Psychiatric defense mechanisms Flashcards
Expressing unacceptable feelings and thoughts through actions
Acting out (Immature)
Temporary, drastic change in personality, memory, consciousness, or motor behavior to avoid emotional stress
Dissociation (immature)
Avoiding the awareness of some painful reality
Denial (immature)
Transferring avoided ideas and feelings to some neutral person or object
Displacement (immature)
Mother yells at child bc husband yelled at her
Displacement (immature)
Partially remaining at a more childish level of development
Fixation (immature)
- vs. regression
- Men fixating on sports games
Modeling behavior after another person who is more powerful
Identification (immature)
Separating feelings from Ideas and events
Isolation (immature)
Describing murder in graphic detail with no emotional response is an example of:
Isolation (immature)
Attributing an unacceptable internal response to an external source. For example, a man who wants another woman thinks his wife is cheating on him
Projection (immature)
Proclaiming logical reasons for actions actually performed for other reasons, usually to avoid self-blame
Rationalization (immature)
After Bill got fired, he claimed the job wasn’t important anyway. This is an example of
Rationalization (immature)
Replacing a warded-off idea or feeling by an (unconsciously derived) emphasis on it’s opposite
Reaction formation (immature)
A man with lots of sexual thoughts enters a monastery and becomes an outspoken advocate of abstinence. Example of:
Reaction formation (immature)
Turning back the maturational clock and going back to earlier modes of dealing with the world
Regression (immature)
Involuntary withholding an idea or feeling from conscious awareness. Ex: not remembering the details of a traumatic experience
Repression (immature)
Believing that people are either all good or all bad
Splitting (immature)
Alleviating guilty feelings by unsolicited generosity toward others
Altruism (Mature)
Appreciating the amusing nature of an anxiety-provoking or adverse situation
Humor (Mature)
Replacing an unacceptable wish with a course of action that is similar to the wish but does not conflict with one’s value system. Example: teenager playing football to redirect anger at his dad
Sublimation (Mature)
Intentional withholding of an idea or feeling from conscious awareness. Ex: choosing not to worry about the big game until it is time to play
Suppression (Mature)
What are the Cluster A personality disorders?
“Weird”
Paranoid
Schizoid
Schizotypal
What are the Cluster B personality disorders?
"Wild" Antisocial Borderline Histrionic Narcissistic
What are the Cluster C personality disorders?
“Worried”
Avoidant
Obsessive compulsive
Dependent
