Defence Mechanisms Flashcards
Repression
Prevents unacceptable desires, motivations or emotions from becoming conscious.
The repressed desires do not disappear - they remain in the unconscious where they influence behaviour in ways that we are unaware of and may cause emotional difficulties. During the Oedipus complex sexual or aggressive thought about the parents are repressed.
Projection-
When people’s own unacceptable faults or wishes are attributed to someone else.
For e.g. accusing someone else of being angry, when it is actually you who is feeling angry.
Denial
People sometimes refuse to believe events or to admit that they are experiencing certain emotions that provoke anxiety. For e.g An alcoholic may deny that they are dependent on alcohol.
Displacement-
Diverting emotions onto someone else because the emotions cannot be expressed to the person concerned or because accepting faults in ourselves will cause anxiety.
For e.g A student who fails an exam may blame the teacher.
Regression-
Sometimes people respond to anxiety by behaving in childish ways, such as adults who resort to stamping their feet or having a tantrum, which they found effective as a child. For
e.g a 13 year old boy who’s parents are getting divorced may start sucking their thumb/wetting the bed.
Sublimation-
Diverting emotions onto something else. When we manage to displace our unacceptable emotions into behaviours which are constructive, this is a socially acceptable form of displacement. For e.g Going for a run to relieve stress.
Rationalisation-
It is a form of cognitive distortion of the “facts” to make the event or desire less threatening (make excuses) e.g. When a person finds a situation difficult to accept, they will make up a logical reason why it has happened. For example, a person may explain a natural disaster as ‘God’s will’
Reaction formation-
a person goes beyond denial and behaves in the opposite way to which he or she thinks or feels.. Freud claimed that men who are prejudice against homosexuals are making a defence against their own homosexual feelings by adopting a harsh anti-homosexual attitude which helps convince them of their heterosexuality.
