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Repetition compulsion is the unconscious tendency of a person to repeat a traumatic event or its circumstances. This may take the form of symbolically or literally re-enacting the event, or putting oneself in situations where the event is likely to occur again. Repetition compulsion can also take the form of dreams in which memories and feelings of what happened are repeated, and in cases of psychosis, may even be hallucinated.

As a "key component in Freud's understanding of mental life, 'repetition compulsion' ... describes the pattern whereby people endlessly repeat patterns of behaviour which were difficult or distressing in earlier life".^[1]

^ Grant, Jan; Crawley, Jim (2002). Transference and Projection: Mirrors to the Self. New York City: McGraw-Hill Education. p. 38. ISBN 978-0-335-20314-7.