Defense Mechanisms

Question 1

Denial

Answer 1

Unpleasant reality is ignored, and a realistic interpretation of potentially threatening events are replaced by benign but inaccurate ones

Question 2

Repression

Answer 2

Painful feelings are conscious initially and then forgotten, but return occasionally. Repression can range from momentary memory lapses to forgetting the details of a catastrophic event, such as a murder or an earthquake

Question 3

Suppression

Answer 3

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
oExample; fears can be replaced by thinking of a happy place, time, or event
•Suppression is considered one of the more mature and healthy defense mechanisms.

Question 4

Projection

Answer 4

In projection, the undesirable feelings are attributed to another person or persons

Question 5

Displacement

Answer 5

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 6

Reaction formation

Answer 6

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

Question 7

Regression

Answer 7

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

Question 8

Fixation

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Identification

Answer 9

Taking on the characteristics of someone else

Question 10

Rationalization

Answer 10

Is an attempt to deny one’s true motives by using a reason that is more logical or socially acceptable than one’s own reasons

Question 11

Isolation

Answer 11

It involves compartmentalizing one’s experience so that an event becomes separated from the feelings that associated with it, allowing it to be part of your conscious mind without the threat of painful feelings

Question 12

Sublimation

Answer 12

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

Question 13

Compensation

Answer 13

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