The ideational representative is one of the two components of the instinctual representative (the mental expression of the instinctual drive), the other being its charge, or "quota" of affect.

It was essentially in his 1915 articles brought together under the title "Metapsychology" ("Instincts and Their Vicissitudes," "Repression," and "The Unconscious") that Freud dealt with these issues. The ideational representative can be conceptualized as a mnemic trace of old perceptions. Strictly speaking, repression affects only this portion of the instinct; accordingly, it can be rendered unconscious, but can later return to consciousness in disguised form, with new, "innocent" associations, when, under the pressure of the instinctual drive, it manages to cross the barrier of censorship (this is the "return of the repressed"). Because of this, ideational representatives undergo constant transformations, during which they can again take on...