns.

To investigate the RotR online responsibly, I want to clearly demarcate the analytical boundaries to maintain rigour while acknowledging inevitable knowledge gaps. The priority will be insights derived from case studies. While the digital sphere necessitates an interdisciplinary perspective, evaluating clinical evidence in depth takes priority over breadth. Particular weight will be granted to classical and contemporary psychoanalytic frameworks. Beyond clinical contexts, digital humanities viewpoints will be synthesised when examining how socio-technical environments uniquely interact with unconscious processes. Thinkers like Sherry Turkle and Nicholas Carr provide valuable perspectives on technology’s ethical and philosophical implications, complementing psychological insights.^[3] This focused yet inclusive approach intends to produce resonant psychoanalytic findings while honouring the complexity of contextual factors.

The primary sources will be published case studies from both psychoanalytic literature and digital ethics scholarship. For instance, text-driven communities on Reddit likely exhibit different unconscious dynamics versus multimedia-intensive platforms like TikTok, meriting careful note. The chosen method blends depth and rigour through prioritising psychoanalytic case studies while thoughtfully engaging critiques and contextual perspectives. The analysis will remain psychologically focused, tracing repressive digital manifestations. The goal is balancing fidelity to the research aims with interdisciplinary nuance and reflexivity.

Terminology and Ethical Considerations

A nuanced investigation of the RotR online first requires explicating ‘keyword’ terminology with precision while acknowledging language’s inherent limitations in capturing unconscious processes. Core psychoanalytic concepts demand crisper definition, as casual usage often distorts their meaning. Repression indicates the involuntary removal of distressing impulses or memories from gaining conscious awareness and their unconscious retention. The RotR refers to when muted content re-emerges indirectly; that is, in disguised forms like dreams, slips of the tongue, or neurotic symptoms. Sublimation denotes the positive channelling of repressed energy into socially condoned pursuits like art or intellect.

In digital contexts, pseudonymity represents the separation between a user’s online persona and real identity, enabled by partial anonymity. Anonymity strictly indicates complete namelessness, while pseudonymity implies operating under a fabricated public identity. Both allow greater perceived freedom in expressing repressed urges online by lowering risks of exposure and judgement. This analysis will include case studies, where repressed impulses surface through pseudonymous digital engagement. The term ‘catfish’ originated from the 2010 American documentary Catfish, which followed a man who was deceived by a woman who used a fake online persona.

That said, examinations of potentially sensitive disclosure demand ethical mindfulness, as online architectures unequally distribute privacy and vulnerability across social strata. Marginalised groups often experience the Internet’s perils disproportionately, facing external repression and surveillance that constrain expression. However, dominant societal voices may also self-censor internal desires to maintain their power, needing anonymity to explore their fuller selves. Both dynamics necessitate contemplation. Although the present argument focuses primarily on psychological processes within individuals and communities, consideration is given toward contextual factors shaping those environments. For example, government policies and corporate algorithms increasingly dictate the permissions and restrictions of online existence. Cyber-libertarians once envisioned the Internet as an unregulated free speech utopia. However, time has exposed the clear naivete of this ideal, as digital spaces exhibit the same ingrained inequalities and safeguarding issues as any human institution. Understanding how these externally imposed strictures inhibit or redirect expressions will add nuance to discussing the return of any repressed urges. Are impulses innately arising from the unconscious, or responses to inequitable repression? Freud argued not just for the presence of repressed material but also the inequitable repressing ideas themselves as necessary for appreciation of compromise.

Likewise, profit motives increasingly commodify digital attention, creating addictive online environments vying for engagement. Unconscious impulses are thus directed into corporate or ad-hoc digital channels where monetisation and surveillance thrive. Of course this ‘monetisation’ of human impulsivity, or for that matter ‘surveilling’ of the aforementioned, risks distorting conclusions or furthering compromises if left decontextualised. However, retention of analytical focus on psychological interiority rather than external forces alone allows insightful scrutiny of how the RotR operates in digital terrains, for better or worse. That crisp definitions ensure analytical clarity, examining social contexts grounds the investigation ethically. And that keen awareness of the power differentials permeating digital spaces will inform discussions of both liberation and repression. But methodological focus on the psychoanalytic lens will generate resonant insights into unconscious dynamics at this unique socio-technical juncture, furthering conceptual knowledge.

