Defense Mechanisms Flashcards
Denial
Used to avoid becoming aware of some painful aspect of reality
Projection
Attributing your own wishes, thoughts, or feelings onto someone else
Splitting
External objects are divided into all good or bad
Blocking
Temporary block in thinking
Regression
Return to an earlier stage of development, most immature
Somatization
Psychic derivatives are converted into bodily symptoms
Introjection
Features of the external world are taken and made part of the self
Displacement
An emotion or drive is shifted to another that resembles the original in some respect
Repression
An idea or feeling is withheld from consciousness; unconscious forgetting
Intellectualization
Excessive use of intellectual processes to avoid affective expression or experience
Isolation
Separation of an idea from the affect that it accompanies it
Rationalization
Rational explanations are used to justify unacceptable attitudes, beliefs or behaviors
Reaction formation
An unacceptable impulse is transformed into its opposite; results in the formation of character traits
Undoing
Acting out the reverse of an unacceptable behavior; consists of an act
Acting out
Behavioral or emotional outburst
