Assignment task:
One defense mechanism I have witnessed many times by those around me is the mechanism of repression. Earlier during the year, my mother experienced an extreme health scare, which caused her to be admitted to the hospital for over two weeks. I visited her in the hospital many times. My mother has told me in great detail how difficult her recovery was, and how hard it had been on her mental health. Sometimes at dinners, our family would bring up the topic of my mothers stay in the hospital. She would join in on the conversation, but after awhile you could see she seemed uncomfortable, and she verbally stated "I don't want to think about this anymore.... Lets talk about your new class!" and then continued on with the change in conversation and acted as if this conversation did not upset her at all. I also noticed this behavior whenever I attempted to ask about my fathers childhood. From what I know, his childhood was not the best. Whenever the conversation work take a more personal turn and he would briefly mention his childhood- he only let himself say very few things about it. My mother has brought up the idea of him visiting a therapist for him to talk through what happened in his life, but his response would be "I just don't think about it". I see the behaviour of repressing anxiety-ridden thoughts and memories quite often from my parents. Not only have I noticed this behaviour in my parents, but in myself as well.
How can we explain above based on Freud's defence mechanisms?