DEFENSE MECHANISM Flashcards
These are mental processes that are usually unconscious, protective barriers that are used to manage instinct and affect in the presence of stressful situations
Ego defense mechanism
Defense mechanism
Mental mechanism
Functions of defense mechanism
To resolve mental conflict
To reduce anxiety or fear
To protect one’s self esteem
To protect one’s sense of security
are thought to safeguard the mind against feelings and thoughts that are too difficult for the conscious mind to cope with.
Defense Mechanism
Wilfully or voluntarily putting an unacceptable thought of feeling out of one’s mind with the ability to recall the thought or feeling at will.
Suppression
refers to unconsciously blocking out painful or unacceptable thoughts and feelings, leaving them to operate in the subconscious.
Repression
The person is unable to recall painful or unpleasant thoughts and feelings because they are automatically and involuntarily pushed into one’s consciousness.
Repression
A woman who was sexually abused as a young child can’t remember the abuse but experiences uneasy feelings when she goes near the place where the abuse occurred.
Repression
The act of making up for a real or imagined inability or deficiency with a specific behavior to maintain self-respect or self-esteem
Compensation
This is used unconsciously to justify ideas, actions, or feelings with good, acceptable reasons or explanations.
Rationalization
It is used to maintain self-respect, prevent guilt feelings, and obtain social approval or acceptance.
Rationalization
not only prevents anxiety, but it may also protect self-esteem and selfconcept.
Rationalization
makes excuses for shortcomings and avoids self-condemnation, displacements, and criticisms.
Rationalizing patient
An individual states that she didn’t win the race because she hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep.
Rationalization
Unconsciously, people use it in an attempt to identify with the personality and traits of others.
Identification
The person exaggerates or overdevelops certain actions by displaying exactly the opposite behavior, attitude or feelings from what he normally would show in a given situation.
Reaction formation
This mechanism is considered a protective drive by which the person prevents painful, undesirable, or unacceptable attitudes toward others from emerging.
Reaction formation
treating someone you strongly dislike in an excessively friendly manner in order to hide your true feelings.
Reaction formation
The unconscious act or replacing a goal when it is blocked.
Substitution
It is also defined as the replacement of consciously unacceptable emotions, drives, attitudes or needs by those that are more acceptable
Substitution
A mechanism that serves to transfer feelings such as frustration, hostility, or anxiety from one idea, person, or object to another.
Displacement
The substitute target is less threatening and allows the person to release emotional reactions
Displacement
The negation of previously consciously intolerable action or experiences to reduce or alleviate feelings of guilt.
Restitution or undoing
Making up for wrongdoings
Restitution or undoing
Trying to make up for what one feels are inappropriate thoughts, feelings, or behaviors (e.g., if you hurt someone’s feelings, you might offer to do something nice for them in order to assuage your anxiety or guilt)
Restitution or undoing
A patient who says something bad about a friend may try to undo the harm by saying nice things about her or by being nice to her and apologizing.
Restitution or undoing
The person rejects unwanted characteristic of self and assigns them to others.
Projection
The person may blame others for faults, feelings, or shortcomings that are unacceptable to self.
Projection
A student who fails a test blames his parents for having the television on too loud when he was trying to study.
Projection
An object, idea or act represents another through some common aspect and carries the emotional feeling associated with the other.
Symbolization
External objects may become outward representations of internal ideas, attitudes or feelings
Symbolization
Retreating to past levels of behavior that reduce anxiety, allow one to feel more comfortable, and permit dependency
Regression
Returning to earlier level of psychosocial development
Regression
Under stress, persons may regress by returning to the behaviors they used in an earlier, more comfortable time in their lives.
Regression
A previously toilet-trained preschool child begins to wet his bed every night after his baby brother is born.
Regression
The rechanneling of consciously intolerable or socially unacceptable impulses or behaviors into activities that are personally or socially acceptable.
Sublimation
a person experiencing extreme anger might take up kick-boxing as a means of venting frustration.
Sublimation
The unconscious refusal to face thoughts, feelings, wishes, needs or reality factors that are intolerable.
Denial
It is also defined as blocking the awareness of reality by refusing to acknowledge its existence.
Denial
A person in — protects himself from reality – especially the unpleasant aspects of life – by refusing to perceive, acknowledge, or face it.
Denial
A woman newly diagnosed with end-stage-cancer says, “I’ll be okay, it’s not a big deal”.
Denial
Attributing to oneself the good qualities of another; symbolically taking on the character traits of another person by ‘ingesting’ the philosophy, ideas, knowledge, customs, mores or attitudes of that other person.
Introjection
The transferring of mental conflict into a physical symptom to release tension or anxiety
Conversion
Imagined events or mental images to express unconscious conflicts, gratify unconscious wishes, or prepare for anticipated future events.
Fantasy
refers to creation of unrealistic or improbable images as a way of escaping from daily pressures and responsibilities or to relieve boredom.
Fantasy
A person may daydream excessively, watch TV for hours on end, or imagine being highly successful when he feels unsuccessful. Engaging in such activities makes him feel better for a brief period
Fantasy
The process of separating an unacceptable feeling, idea, or impulse form one’s thoughts.
Isolation
Other term for isolation
Emotional isolation
The act of separating and detaching a strong emotionally charged conflict from one’s consciousness.
Disassociation
This detached information is blocked from conscious awareness which allows the person to defer or postpone experiencing an emotional impact or painful feelings.
Disassociation
The act of transferring emotional concerns into intellectual sphere.
Intellectualization
The person uses reasoning as a means of avoiding confrontation with unconscious conflicts and their stressful emotions
Intellectualization
works to reduce anxiety by thinking about events in a cold, clinical way.
Intellectualization
This defense mechanism allows us to avoid thinking about the stressful, emotional aspect of the situation and instead focus only on the intellectual component.
Intellectualization
a person who has just been diagnosed with a terminal illness might focus on learning everything about the disease in order to avoid distress and remain distant from the reality of the situation
Intellectualization
Indirectly expressing aggression toward others
Passive-aggresssion
A façade of overt compliance masks covert resentment
Passive-aggresssion
Coping with stress by engaging in actions rather than acknowledging and bearing certain feelings
Acting out
Satisfying internal needs through helping others
Altruism
