Types of defense mechanisms: o Pathological (psychotic denial, delusional projection) o Immature (fantasy, projection, passive aggression, acting out) o Neurotic (intellectualization, reaction formation, dissociation, displacement, repression) o Mature (humour, sublimation, suppression, altruism, anticipation)
Repression It is the automatic transformation of thoughts from the conscious awareness to the unconscious where it is unavailable for conscious recall.Dissociation Portion of the personality which is the source of stress may be eliminated.It is the automatic forgetting of unpleasant thoughts.Resistance is maintaining repression
Suppression: it is conscious control of wishes and unacceptable acts that
is prevented from being revealed
Rationalization
It is to hide from oneself and others the actual motive for his behavior.Examples:
Failing to get a job is rationalized that a job has many bad features
Sublimation
The consciously unacceptable instinctual drives find expression in socially
acceptable forms.Examples: on reading stories we identify ourselves
with the hero
Projection
To find in others the feelings and ideas he actually possess
Introjection
Loved or admired objects are symbolically taken into oneself.Identification
It plays a healthy role in child development and in enjoyment of life.It is the mechanism by which an individual enhances self-esteem through
feeling, in fantasy or in actual life as if he was another person with whom
he identifies himself.Compensation
One attempts to cover or balance real or fancied defects by extraeffort to
excel in a different activity.FantasyIt is imaginary sequence of events or mental images which act to resolve emotional conflict through unreal solution.Examples: a backwarded students may put an
extraeffort to excel in sports or social activities to be famous in school.Example: a mother may be overprotective of a child whom
she unconsciously rejects
Displacement
An emotional feeling is transferred from its actual object to a substitute.Reaction formation
Is to show the opposite attitudes and feelings of those possessed
unconsciously.Undoing
To cancel out or nullify an event or actions previously done by certain
counteraction.Regression
If a child developed trauma at any stage of development, he will be fixated
there
It is a return to a more primitive mode of behavior the person may be
trying to return to a period of past security.The sex drives could be expressed in writing poems or
letters.Denial
When people deny reality, they ignore or refuse to acknowledge the
existence of unpleasant experience (of which they are fully aware) to
protect themselves.When emotions are so powerful that they become frightening, one may
deny these emotions.When a child deliberately hits his brother he runs hugging
and kissing him.This occurs in day dreams.A
teacher may deal hardly with the students, not because of their bad
behavior but because manager of school treated him badly.It plays a role
in personality development.Examples: somnambulism.