Coping mechanisms

Question 1

Acting out

Answer 1

Expressing unacceptable feelings and thoughts through actions

Question 2

Denial

Answer 2

Avoiding awareness of a painful reality

Question 3

Displacement

Answer 3

Redirecting emotions or impulses to a neutral person or object.

Get yelled at by your boss so you come home and yell at your wife.

Question 4

Dissociation

Answer 4

Temporary drastic change in personality, memory, consciousness, or behavior to avoid emotional stress.

Often with no memory of traumatic event.

A sexual abuse victim going numb and silent when confronted to her abuser.

Question 5

Fixation

Answer 5

Partially and intentionally behaving more childishly.

A surgeon throwing a tantrum because his case ran long.

vs. regression which is involuntary

Question 6

Idealization

Answer 6

Only expressing positive thoughts and ignoring negative ones

Question 7

Identification

Answer 7

Unconsciously (mostly) taking on traits of another person or group.

Wearing your stethoscope the same way as another doctor you admire.

Question 8

Intellectualization

Answer 8

Only focusing on facts and ignoring the emotion of a situation.

A cancer patient only talking about survival rates

Question 9

Isolation

Answer 9

(of affect)

Separating feelings from an event.

Describing a murder or patient death in detail with no emotional response

Question 10

Passive aggression

Answer 10

Showing anger in a non-confrontational manner.

Showing up late because your mad at your boss.

Question 11

Projection

Answer 11

Attributing an unacceptable internal impulse of your own to someone else.

Accusing your wife of wanting to cheat on you because you want to.

Question 12

Rationalization

Answer 12

Proclaiming a logical reason for something done for other reasons, usually to avoid blaming yourself.

After getting fired saying you only got fired because the job wasn’t important

Question 13

Reaction formation

Answer 13

Replacing a warded off feeling with the emphasis on its opposite

A patient with sexual thoughts enters a monastery

Question 14

Regression

Answer 14

Involuntarily going back to an immature state (vs fixation which is temporarily and partially going back)

A child that is sick or being punished starts bedwetting again.

Question 15

Repression

Answer 15

Involuntarily avoiding an idea or feeling.
An adult being unable to remember going to therapy during his parents divorce when he was a kid.

vs suppression which is voluntary and temporary

Question 16

Splitting

Answer 16

Intolerance of ambiguity. People are either all good or all evil at different times.
Common in borderline personality disorder.

Patient says all the nurses are mean but all the doctors are friendly.

Question 17

Sublimation

Answer 17

mature defense

Replacing an unnacceptable desire with one that is similar but allowed.

An angry teenager takes his anger out in sports

Question 18

Altruism

Answer 18

mature defense

Alleviating negative feelings by unsolicited genrosity.

A gangster donates a bunch to charity.

Question 19

Suppression

Answer 19

mature defense

Intentionally holding back feelings or thoughts about something until the appropriate time.

Not worrying about the big game until its time to play

Question 20

Humor

Answer 20

mature defense

Med student joking about the boards.