Defense Mechanisms Flashcards
devaluation
used by persons with narcissistic personality organization which is consequence of dictatorship
Once a narcissist has hooked their victim, they start showing their true self. This is where the insults and put-downs start slipping into what they say. By pretending they can still be loving, the narcissist makes their victim believe the insults are their own fault.
dissociation
process which enables a person to split mental functions in a manner allowing him to express forbidden or unconscious impulses without responsibility for action either because he is unable to remember disowned behavior because it is not experienced as his own (day dreaming, amnesia, and so forth)
conversion
repressed urge is disguised as disturbance of body function usually of sensory, voluntary nervous system as anesthesia, deafness, blindness, paralysis, and convulsions.
decomposition
decline of existing defenses
displacement
directing an impulse, wish, or feeling toward a person or situation not its real object, thus permitting expression in a less threatening way (e.g, man angry at boss and kicks his dog)
idealization
overestimation of admired aspect or attribute of another (e.g., talk of dead wife but may be harder to new wives)
identification
universal mechanism whereby person patterns self after significant other, plays major role in personality development
what are the 3 parts of identification?
identification with aggressor, with lost object, and with love object
identification with the aggressor
mastering anxiety by identifying with a powerful aggressor, such as an abusing parent, to prevent feelings of helplessness and feel powerful oneself (e.g., abusing others after one has been abused)
identification with the lost object
mastering anxiety by identifying with the primary love object, usually a parental figure, that has been lost to either to death, divorce, or some other circumstance, the identification is to prevent feelings of intense sadness and helplessness
identification with love object
mastering anxiety by identifying with the primary love object, usually a parental figure; to prevent feelings of helplessness and feel capable and in control
incorporation
primitive mechanism in which psychic representation of person is/ are figuratively ingested
inhibition
loss of motivation to engage in usually pleasurable activity because it might stir up conflict over forbidden impulses (e.g., writing, learning, or work blocks or social shyness)
introjection
loved or hated external objects are symbolically absorbed within self; converse of projection (e.g., severe depression an unconscious, unacceptable hatred is turned towards self)
projective identification
form of projection by persons with borderline personality disorder; everything is good or everything is bad
there is a lack of difference between self and object so that the all-bad-self projected on the all-bad object is experienced in such a way that the impulse is still experienced as well as the fear of the projected impulse requiring that the person with BPD organization attacks and controls the object before he is attacked and destroyed
rationalization
not unconscious, giving believable explanation for irrational behavior motivated by unacceptable conscious wishes or defenses used to cope with such wishes
reaction formula
person adopts affects, ideas, attitudes, behaviors which are opposites of those he harbors consciously or unconsciously (e.g., excessive moral zeal masking strong but repressed asocial impulses)?
In which a person goes beyond denial and behaves in the opposite way to which he or she thinks or feels.
regression
partial or symbolic return to more infantile patterns of reacting or thinking; can be in service to ego (e.g., dependency during illness)
splitting
normally used from people with BPD; manifests as self or others being seen as all-good or all-bad
A person employing splitting may idealize someone at one time (seeing the person as “all good”) and devalue them the next (seeing the person as “all bad”).
sublimation
instinctual drives are diverted into personally socially accepted adaptive channels; this mechanism of defense is conscious rather than unconscious
Some other examples of sublimation in the real world: You feel an urge to be unfaithful to your partner. Rather than act on these unacceptable urges, you channel your feelings into doing projects around the yard.
substitution
unattainable or unacceptable goals, emotions, object is replaced by one more attainable or acceptable.
For example, a business man who has been angry over certain events of the day may redirect his energies into games, gardening or any other manual work.
symbolization
an unconscious defense mechanism in which one idea or object comes to represent another because of similarity or association between them.
A soldier explains his decision to join the army as ‘defending the flag’.?
undoing
something unacceptable and already done, thought, or felt is symbolically acted out in reverse in hopes of relieving anxiety; used in obsessive compulsive disorder (e.g., compulsive hand washing to counter feelings of inadequacy)