Psychoanalytic Framework

Psychoanalytic theory retains academic and clinical relevance despite frequent misconceptions and critiques. Examining its conceptual evolution and modern implementation puts current analysis of digital spaces on firmer footings. As previously remarked, the notion of repressed urges re-emerging in distorted forms originated in foundational texts like Further remarks on the neuro-psychoses of defence (1896) or The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). By postulating the psyche’s tripartite structure, Freud furnished the idea of unconscious processes harbouring socially unacceptable desires and traumatic memories repressed from conscious thought.

However, late Freud hypothesised this repression as better on balance for civilisation’s sake, enabling the outward pursuit of beauty, meaning, and connection through sublimation.^[5] Revisionist thinkers like Lacan and Klein expanded on the unconscious and repression’s manifestations, implicating broader sociocultural forces in shaping what and how it becomes muted.^[6] Though frequent disagreements persist between schools of psychoanalytic thought, the basic premise admits of past emotional conflicts and taboo desires enduring silently only to later reappear in forms of compromise. The digital landscapes of today can be seen as a modern-day ‘proving ground’ for early psychoanalytic theories concerning repression, projection, and the workings of the unconscious. Platforms like social media amplify the spaces where unconscious desires and repressed feelings can manifest, offering a new dimension to classical ideas such as Freud’s RotR. Thus, digital arenas provide a fertile space for individuals to enact, perhaps unwittingly, complex psychological dynamics that were once confined to the intra- and inter-psychic realm, or indeed the therapeutic setting.

Contemporary therapists still draw upon these theories in practice, though integrating scientific advancements like affective neurobiology. The perceived value of uncovering patient’s unconscious conflicts, urges, and past traumas persists for promoting self-understanding and integration. Public misinterpretations have unfairly reduced psychoanalysis to cliches about sexual frustration or mother blame rather than appreciating its nuanced legacy. Certainly, overzealous adherents may at times misunderstand patients with unsubstantiated conjectures. However, thoughtful practitioners have also helped countless patients untangle internal struggles.

This lasting relevance amidst constant criticism underscores psychoanalysis’s seriousness and suitability for examining digital spaces. The pseudonymisation and accessibility of online communication enables expression perhaps more akin to dream-work where repression slackens. By studying disclosures and patterns on forums, blogs, and communities with nuance, psychoanalytic principles can illuminate cultural unconscious dynamics rather than just individual pathologies. However, technophilic assumptions that ‘digital’ recapitulates ‘emancipatory’ require interrogation, as virtual settings introduce new modalities of control and coercion as well.

For example, Johanssen (2019) argues that digital media fundamentally influence our subjectivities on affective and unconscious levels, and he applies the psychoanalytic affect theories of Freud and Didier Anzieu to analyse phenomena such as television viewing, Twitter/X usage, affective labour on social media, and data mining.^[7] Another example is Brock (2018), who explores how the case of Pussy Riot, a Russian feminist punk group, provoked a RotR ferocity and language evocative of Stalinism in the public discourse, and how this reflects the unresolved historical trauma in the Russian cultural memory (see below). These examples show how digital contexts can offer new perspectives and challenges for psychoanalytic theory and practice.

Consider how algorithms dictate visibility, prioritise outrage for profits, and nourish confirmation bias through stochastic filtering. Teasing out how external digital architectures shape expression will contextualise whether uncovered urges represent liberation and/or manipulation. Do social platforms unrepress desirous impulses or impose certain formulations algorithmically? Psychoanalysis alone cannot answer definitively, necessitating integration of critical perspectives regarding technology’s asymmetrical power structures across divides of gender, race, and class.

