Defense Mechanisms - Sigmund/ Anna Freud

Question 1

compensation

Answer 1

over achieve in one area to compensate for failures in another.

allows people to disguise inadequacies, frustrations, stresses or urges.

Question 2

denial

Answer 2

outright refusal to admit or recognize that something has occurred or is currently occurring.

protects ego.

Question 3

displacement

Answer 3

taking out frustrations, feelings, and impulses on people or objects that are less threatening

Question 4

introjection

Answer 4

absorbing idea/image so it becomes part of self

Question 5

conversion

Answer 5

your body’s way of dealing with unresolved or unexpressed emotions

physical symptoms of psychic pain

Question 6

inversion

Answer 6

turning against self

object of aggressive drive/impulse is changed from another person to self

Question 7

isolation of affect

Answer 7

splitting of ideas from the feelings originally associated with them

you remember the ideas/details, but lose connection with feelings about the event

Question 8

identification

Answer 8

becoming like another person in one or more aspects

may be an attempt to overcome inferiority

Question 9

association (altruism)

Answer 9

satisfying internal needs through helping others

Question 10

intellectualization

Answer 10

avoid thinking about stressful, emotional aspect of situation

instead focus on intellectual component

Question 11

projection

Answer 11

taking our own unacceptable qualities or feelings and ascribing them to other people

Question 12

repression

Answer 12

keep information our of conscious awareness

Question 13

rationalization

Answer 13

explaining an unacceptable behavior or feeling in a rational or logical manner

avoid true reasons for behavior

Question 14

reaction formation

Answer 14

taking up opposite feeling, impulse or behavior

hiding true feelings by behaving in exact opposite manner

Question 15

regression

Answer 15

withdrawal to earlier phase of psychosexual development

Question 16

reversal

Answer 16

form of reaction formation

aimed at protecting oneself from painful affect

Question 17

splitting

Answer 17

seeing everything as all good or all bad

may alternate between the two in regard to one person

Question 18

sublimation

Answer 18

allows us to act out unacceptable impulses by converting behaviors into more acceptable form

Question 19

substitution

Answer 19

replace one affect for another

*** fear expressed as rage

Question 20

undoing

Answer 20

ritualistic performance of the opposite of the act a person has recently committed in order to cancel out or balance the evil that may existed in the original act

Question 21

identification with the aggressor

Answer 21

when emotional trauma threatens a person’s life

defense may be to bond with the threatening person

emotionally identify rather than resist

Question 22

purpose of defense mechanisms

Answer 22

unconscious mechanism

developed by ego to protect against anxiety (unacceptable thoughts and feelings)