Ego Defenses Flashcards
Acting out
Unacceptable feelings and thoughts are expressed through actions
Dissociation
Temporary, drastic change in personality, memory, consciousness, or motor behavior to avoid emotional stress
Denial
Avoidance of awareness of some painful reality
Displacement
Process whereby avoided ideas and feelings are transferred to some neutral person or object (vs. projection)
Fixation
Partially remaining at a more childish level of development (vs. regression)
Identification
Modeling behavior after another person who is more powerful (through not necessarily admired)
Isolation (of affect)
Separation of feelings from ideas and events
Projection
An unacceptable internal impulse is attributed to an external source (vs. displacement)
Rationalization
Proclaiming logical reasons for actions actually performed for other reasons, usually to avoid self-blame
Reaction formation
Process whereby a warded-off idea or feeling is replaced by an (unconsciously derived) emphasis on its opposite (vs. sublimation)
Regression
Turning back the maturational clock and going back to earlier modes of dealing with the world (vs. fixation)
Repression
Involuntary withholding of an idea or feeling from conscious awareness (vs. suppression)
Splitting
Belief that people are either all good or all bad at different times due to intolerance of ambiguity
Seen in borderline personality disorder
Altruism
Guilty feelings alleviated by unsolicited generosity towards others
Humor
Appreciating the amusing nature of anxiety-provoking or adverse situation