Psychoanalytic theory retains academic value and therapeutic pertinence despite criticisms. Its analytical lens still provides vital comprehension of the psyche’s unconscious layers even under new digital influences. However, interdisciplinary awareness of contextual forces may yet hold in check assumptions or ground analysis ethically. With tentative rigour, probing the RotR online through a psychoanalytic framework promises substantial scholarly and social insights. Potential solutions, as ever, may centre on acknowledging complexity, uncertainty and retaining self-reflexivity regarding the strengths and limits of any single vantage point in studying multifaceted phenomena.

Digital Age and Pseudonymisation

Pseudonymity has emerged as an integral feature enabling the RotR within digital landscapes. By granting users perceived separation from their real-world identity, pseudonymous personas foster disinhibited disclosure of unconscious urges and socially censored aspects of the self. This cyber-veil alters the presentation and perception of one’s image along lines of freedom and control with both emancipatory and pernicious potentials. Responsible examination of pseudonymity’s impact obliges avoiding techno-utopian assumptions regarding empowerment and acknowledging the broader socio-technical forces that shape expression.

In basic terms, pseudonyms represent online aliases or personae crafted by users to interact through in online communities, gaming platforms, or virtual spaces. They allow exploration and performance of identities often desired but repressed in real life, lowering risks of vulnerability and judgement. Participating under pseudonyms facilitates greater openness in discussing taboo desires related to politics, sexuality, addiction, mental health, gender, and more. The freedoms are not total, as legal prohibitions and content moderation persist. However, the degree of control users wield over self-presentation alters compared to offline settings.

For example, in a case study conducted by Monica Whitty (2018), the author analysed the experience of a woman named Sarah, who was deceived by a purported male suitor named ‘Steve.’ According to Whitty’s account, the ‘Catfish’ calling himself Steve falsely presented to Sarah as a wealthy businessman living in London. Over time, Sarah developed romantic feelings for Steve and proceeded to send him money to cover claimed expenses, including his daughter’s medical bills, business troubles, and travel costs. However, Steve never met with Sarah in person and ultimately terminated communication with her. Applying the extended model of rationality (ELM) framework, Whitty posited that Sarah’s vulnerability to deception in this case stemmed from a combination of rational and emotional factors. Specifically, Sarah held a romanticised notion of love, had low self-esteem, and exhibited an anxious attachment style, which, for Whitty, prevented her from recognising the deception.^[8]

In a separate case study, Annabel Kuhn (2021) analysed the experience of a man named Alex who was deceived by a woman calling herself ‘Lisa.’ Over a six-month period of online communication, Lisa claimed to be a model and actress based in Los Angeles and sent Alex photographs and videos purporting to be of herself. However, she repeatedly declined to meet Alex in person or video call him. Alex eventually discovered some of the media had been taken from the internet, at which point he confronted Lisa, who admitted she had fabricated her identity. She revealed herself to be a married woman living in Texas who had assumed the fictional identity of Lisa as an escape from the dissatisfactions of her real life. Applying an object relations theory framework, Kuhn proposed that Alex was drawn to the figure of Lisa as an idealised object who fulfilled unmet needs for love and validation. Moreover, Kuhn suggested Lisa’s catfishing persona allowed her to avoid confronting problems in her marriage.^[9]

The psychoanalytic notion of the RotR proposes that unresolved conflicts or traumatic experiences that have been pushed into the unconscious will eventually resurface in disguised forms. This defence mechanism serves to temporarily reduce anxiety, though the repressed material will continue to exert an influence on thought and behaviour. In the case of Sarah, her romanticised view of love and apparent low self-esteem suggest underlying insecurities and unmet emotional needs. Whitty’s analysis implies these may have origins in adverse childhood experiences that Sarah was unwilling or unable to consciously process. The catfishing scenario enabled a temporary experience of romantic fulfilment through idealised fantasy, allowing latent desires and painful conflicts related to intimacy and validation to be expressed indirectly. However, the eventual collapse of this illusion triggered significant distress, underscoring the impaired reality testing and maladaptive coping inherent in the return of the repressed according to psychoanalytic theory. Similarly, Kuhn’s analysis points to Lisa’s unhappiness in her marriage as the repressed conflict manifesting through catfishing. In crafting an idealised persona, Lisa created an outlet for the expression of repressed strivings for romance, attention and escape from domestic life. This allowed avoidance of confronting problems directly, but ultimately bore a tenuous connection to reality. When the ruse unravelled, Lisa was again forced to face the personal issues she had repressed through the deceit.

