Stress and Defense Mechanisms Flashcards
Stress
A state of psychological tension or
strain.
A subfield of psychology concerned with the relationship between psychological factors and physical health and illness.
Health Psychology:
Any environmental demand that creates a state of tension or threat and requires change or adaptation.
Stressor
Source of Stress:
Everyday Hassles (3)
Pressure: A feeling that one must speed
up, intensify, or change the direction of
one’s behavior or live up to a higher
standard of performance.
* Frustration: The feeling that occurs when a person is prevented from reaching a goal.
Conflict: Simultaneous existence of incompatible demands, opportunities,
needs, or goals.
Direct Coping (3)
Confrontation: Acknowledging a stressful situation directly and attempting to find a solution to the problem or to attain the difficult goal.
Compromise: deciding on a more realistic solution or goal when an ideal solution or goal is not practical.
- Withdrawal: Avoiding a situation when
other forms of coping are not practical.
Defense mechanisms
Defense mechanisms are a type of process or coping that results in automatic psychological responses exhibited as a means of protecting the
individual against anxiety
ID VS EGO VS SUPEREGO
id - instincts
ego - reality
superego - morality
Oral stage
- 0-8 months
a. the infant’s sexual pleasure focuses on biting, sucking, and chewing
b. fixation at the oral stage may be linked to adult behavior such as excessive drinking, smoking, pencil chewing, fingernail biting, gum chewing, and excessive eating.
Anal stage
(18-36 months)
a. the child derives sexual pleasure from this region of the body, especially during elimination of feces
b. those who does not resolve this conflict may, as adults, may become:
anal expulsive - messy & disorganized
anal retentive - controlled & neat
Phallic Stage
a. Children seek genital stimulation and develop unconscious sexual desires fro the parent of the opposite sex
b. Children have feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival parent of the same sex
c. In boys, the Oedipus complex is due to the feelings of guilt and fear of the rival parent and they fear castration by their father
d. In girls, the Electra Crisis, which includes penis envy, translates symbolically into the wish of having a child with their father
e. Children deal with these feelings by repression and through identification process (trying to become like the rival parent) which provides gender identity and strengthens the superego
Latency Stage
6 years - puberty
a. Devoid of strictly sexual content
b. The period of sexual repression in late childhood
Genital Stage
puberty into adulthood
a. Maturation of sexual interest
b. Most choose sexual intercourse for gratification
3 types of anxiety by freud
- Neurotic Anxiety - unconscious worry that we will lose control of the id’s urges, resulting in punishment for inappropriate behavior.
- Reality anxiety is fear of real-world events. The cause of this anxiety is usually easily identified. For example, a person might fear receiving a dog bite when they are near a menacing dog. The most common way of reducing this anxiety is to avoid the threatening object.
3.
3 types of anxiety by freud
- Neurotic Anxiety - unconscious worry that we will lose control of the id’s urges, resulting in punishment for inappropriate behavior.
- Reality anxiety is fear of real-world events. The cause of this anxiety is usually easily identified. For example, a person might fear receiving a dog bite when they are near a menacing dog. The most common way of reducing this anxiety is to avoid the threatening object.
- Moral anxiety involves a fear of violating our own moral principles. In order to deal with this anxiety, freud believed that defense mechanisms helped shield the ego from the conflicts created by the id, superego, and reality.
Freud’s Defense Mechanisms
Freud’s Defense Mechanisms include:
▣ Denial
▣ Displacement
▣ Intellectualization
▣ Projection
▣ Rationalization
▣ Reaction Formation
▣ Regression
▣ Repression
▣ Suppression
▣ Sublimation
