It is characterized as a mental process involving the creation of a gap between an unpleasant or threatening cognition and other thoughts and feelings.
[1] Freud illustrated the concept with the example of a person beginning a train of thought and then pausing for a moment before continuing to a different subject.
"[2] As a defense against harmful thoughts, isolation prevents the self from allowing these cognitions to become recurrent and possibly damaging to the self-concept.
[1] Another noteworthy type of isolation is referred to as "temporal bracketing," in which some perceived failure or shortcoming is buried away in one's past, effectively removing its impact on the current self.
This type of separation from the past can be seen in religious conversion or "born again" experiences, in certain drug addiction recovery programs, and in the throwing away of delinquent files in the legal system.
[7] Habitual repressors have been shown to have fewer unhappy memories than other people, but the difference rests in the secondary associations.