DEFENSE MECHANISMSPART II

Dr Aarti Gorwadkar

SUPEREGO

• Superego reflects the internalization of cultural rules, mainly taught by parents applying their guidance and influence.

• The conscience and ego ideal communicate their requirements to the ego with the feelings of guilt, pride and/or shame.

• Plays the critical and moralising role.

ASPECTS OF SUPEREGO

CONSCIENCE

EGO

IDEAL

SUPEREGO

EGO• Ego is the mediator between the unconscious

world of the Id and Superego and the conscious world of reality and is the organized realistic part.

• The ego’s job is to mediate the struggle between the superego and id.

• When superego and id are in conflict the person experiences ‘signal anxiety’.

• Ego must convert the signal anxiety to defuse it and make it less threatening.

ID

• Instinctual drives are set of uncoordinated instinctual trends

Topographical Model Of Mind

DEFENSES

• Defenses are mental operations that, as a rule remove some component(s) of unpleasurable affects from conscious awareness – the thought, the sensation, or both.

• Defenses are now conceptualized as an ego function.

PILLARS OF DEFENSE MECHANISMS By PHEBE CRAMER

• Pillar I. Defense mechanisms are cognitive operations that operate outside of awareness.

• Pillar II. There is a chronology of defense mechanism development.

• Pillar III. Defenses are part of normal, everyday functioning. The use of mature defenses will support successful functioning: the use of immature defenses will be related to less successful functioning.

• Pillar IV. Under conditions of stress, the use of defense mechanisms will increase.

• Pillar V. Defense use under conditions of stress will reduce the conscious experience of anxiety or other negative affect.

• Pillar VI. The use of defenses will be related to other non-volitional, non-conscious processes that are associated with emotional arousal.

• Pillar VII. Excessive use of defenses, or the use of immature, age-inappropriate defenses, is associated with psychopathology.

CLASSIFICATIONMATURE IMMATURE NARCISSISTIC NEUROTIC

SUBLIMATION ACTING OUT DENIAL DISPLACEMENT

ANTICIPATION BLOCKING DISTORTION DISSOCIATION

HUMOR HYPOCHONDRIASIS PROJECTIVE IDENTIFICATION

REPRESSION

ALTRUISM IDENTIFICATION PROJECTION INHIBITION

ASCETISICM PASSIVE AGGRESSION

SPLITTING INHIBITION

SUPPRESION INTROJECTION PRIMITIVE IDEALIZATION

EXTERNALIZATION

PROJECTION ISOLATION

REGRESSION RATIONALIZATION

SCHIZOID FANTASY REACTION FORMATION

SOMATIZATION INTELLECTUALIZATION

DENIAL

• Denial is the refusal to accept reality or fact, acting as if a painful event, thought or feeling did not exist.

• It is considered one of the most primitive of the defense mechanisms because it is characteristic of early childhood development.

Subsets Of DenialDENIAL PER SE

DENIAL BY DEED

DENIAL BY WORDS

DENIAL

PROJECTION• Projection is the misattribution of a person’s

undesired thoughts, feelings or impulses onto another person who does not have those thoughts, feelings or impulses.

• Projection is used especially when the thoughts are considered unacceptable for the person to express, or they feel completely ill at ease with having them.

• Projection is often the result of a lack of insight and acknowledgement of one’s own motivations and feelings.

PROJECTIVE IDENTIFICATION

• The individual remains aware of his/her own affects or impulses but misattributes them as justifiable reactions to the other person.

SPLITTING

• Differentiating a project in two – a purely loving half versus a purely destructive half and then experiencing the other person as having only either one of the split part.

ACTING OUT• Performing an extreme behavior in order to

express thoughts or feelings the person feels incapable of otherwise expressing.

IDENTIFICATION

• Mental representation of an external object onto self.

• Important in the development of the normal psyche of an individual.

INTROJECTION

• The introjection of a loved object involves the internalization of characteristics of the object with the goal of ensuring closeness to and constant presence of the object.

PASSIVE AGGRESSION

• Reaction Formation is the converting of unwanted or dangerous thoughts, feelings or impulses into their opposites.

REGRESSION• Regression is the reversion to an earlier stage

of development in the face of unacceptable thoughts or impulses.

• Example an adolescent who is overwhelmed with fear, anger and growing sexual impulses might become clingy and start exhibiting earlier childhood behaviors he has long since overcome, such as bedwetting.

• An adult may regress when under a great deal of stress, refusing to leave their bed and engage in normal, everyday activities.

