Defense Mechanisms Flashcards
Id
Animalistic and present at birth.
Controls instinctive urges, pleasure seeking, and gratification.
Super-ego
The conscience and moral compass
Insists on socially acceptable behavior
Ego
Rational brain that is reality driven
Resolves conflicts between the Id and superego
What do defense mechanisms protect?
They protect us when our ego feel threatened.
All defenses are unconscious except suppression
What are the four clusters of defense mechanisms?
Narcissistic
Immature
Anxiety
Mature
Narcissistic defense mechanisms
Used by narcissist to protect vulnerabilities
Includes denial, projection, and splitting.
Denial
Not allowing reality to come into thoughts and avoid acknowledgment of painful aspects of reality
Often seen with substance abusers
Typically the first response to bad news
Projection
Attributes own emotions onto someone else
Often seen with cheating
Splitting
When people and things in the world are idolized as all good or devalued as all bad
The world is pictured an extreme terms rather than a realistic blend of good and bad qualities
Often seem with bipolar disorder
Immature defense mechanisms
Arise from anxieties with intimacy and loss
Include blocking, regression, introjection, and somatization
Blocking
Temporary or transient block in thinking or an inability to remember
Often seen with embarrassing moments
Regression
Returning to an earlier stage of development already completed
“ Baby talk” 
Introjection
Acquiring characteristics of others as our own
Unconscious form of imitation
Opposite of projection
Used in psychotherapy
Somatization
When psychological conflict is converted into bodily symptoms
Not typically aware of
Main defense mechanism of somatic symptom disorders
Often seen with unresolved grief
Anxiety defense mechanisms
Serve to address the unpleasant discomforts of anxiety
Includes displacement, repression, intellectualization , disassociation, acting out, rationalization, dissociation, reaction formation, and doing, and passive aggression.
Displacement
When the target of an emotion or drive changes to a substitute target.
“ temper tantrums”
Fills a void
Often seen with phobias 
Repression
When an idea or feeling is withheld from consciousness
“ Unconscious forgetting”
Not wanting to remember bad times
Intellectualization
When facts and logic are used to avoid confronting emotions
Important adaptive defense mechanism for self preservation

Acting out
Emotional or behavioral outburst masking underlying feelings or ideas
Often seen in borderline, histrionic, and antisocial personality disorders
Rationalization
When rational explanations are used to justify attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors that are unacceptable
Seen with substance abuse disorders

Disassociation
Separates the self from one’s experiences
Primary defense mechanism and dissociative disorders
Can create a whole new personality if they experience really bad trauma
Reaction formation
When an unacceptable impulse is transformed into its opposite
Excessive overreaction
Opposite of what you actually want to do
Undoing
Performing an act to undo a previous unacceptable act or thought
Use like a cover-up 
Passive aggression
When hostility is expressed covertly
Getting back at someone or being vindictive
Mature defense mechanisms
Accept reality in a less threatening way
Includes altruism, humor, sublimation, and suppression 
Altruism
Promoting someone else’s welfare even at a risk or cost to ourselves
Makes us feel good about ourselves
Humor
Permits the Overt expression of feelings and thoughts without personal discomfort
Laughter covers the pain and anxiety
Sublimation
Unacceptable impulses turned into something socially acceptable
Helps to maintain self-esteem and social values
Suppression
Conscious decision to forget or ignore
Allows you to “get on with life “and “deal with it later “
