Defence mechanisms

Question 1

Freudian defences

Answer 1

-Anna Freud

Question 2

Vaillant

Answer 2

-classified defense mechanisms to mature, immature and neurotic defenses

Question 3

Klein

Answer 3

-Kleinian defences are ‘psychotic defences’

Question 4

Mature defences

Answer 4

• SASHA
• sublimination
• altruism
• suppression
• humour
• anticipation

Question 5

Altruisim

Answer 5

• using constructive and gratifying service to others to receive a vicarious satisfaction
• unconditional offer to help
• replaces aggression and competition by support
• MD

Question 6

Humour

Answer 6

• highlight amusing aspects of threat signals or outcome
• anxiety concerted to comedy or irony
• used to express feeling and thoughts overtly without personal discomfort and without producing an unpleasant effect on others
• MD

Question 7

Anticipation

Answer 7

• here one plans realistically for future inner discomfort and expects worse to occur with mental preparation
• MD

Question 8

Sublimination

Answer 8

• achieving impulse gratification but only after altering a socially objectionable impulse
• rechanneling impulses into acceptable expressions
• MD

Question 9

Suppression

Answer 9

• consciously or semiconsciously postponing attention to a conscious impulse or conflict
• intentional blocking for recall
• MD

Question 10

Neurotic defences

Answer 10

-act at the level of mental inhibiton
-as a result the patient is deprived of some degree of freedom in decision-making but retains insight
-displacement
-dissociation
-rationalisation
-reaction formation
-repression
-isolation
-intellectualisation
-identification with the aggressor
-undoing
DRUID RIRI

Question 11

Displacement

Answer 11

the process by which interest and/or emotion is shifted from one object onto another less, threatening less retaliating one

Question 12

Dissociation

Answer 12

temporarily but drastically modifying one’s sense of personal identity to avoid emotional distress

Question 13

Isolation

Answer 13

splitting or separating an idea from the affect that accompanies normally but it is now repressed- seen in OCD

Question 14

Rationalisation

Answer 14

offering rational explanations in an attempt to justify attitudes, beliefs or behaviour which may otherwise be unacceptable

Question 15

Reaction formation

Answer 15

involves transforming an unacceptable impulse into its exact opposite
characteristic of obsessional neurosis
-substituting wishes/feeling with the exact opposite to the true feelings

Question 16

Repression

Answer 16

-expelling or witholding form consciousness an idea or feeling before they have entered consciousness
ND

Question 17

Intellectualisation

Answer 17

-excessively using intellectual processes to avoid affective expression or experience
-only focusing on facts
ND

Question 18

Identification with the aggressor

Answer 18

-observed where the victim of aggression begins to assume the qualities of the proponent of aggression
ND

Question 19

Undoing

Answer 19

-this is seen in OCD and is associated with magical thinking and rituals
-symbolic negating of impulse
‘undoing shoelaces before exam’

Question 20

Narcissistic defences

Answer 20

Projection and denial

Question 21

Projection

Answer 21

-attributing one’s own feelings to be coming from others

Question 22

Denial

Answer 22

-refusal to acknowledge the awareness of reality

Question 23

Kleinian defences

Answer 23

--SIPDOG
Splitting
Introjection
Projective identification
Denial
Omnipotence
Grandiosity

Question 24

Splitting

Answer 24

• seen in EUPD
• stripping off either all positive or all negative qualities of others
• black and white

Question 25

Projective identification

Answer 25

• converting own hostile impulses to justifiable reactions to the hostility expressed by others
• seen in psychotic paranoid states
• results in ideas of reference, prejudice, suspiciousness, injustice
• Ogden has 3 steps for this
  1. projection of part of oneself onto an external object
  2. interpersonal interaction in which the porjector actively pressures the recipient to think, feel and act in accordance with the projection
  3. the reinternalisation of the projection after the recipient has psychologically processed it

Question 26

Introjection

Answer 26

this involves internalising the qualities of an object

• seen in normal development
• internalising the qualities observed in an external ‘object’ e.g mother, friend etc

Question 27

Omnipotence

Answer 27

• attaching great value (power) to thoughts and believing they can influence external objects
• seen in OCD and PND

Question 28

Grandiosity

Answer 28

Klein’s description pertains to manic defence, closely associated with narcissism
Feelings of inferiority and guilt result in self-glorification, presumption and entitlement.
Involves converting inferiority to superiority feelings

Question 29

Immature defences

Answer 29

-mostly normal in early phases of development
-Acting out
-Passive Aggression
-Somatisation
-Regression
Somatosensory Amplification

RAPSS

Question 30

Acting out

Answer 30

ID
uncontrolled wish-fulfillment
expression of an unconscious impulse through action to avoid being conscious of an accompanying affect

Question 31

Passive aggression

Answer 31

ID
expressing aggression thought inactivity
e.g taking sick leave

Question 32

Somatisation

Answer 32

ID

Converting psychological states and tension to bodily symptoms

Question 33

Regression

Answer 33

ID

Moving back into childish or earlier developmental phase to avoid confronting conflict

Question 34

Somatosensory Amplification

Answer 34

the tendency to experience bodily sensations as unusually intense or distressing
-oversensitivity to innocuous bodily features