Defense Mechanisms

Question 0

What do defense mechanisms do

Answer 0

Allows negative feelings to be lessened without an alteration of the situation

Question 1

Concept of the defense mechanism

Answer 1

Originated by sigmund Freud

Question 2

Denial

Answer 2

Unpleasant reality is ignored, realistic interpretation of potentially threatening events
Example- child who is told her parents are divorced, she may deny that it is happening or deny that she is upset

Question 3

Repression

Answer 3

Painful feelings are conscious initially then forgotten, but return occasionally. Repression can range from momentary memory lapses to forgetting the details of a catastrophic event

Question 4

Suppression

Answer 4

Unpleasant feelings are suppressed through a conscious effort to ignore them. Suppression differs from repression and denial in that the undesirable feelings are available but deliberately ignored
-considered one of the more mature and healthy defense mechanism

Question 5

Projection

Answer 5

The undesirable feelings are attributed to another person or persons
(Angry person that believes others are angry at him/her)

Question 6

Displacement

Answer 6

Object displacement, anger or another emotion is initially felt toward a person against whom it is unsafe to express it (in children for example toward a parent)

Question 7

Reaction formation

Answer 7

Involves behavior that is diametrically opposed to the impulses or feelings that one is repressing
Reduces anxiety by taking up the opposite feeling, impulse or behavior

Question 8

Regression

Answer 8

When confronted by stressful events people sometimes abandon coping strategies and revert to patterns of behavior used earlier development

Question 9

Fixation

Answer 9

Example: people with an oral fixation have problems with drinking, smoking, and nail biting when they are experiencing stressful events

Question 10

Identification

Answer 10

Taking on the characteristics of someone else

Question 11

Rationalization

Answer 11

An attempt to deny ones true motives by using a reason that is more logical or socially acceptable then ones own reason

Question 12

Isolation

Answer 12

Involves compartmentalizing ones experience so that an event becomes separated from the feelings that

Question 13

Sublimation

Answer 13

Involves rechanneling the energy connected with an unacceptable impulse into one that is more socially acceptable

Question 14

Compensation

Answer 14

Devoting unusual efforts to achievement in order to overcome feelings of inferiority