Defense Mechanisms Flashcards
Conversion
represses emotional conflicts which are then converted into physical symptoms that have no organic basis, usually of the sensory, voluntary nervous system (as pain, deafness, blindness, paralysis, convulsions, tics)
Repression
Key mechanism, expressed by amnesia or forgetting serving to banish unacceptable ideas, fantasies, affects, or impulses from consciousness
PROJECTION
When projection occurs, the feeling itself is so threatening that it must be removed from the self and transferred into another being.
This defense mechanism “projects” one’s own undesirable thoughts, motivations, desires, feelings—basically parts of oneself—onto someone else. “I don’t like Bob,” but rather “Bob doesn’t like me.”
DISPLACEMENT
You direct an impulse, feeling, or wish TOWARD another person other than its real object. Thus making it a less threatening situation. Ex. angry at his boss, obviously unable to direct his anger and hostility to his intended target, comes home and yells at his wife.
Idealization
Overestimation of an admired aspect or attribute of another. May be conscious or unconscious
Identification
The unconscious modeling of one’s self upon another person. One may also identify with values and attitudes of a group.
Incorporation
The assimilation of the object into one’s own ego and/or superego. This is one of the earliest mechanisms utilized. The parent becomes almost literally a part of the child. Parental values, preferences, and attitudes are acquired.
Inhibition
Loss of motivation to engage in pleasurable activities avoided because it might stir up conflict over forbidden impulses; ie. writing, learning, work, social shyness.
Introjection
object permanence may help young children make the leap to introjection, so a sense that the parents continue to exist whether or not seen is always felt. Adults may have the experience of saying something that sounds, “just like their mother” or like their father.
Rationalization
Not consciousness; Offering a socially acceptable and apparently more or less logical explanation for an act or decision actually produced by unconscious impulses. The person rationalizing is not intentionally inventing a story to fool someone else, but instead is misleading self as well as the listener. Examples: (1) a man buys a new car, having convinced himself that his older car won’t make it through the winter. (2) a woman with a closet full of dresses buys a new one because she doesn’t have anything to wear.
Reaction Formation
Going to the opposite extreme; overcompensation for unacceptable impulses. Ex: (1) a man violently dislikes an employee; without being aware of doing so, he “bends over backwards” to not criticize the employee and gives him special privileges and advances. (2) a married woman who is disturbed by feeling attracted to one of her husband’s friends treats him rudely.
Sublimation
A person with potentially maladaptive feelings or behaviors are diverted into socially acceptable, adaptive channels; a person who has angry feelings channels them into athletics.
Substitution
Unattainable or unacceptable goal, emotion, or object is replaced by one more attainable or acceptable
Undoing
A person uses words or actions to symbolically reverse or negate unacceptable thoughts, feelings, or actions; a person compulsively washing hands to deal with obsessive thoughts. (2) when asked to recommend a friend for a job, a man makes derogatory comments which prevent the friend’s getting the position; a few days later, the man drops in to see his friend and brings him a small gift.
Splitting
Defense mechanism associated with borderline personality disorder, perceives self and others as “all good” or “all bad”.
