Repression is a defense mechanism, that is, one of the ego’s tactics to reduce or reorient anxiety in various ways but always distorting reality.
Specifically, repression removes anxiety-generating thoughts and feelings from consciousness. According to Davis (1987), repressors exhibit a pattern of low anxiety and high defensiveness and show limited accessibility to real-life personal affective memories.
Eliminate thoughts and feelings that generate anxiety from consciousness
According to Freud, repression underlies all defense mechanisms, each of which conceals threatening impulses and keeps them from consciousness. For him, the explanation why we do not remember the desire we felt towards our parent of the opposite sex in childhood lies in this defense mechanism.
On the other hand, Freud also believed that repression is usually incomplete, which is why it sometimes manifests itself in dream symbols and verbal slips.
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Source: Myers (2006), Psychology 7th edition, Editorial Médica Panamericana: Madrid