APA Dictionary of Psychology

n. in psychoanalytic theory, the mental agency, located in the preconscious, that is responsible for repression. The censor is posited to determine which wishes, thoughts, and ideas may enter consciousness and which must be kept unconscious because they violate one’s conscience or society’s standards or are in conflict with other wishes or perceptions, or because the affect associated with them is disturbing or overwhelming. The censor is also posited to be responsible for the distortion of wishes that occurs in dreams (see dream censorship). The idea was introduced in the early writings of Sigmund Freud, who later developed it into the concept of the superego. —censorship n.