A paper by Otgaar et al. (2019) examines the controversial issue of repressed and recovered memories, which refers to the idea that traumatic experiences can be forgotten for a long time and later recalled with or without external cues. Otgaar et al., argue that this issue is not resolved, as some scholars have claimed, but rather persists and has negative consequences in clinical, legal, and academic contexts. The paper reviews evidence from various sources, such as surveys of clinicians and legal professionals, court cases, scientific publications, and media reports, to show that consensus on repressed and recovered memories is still widespread and influential. The paper also critiques the concept of ‘dissociative amnesia’—often used as a substitute term for RotR—challenging its validity and utility.^[10]

Similarly, a chapter by Brock (2018) explores how the case of Pussy Riot—a Russian feminist punk group that was arrested and imprisoned for performing a protest song in a cathedral—provoked such violence and vitriol to be reminiscent of neo-Stalinism in the public discourse. Brock (2018) argues that the group’s name, lyrics, and performance triggered a cultural unease and aggression among some segments of the Russian media and wider society, who resorted to various forms of textual and physical violence against the women. Brock also analyses how the language used to attack and denigrate the women was reminiscent of the language of state terror and repression during the Soviet era, which has been repressed but not destroyed in the Russian cultural unconscious. The chapter concludes by calling for more critical and ethical engagement with the past and the present, as well as more awareness and resistance to the haunting effects of historical trauma.^[11]

By way of answering Brock’s call, opportunities to explore repressed aspects of identity and find community free from immediate social pressures represent pseudonymity’s emancipatory promise. Marginalised groups especially benefit, gaining fuller voice and mutual understanding often denied offline. Against dominant cultural narratives, pseudonyms facilitate truer self-definition and collective care. However, questions remain whether such unrepression challenges unjust norms effectively or merely provides pressure release valves that reify real-world power imbalances indirectly. Equally pertinent, however, that dominant groups may feel unduly repressed by shifting cultural mores and gain cathartic release via hateful pseudonymous expression. However misguided, suppressing rather than addressing such groups perceived grievances risks further radicalisation or polarisation. Nuanced solutions necessitate steering between idealism and false equivalencies in assessing complex root causes. Overall, pseudonymity’s impacts on the RotR must hang partly on one’s socioeconomic position in society or partly on a degree of [offline] responsible agency.

Looking beyond individual motives, the external digital architectures enabling pseudonymisation also demand examination. Most social platforms now require real names, limiting opportunities for unrestrained anonymity compared to earlier web eras. However, lackadaisical oversight means pseudonyms still thrive through falsified accounts. Algorithms often boost inflammatory pseudonymous content that drives monetisable outrage. That ‘monetisable outrage’ risks exacerbating societal divisions by incentivising repression’s extreme returns may be of consequence.

By contrast, smaller online communities like Reddit or Discord subnets develop their own pseudonymous norms that can foster belonging over outrage. However, these spaces also face challenges regulating harassment and misinformation flows across fluid pseudonyms. Implementing thoughtful policies and design choices provide one avenue for maximising psychological benefits and minimising harms resulting from unrepressed expression. For example, implementing a pseudonymisation technique that allows for reversible de-identification of personal data, while ensuring that the key or algorithm for re-identification is securely stored and protected from unauthorised access. This way, pseudonymity can enhance the privacy and security of data subjects, while also preserving the utility and quality of data for legitimate purposes, such as research, analysis, or service improvement. However, this also requires that the data controller or processor has a clear and lawful basis for re-identifying the data, and that the data subjects are informed and consented to the possibility of re-identification under certain circumstances. This policy or design choice is consistent with the principles and guidelines of pseudonymisation under European and UK GDPR.^[12]

Pseudonymity holds meaningful potentials for enabling healthy unrepression but also risks distorting and malicious effects depending on context. Individual motives intersect with collective digital architectures and sociocultural forces in complex ways. Binary verdicts should be avoided in favour of subtle investigation of these multi-layered tensions. Further comparative case studies of both marginalised and dominant social groups across multiple platforms may derive clearer insights to inform ethical policies. With rigorous interdisciplinary analysis, mapping this digital frontier of the psyche can illuminate pathways to fostering creativity, understanding, and human thriving.

