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Sigmund Freud. Defense Mechanisms. Repression. What you do: Keep painful thoughts and feelings away from consciousness. Don’t think about it! Examples: Early abuse Lies you have told Painful memories Problems: Diverts needed energy
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Sigmund Freud Defense Mechanisms
Repression What you do: • Keep painful thoughts and feelings away from consciousness. • Don’t think about it! Examples: • Early abuse • Lies you have told • Painful memories Problems: • Diverts needed energy • Blocks out stressful situations that could be worked out
Denial • Ego feels anxiety from perception of strong external or internal danger it can’t escape or deal with directly What you do: • Tell yourself it is not happening • Tell yourself it is not your fault • Conscious denial
Displacement Feeling: • anxiety • anger What you do: • Direct the feeling away from its actual target to another, safer target
Projection What you do: • Attribute your own undesirable impulses, feeling, or desires to another person Examples: • “I hate her” really means “I think she hates me” Problems: • Misperceive the other person’s motivations • Don’t deal with your own feelings • Overreaction
Reaction-Formation What you do: • In defense against the threatening impulse, express the opposite impulse. Examples: • Someone frightens you so you act super nice • Someone frightens you so you snub them • The sex offender becomes the great protector of society. Problems: • False persona
Rationalization What you do: • Make up excuses for inadequacies, failure, or loss Examples: • If I had wanted to try hard, I could have done it too. • If my friend were more understanding, I wouldn’t have to loose my temper. • If I wanted to I could have a body like his/hers. • If I had better teachers, I would have gotten higher grades. Problems: • Energy would be better spent on improving. • The truth catches up with you.
Compensation What you do: • Develop or strengthen positive traits to make up for limitations • Distract attention from the weaknesses Examples: • Weak in school, excellent in sports. • Class clown Problems: • Unbalanced • Incompetent in some areas
Regression What you do: • Revert back to behavior of an earlier stage • Use childhood coping mechanisms Examples: • Temper tantrums, swearing, fighting, sulking, crying Problems: • Does not solve the problem • People think you are immature • You are not learning to cope well
Fantasy What you do: • Dreaming, imagining instead of living in the present world, because you don’t feel competent to achieve. • Pretending Examples: • Wanting to look good and pretending to yourself that you are one of the movie stars you read about. • Making up stories about how successful you are, rather than working on your success. Problems: • You get stuck in the fantasy rather than using your talents to become successful.