Foreclosure (Psychology)

Foreclosure, in the psychoanalytic sense, is a pathological-level defense mechanism describing the repudiation of an unacceptable idea or impulse so total that the person acts as though the idea had never occurred to them at all, rather than merely repressing it into the unconscious. It is grouped among the most primitive defenses because, like denial and delusional projection, it operates by altering a person's basic engagement with reality rather than simply reframing an accepted reality in a less threatening light.