Reflections in conclusion

This essay has sketched some of the manifold ways the digital landscape has emerged as fora facilitating or even energising the RotR. Psychoanalytic principles keep strong explanatory power in their appreciation of individual motivations and cultural unconscious dynamics online despite frequent misconceptions about the tradition’s relevance. However, integrating critical perspectives is still essential for contextualising liberatory or manipulative technical impacts across social divisions. Overall, complex findings surface resisting definitive verdicts but inviting further thoughtful examination. Perceived anonymity—more properly pseudonymity—enables disinhibited disclosure of unconscious conflicts and socially unacceptable desires that would likely remain repressed offline. This cyber-veil alters self-presentation along spectra of freedom and control with both constructive and harmful potentials. For marginalised groups, online unrepression often supports self-exploration and collective care counter to oppressive cultural narratives. However, dominant groups also find cathartic release online for worldviews bred of unacknowledged privilege in ways that can foster further radicalisation or polarisation. Looking past individual motives, the external digital architectures enabling pseudonymous return also shape expression. Algorithms and policies variously incentivise outrage that divide or nurture digital communities pivoting on unjudged identity play. Throughout, the interconnected impacts resist clean generalisations, necessitating nuanced investigation across socioeconomic spectra. These complex findings carry substantive societal implications. Clinically, psychoanalytic psychotherapists may need updated cultural competency regarding diverse online urges that no longer clearly signify underlying subjective pathologies. Policymakers face difficult balancing acts between enabling free speech and mitigating harmful misinformation or disinformation flows. Platforms must evolve moderation, alignment and architectures toward nourishing creativity over division.^[13]

Further research could continue clarifying digital influences on the psyche. Comparative case studies across demographics and platforms promise richer comprehension, as do ethnographic studies of specific online subcultures. For example, a research project or course on the creative and artistic potentials of pseudonymity or partial anonymity in the digital age. This direction could investigate how pseudonymity or partial anonymity might foster new forms of self-expression, experimentation, and innovation in various digital media platforms and genres, such as blogs, podcasts, videos, games, memes, and fan fiction. Such research could also analyse how pseudonymity or partial anonymity may challenge and transform the notions of authorship, authenticity, originality, and ownership in the digital culture. This direction could draw from disciplines such as literature, art, music, film, game design, and cultural studies.

Encouraging integrative methodologies incorporating psychological, sociological, philosophical, and computer science increases prospective insight. On an individual level, cultivating self-awareness about our own inner conflicts stays essential for wise online participation. I want to submit the digital age beggars an updated psychoanalytic understanding, not outright rejection of existing psychoanalytic principles. Critical perspectives contextualise liberatory and oppressive technical impacts on expression. Responsible analyses oblige acknowledging the inherent complexity of socio-technical systems, depth psychology, and their intimate entanglement. And that with careful scholarship and cultural contemplation, illuminating this digital frontier and the RotR may foster human flourishing in an age of uncertainty.

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^[1] Please see Freud, S. (1896). Further remarks on the neuro-psychoses of defence. In J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.), SE III, pp. 157-185. Hogarth Press. Also see Freud, S. (1900). The interpretation of dreams. In J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans. 1953), SE IV-V. Hogarth Press. Also see Freud, S. (1907). Delusions and dreams in Jensen’s ‘Gradiva.’ In J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.), SE IX, pp. 1-96. Hogarth Press. Perhaps most importantly see Freud, S. (1915). Repression. In J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.), SE XIV, pp. 141-158. Hogarth Press. Finally, please see Freud, S. (1926/1989). Inhibitions, symptoms and anxiety. In J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.), SE XX, pp. 77–175. London: Hogarth Press: Where Freud writes (p. 122) ‘The question arises whether the energy of the repressed wish is transferred to the symptom or whether it remains in the unconscious. The answer is that both alternatives are true. The energy of the repressed wish is not diminished by being transferred to the symptom; on the contrary, it is increased by it.’ 

