Defense Mechanism Flashcards
Repression
Painful feelings are conscious initially and then forgotten, but may return occasionally. Ranges from momentary memory lapses to forgetting the details of a catastrophic event
Denial
Unpleasant relating is ignored and a realistic interpretation of potentially threatening events are replaced by benign inaccurate ones
Suppression
Unpleasant feelings are suppressed through a conscious effort ito ignore them. Feelings are deliberately ignored. Considered one of the more mature and healthy defense mechanism.
Projection
Undesirable feelings are attributed to another person
Displacement
Redirecting your negative emotions onto a less threatening stimulus
Reaction Formation
Behaving in a completely different way than one feels. Reduces anxiety by taking up the opposite feelings.
Regression
When confronted with stress, people revert back to patterns of behavior uses earlier in development / at a younger age
Fixation
With an oral fixation, when faced with stress, they bite nails, drink, smoke
Identification
Taking on the characteristics of someone else
Rationalization
An attempt to deny one’s true motive by using a reason that is more log ail or socially acceptable than one’s own reasons
Isolation
Compartmentalizing one’s experience so that an event becomes separated from the feelings that are associated with it, allowing it to be part of your conscious mind without the threat of painful feelings
Sublimation
Involves rechanneling the energy connected with an unacceptable impulse into one that is more socially acceptable
Compensation
Devoting unusual efforts to achievement in order to overcome feelings of inferiority