Defense Mechanisms Flashcards
attributing your own wishes, thoughts, or feelings onto someone else
Projection
eg, a man who regularly steals money from his roommate, who constantly suspects his roommate is stealing from him
not accepting reality that is too painful
Denial
external objects are divided into all good or all bad
Splitting
eg, a woman tells her doctor, “You and the nurses are the only people who understand me; all the other doctors are mean and impatient”
temporary block in thinking
Blocking
performing behaviors from an earlier stage of development in order to avoid tension associated with current event/stage, most immature
Regression
eg, woman brings her childhood teddy bear to the hospital when she has to spend the night
psychic derivatives are converted into bodily symptoms
Somatization
eg, “Just thinking about the exam, I get butterflies in my stomach.”
features of the external world are taken and made part of the self
Introjection
eg, the resident physician dresses like the attending
an emotion or drive is shifted to another that resembles the original in some aspect
Displacement
eg, a student who is angry at his mother talks back to his teacher the next day
an idea or feeling is withheld from consciousness; “unconscious forgetting”
Repression
eg, “I do not remember having had a dog.”
NB: repression is unconscious; suppression is conscious
excessive use of intellectual processes to avoid affective expression or experience
Intellectualization
eg, “It is interesting to not the specific skin lesions which seem to arise as a consequence of my end-stage disease.”
separation of an idea from the affect that accompanies it; unconsciously limiting the experience of feelings or emotions associated with a stressful life event in order to avoid anxiety
Isolation of affect
eg, a woman describes the revent death of her beloved husband without emotion
rational explanations are used to justify unacceptable attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors
Rationalization
eg, “My boss fired me because she’s short tempered and impulsive, not because I haven’t done a good job.”
an unacceptable impulse is transformed into its opposite; results in the formation of character traits
Reaction Formation
eg, a man who is in love with his married coworker insults her
acting out the reverse of an unacceptable behavior; consists of an act
Undoing
eg, a man who has had a brief fantasy of killing his wife by sabotaging her car takes the car in for a complete checkup
behavioral or emotional outburst; often done in order to avoid the anxiety of suppressing that impulse
Acting Out