^[2] American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). One may also see The Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, which is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes research and clinical articles on trauma and dissociation. The journal covers topics such as the causes, consequences, diagnosis, and treatment of dissociative disorders, including dissociative amnesia.

^[3] Please see Turkle, S. (2011). Alone together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other. Basic Books. See also Turkle, S. (2015). Reclaiming conversation: The power of talk in a digital age. Penguin Press. Also, Carr, N. (2010). The shallows: What the internet is doing to our brains. W. W. Norton & Company. Also, Carr, N. (2008). Is Google making us stupid? What the Internet is doing to our brains. The Atlantic Monthly, 301(2), 56-63.

^[4] Please see Freud, S. (1896). Further remarks on the neuro-psychoses of defence. In J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.), SE III, pp. 157-185. Hogarth Press. Also see Freud, S. (1900). The interpretation of dreams. In J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.), SE IV-V. Hogarth Press.

^[5] Please see Freud, S. (1961). Civilization and its discontents. In J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.), SE XXI, pp. 57-145. Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1930). Also see Freud, S. (1961). The future of an illusion. In J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.), SE XXI, pp. 1-56). Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1927)

^[6] Please see Lacan, J. (1977). The four fundamental concepts of psycho-analysis. (A. Sheridan, Trans.). New York: W.W. Norton & Company. (Original work published 1964). In this book, Lacan introduces his concept of the ‘split subject’ and the ‘barred Other,’ which imply that the unconscious is structured like a language and that it is always mediated by the symbolic order of culture and society. He also discusses how repression operates as a metaphorical substitution of signifiers in the unconscious, creating symptoms that reveal the repressed truth. Also see Klein, M. (1975). The psycho-analysis of children. (A. Strachey, Trans.). London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis. (Original work published 1932). In this book, Klein presents her theory of the ‘paranoid-schizoid’ and ‘depressive’ positions, which describe the early stages of psychic development and how the infant relates to its objects (such as the mother’s breast). She also explores how repression is linked to anxiety, guilt, and aggression, and how these affect the formation of the unconscious and the ego. Finally, please see Anderson, R. (2016). The unconscious: A Kleinian perspective. In C. Bronstein & E. O’Shaughnessy (Eds.), The Klein-Lacan dialogues (pp. 191-208). London: Routledge. In this chapter, Anderson evaluates Klein’s and Lacan’s views on the unconscious, highlighting their similarities and differences. He argues that both theorists emphasise the role of repression in creating an unconscious that is dynamic, creative, and conflictual, but also that they differ in their understanding of the nature and function of symbols, language, and fantasy in relation to the unconscious.

^[7] Johanssen, J. (2019). Psychoanalysis and digital culture: Audiences, social media, and big data. Routledge. London & NY

^[8] Whitty, M. T. (2018). Do you love me? Psychological characteristics of romance scam victims. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 21(2), 105-109.

^[9] Kuhn, A. (2021). The psychology behind catfishing: A case study approach. Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Podcast, 160

^[10] Otgaar, H., Howe, M. L., Patihis, L., Merckelbach, H., Lynn, S. J., Lilienfeld, S. O., & Loftus, E. F. (2019). The return of the repressed: The persistent and problematic claims of long-forgotten trauma. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 14(6), 1072–1095.

^[11] Brock, M. (2018). Pussy Riot, or the Return of the Repressed in Discourse. In: Krüger, S., Figlio, K., Richards, B. (eds) Fomenting Political Violence. Studies in the Psychosocial. Palgrave Macmillan.

^[12] Information Commissioner’s Office. (2022). Pseudonymisation. Draft anonymisation, pseudonymisation and privacy enhancing technologies guidance. Retrieved from ICO website.

^[13] European Parliament. (2023). Artificial Intelligence Act (P9_TA (2023)0236). Retrieved from European Parliament website.

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by Paul Wadey

the moral rights of the author have been asserted