HB - Defense Mechanisms

Question 1

EGO DEFENSE MECHANISMS

Answer 1

• Ego is the psychological foundation of personality and psychopathology (mind)
• Defense mechanisms function under a felt threat to preserve self-esteem, self-cohesion, and relational ties
  
  • Patterned thoughts, feelings, or behaviors that arise in response to (external or internal) threat to avoid or reduce conscious or unconscious stress
  • Always protective no matter how self-defeating or self-destructive they seem
• Defined as adaptive depending on defense employed and context of use
  
  • Projection = almost never adaptive
  • Sublimation = almost always adaptive
  • Denial = maladaptive

Question 2

IMMATURE EGO DEFENSE MECHANISMS

Answer 2

Projection

Individuals own unacceptable impulses, thoughts, or feelings are disavowed and projected onto another person (usually the one conducting the interview)

Acting out

Acting on an unconscious wish or impulse in order to avoiding aware of the emotion that accompanies it. Puts emotion into action without reflection, forethought, guilt, or regard for consequences

Denial

Unconsciously, pushing away difficult or intolerable external difficulties

Dissociation

Defense against the utter and complete helplessness of torture, sexual abuse, and rape. Disrupts and individuals sense of time, identity, and perception, to maintain a sense of psychological control when all appears lost

Regression

Retreat under stress to a previous level of development or coping in order to avoid conflict with one’s present level of functioning

Identification

One takes traits or attributes of another for safety and a sense of security

Primitive idealization (and devaluation)

Individual sees himself and others as all good or all bad as opposed to taking a balanced and integrated perspective; alternating between idealization and devaluation

Question 3

NEUROTIC EGO DEFENSE MECHANISMS

Answer 3

Reaction formation

Prevents the expression or experience of unacceptable thoughts, feelings, or actions by turning them inside out into their opposite

Intellectualization

Overuse of abstract thinking

Displacement

Discharge of pent-up emotions onto a less dangerous object

Undoing

Trying to negate or undo an unacceptable thought, wish, or actual behavior

Repression

Unconscious exclusion from awareness of an unpleasant feeling, impulse, idea, or wish

Question 4

MATURE EGO DEFENSE MECHANISMS

Answer 4

Altruism/ activism

Committing oneself to the needs of others rather than to self

Suppression

Consciously deciding not to attend to a particular feeling or circumstance

Sublimation

Transforming socially objectionable or unacceptable aims into socially acceptable ones

Question 5

ROLE OF UNCONSCIOUS MOTIVATION

Answer 5

• Human lives are governed by internal forces of which they are unaware of and these forces are the primary determinants of who they are and what they do

Question 6

ROLE OF CONFLICT IN PSYCHOPATHOLOGY

Answer 6

• Understanding intrapsychic and interpersonal conflicts is the basis of formulating psychodynamic understandings of human behavior
• This stems from the belief that humans are complex beings that are capable of having conflicting goals and engaging in paradoxical actions

Question 7

FREUD’S DIVISIONS OF HUMAN PERSONALITY

Answer 7

• Id: subconscious part of our personality which houses all of our biological urges/instincts
  
  • Governed by the pleasure principle
    
    • Desire to avoid pain and obtain pleasure
    • Does not understand the concept of delayed gratification
  • Operates according to primary process = wishful/magical thinking
• Ego: develops from and influenced by Id; interacts with environment to fulfill Id’s drives
  
  • Governed by the reality principle
    
    • Delayed gratification (seeks to fulfill Id desires in a realistic way that will benefit in the long term)
  • Operates according to secondary process thinking = realistic/problem solving
  • Functions: cognition, interpersonal relations, voluntary motivation, defense mechanisms
• Superego: internal representation of values, norms, and prohibition of an individual’s parents and society
  
  • Components:
    
    • Conscious
    • Ego-deal (moral perfection human strive form and never attain)

Question 8

INFLUENCE OF THE PAST ON ADULT BEHAVIOR

Answer 8

• Events of the past, especially those of childhood, have a profound influence on behavior in two ways:
  
  • Humans = repeating machines; play our early experiences to master them and obtain gratification
  • Modes of thinking characteristic of childhood remain with individuals as adults
    
    • Transference - bringing beliefs, expectations and perceptions from previous relationships into current life experience
    • Countertransference - inappropriate reaction of doctor to patient; ex: sees patient as little old lady like aunt –> doctor cannot ask patient uncomfortable questions