Psychological Defences Flashcards
Defenses
From a psychodynamic POV, a diagnosis has a particular defensive pattern
Almost everyone who has an anxiety disorder, they go into avoidance (maladaptive)
Exposure to a small amount of anxiety in order for them to tolerate enough
Counteracts avoidance effect. The more the person avoids, you are positively reinforcing the problem
- Must respect defenses and have compassion
- People with different diagnostic labels have different defensive patterns. When you look at the DSM-V, a diagnosis has a particular defensive pattern.
Anxiety
Avoidance (maladaptive)
The more you avoid, the more anxious
Ex) student with school phobia (anxiety) defends by avoiding school
In CBT, expose to phobia
Paranoia
Projection
Psychotic
Does not have sufficient defenses
Functions of Defenses
Purpose of a defense
1. The avoidance of a powerful, threatening feeling (sometimes anxiety, grief, envy)
Help us adapt to our world in a healthy, creative way and continue to work throughout our life that protect us against threat
2. Maintaining self-esteem
Why We Use Defenses
They become integral in our individual styles of coping; automatic reliance on particular defense is a result of a complex interaction of at least four factors that will show a particular pattern:
- Constitutional temperament because it is not learned and can be seen from day 1
- Nature/number of the stressors that one had in early childhood (sometimes preverbal); what children will experience in early life will determine the kind of defenses they have
- Modeling by significant others (parents, etc)
- i.e “don’t you cry, shape up”; example of 6 year old hitting lunch lady and father rationalizing; how do parents deal with emotion regulation/feelings at home - Consequences/reinforcement effects of using defenses;
- If it works for you you’ll use it again
Examples/Types of Defenses
Reaction formation- tendency to behave in the opposite way to which he thinks or feels
Displacement- satisfying an impulse with a substitute object
Projection- individuals attributing their own unacceptable thoughts, feelings and motives to another person
Regression (become a much younger person)
Repression (keeps out not comfortable thoughts with certain drives and feelings)
Rationalization (I did this because X)
Compartmentalization
Break it up into sections and discloses what she decides to depending on the individual. In order to break the defense, he told the people personnel to direct her always to Dr. Frank to break up the compartmentalization
Sexual Acting out of a teenager
Defense
Substituting sexual pleasure for self-esteem
If a child that doesn’t do well in school is truant, truancy is his defense.
Kids become delinquent when they have been burnt as kids
Summary of research findings on defenses (Phoebe Cramer),
Seven Psychodynamic Observations with Defenses (Cramer)
- Defenses function outside of awareness (Freud)
- You are not aware of the defense when you use it
- Every denial presupposes that on some level you know the truth, because otherwise
what are you denying; might feel shame so they try to save self-esteem
- Defenses develop in a particular order as children mature
- Primitive, expected defense
- Denial is pretty primitive and common for a very young child; if you see a 16 year old using denial, it’s concerning - Present in normal personality
- Are they adaptive or maladaptive - Increasingly used in times of stress
- Reduces the conscious experience of negative emotions
- It operates via the autonomic nervous system
- When a person is uncomfortable with anger, it withholds oxygen from muscles - When used excessively, it’s associated with psychopathology
- People who have personality disorders are more prone to depression and anxiety because they keep using the same maladaptive defenses; they are hardwired into their personality
- For example, can’t handle positive and negative experiences together; either bad or good
