Ego Defense Mechanisms 2
Terms
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- Compensation
- Covering up a real or perceived weakness by emphasizing a trait one considers more desirable.
- Denial
- Refusing to acknowledge the existence of a real situation or the feelings associated with it. (Global situation:death, chemical dependance, illness/disease; not small issue like repression)
- Displacement
- The transfer of feelings from one target to another that is considered less threatening or that is neutral. (Cat-Kicking)
- Identification
- An attempt to increase self-worth by acquiring certain attributes and characteristics of an individual one admires. (looking like rockstar)
- Intellectualization
- An attempt to avoid expressing actual emotions associated with a stressful situation by using the intellectual processes of logic, reasoning, and analysis.
- Introjection
- Integrating the beliefs and values of another individual into one’s own ego structure. (mimicing values and beliefs)
- Isolation
- Separating a thought or memory from the feeling tone or emotion associated with it. (emotional seperation from memory)
- Projection
- Attributing feelings or impulses unacceptable to one’s self to another person.
- Rationalization
- Attempting to make excuses or formulate logical reasons to justify unacceptable feelings or behaviors. (Plausible Excuse)
- Reaction Formation
- Preventing unacceptable or undesirable thoughts or behaviors from being expressed by exaggerating opposite thoughts or types of behaviors.
- Repression
- Involuntarily blocking unpleasant feelings and experiences from one’s awareness. (Smaller issue not global like denial)
- Sublimation
- Rechanneling of drives or impulses that are personally or socially unacceptable into activities that are constructive.
- Suppression
- The voluntary blocking of unpleasant feelings and experiences from one’s awareness.
- Undoing
- Symbolically negating or canceling out an experience that one finds intolerable.
- Regression
- When 2 year-old Jay is hospitalized for tonsillitis he will drink only from a bottle, although his mother states he has been drinking from a cup for 6 months. (previous level of functioning)