SOMATIZATION

• The defensive conversion of psychic derivatives into bodily symptoms; tendency to react with somatic rather than psychic manifestations.

HYPOCHONDRIASIS

• Transformation of reproach towards others arising out of bereavement, loneliness, or unacceptable aggressive impulses, into self reproach in the form of somatic complaints of pain, illness and so forth.

DISPLACEMENT

• Displacement is the redirecting of thoughts feelings and impulses directed at one person or object, but taken out upon another person or object.

• People often use displacement when they cannot express their feelings in a safe manner to the person they are directed at.

DISSOCIATION

• Dissociation is when a person loses track of time and/or person, and instead finds another representation of their self in order to continue in the moment.

• Time and their own self-image may not flow continuously, as it does for most people. In this manner, a person who dissociates can “disconnect” from the real world for a time.

REPRESSION

• Repression is the unconscious blocking of unacceptable thoughts, feelings and impulses.

• The key to repression is that people do it unconsciously, so they often have very little control over it.

• “Repressed memories” are memories that have been unconsciously blocked from access or view.

INTELLECTUALIZATION• Intellectualization is the overemphasis on

thinking when confronted with an unacceptable impulse, situation or behavior without employing any emotions whatsoever to help mediate and place the thoughts into an emotional, human context.

• Rather than deal with the painful associated emotions, a person might employ intellectualization to distance themselves from the impulse, event or behavior.

RATIONALIZATION

• Rationalization is putting something into a different light or offering a different explanation for one’s perceptions or behaviors in the face of a changing reality.

ISOLATION OF AFFECT

• The intrapsychic splitting or seperation of affect from the content resulting in repression of either idea or affect or the displacement of affect to a different or substitute content.

REACTION FORMATION

• Reaction Formation is the converting of unwanted or dangerous thoughts, feelings or impulses into their opposites.

ALTRUISM

• The vicarious but constructive and instinctually gratifying service to others, even to the detriment of the self.

ANTICIPATION

• The realistic anticipation of or planning for future inner discomfort: implies overly concerned planning, worrying, and anticipation of dire and dreadful possible outcomes.

SUBLIMATION

• Sublimation is simply the channeling of unacceptable impulses, thoughts and emotions into more acceptable ones.

• Refocusing such unacceptable or harmful impulses into productive use helps a person channel energy that otherwise would be lost or used in a manner that might cause the person more anxiety.

COMPENSATION

• Compensation is a process of psychologically counterbalancing perceived weaknesses by emphasizing strength in other arenas.

• By emphasizing and focusing on one’s strengths, a person is recognizing they cannot be strong at all things and in all areas in their lives.

• When done appropriately and not in an attempt to over-compensate, compensation is defense mechanism that helps reinforce a person’s self-esteem and self-image.

HUMOR

• The overt expression of feelings without personal discomfort or immobilization and without unpleasant effect on others.

• Humor allows one to bear, and yet focus on, what is too terrible to be borne, in contrast to wit, which always involves distraction or displacement away from the affective issue.

ASCETISICM

• The elimination of directly pleasurable affects attributable to an experience.

• It is directed against all “base” pleasures perceived consciously, and gratification is derived from renunciation.

SUPPRESSION• Consciously or semi-consciously postponing

attention to a conscious impulse or conflict.• Suppression is the process of deliberately

trying to stop thinking and keep out of conscious awareness certain thoughts.

ASSERTIVENESS

• Assertiveness is the emphasis of a person’s needs or thoughts in a manner that is respectful, direct and firm.

• People who are assertive strike a balance where they speak up for themselves, express their opinions or needs in a respectful yet firm manner, and listen when they are being spoken to.

FLYING IN FORMATION

NEUROSIS

• Displacement • Symbolization • Repression • Transference • Identification with a fantasy

OCD

• Reaction formation• Undoing• Isolation of affect• Externalization • Compartmentalization • Intellectualization • Rationalization

DEPRESSION & HIGH SUICIDAL RISK

• Turning on to self• Passivity • Minimization • Withdrawal • Identification with the aggressor or victim • Disidentification • Identification with a lost object • Identification with the intoject • Reaction formation

HISTRIONIC PERSONALITY

• Socialization • Dramatization • Impulsivity • Exaggeration • Generalization • Identification with own fantasy • Passive to active

PSYCHOTIC DISORDERS

• Denial ( all subtypes)• Splitting • Deanimation • Hallucination • Dedefferentiation • Reconstruction of reality• Hyperabstraction

Warm ETHICS

• Warmth • Empathy • Trust • Holding environment • Identity • Closeness • Stability

REFERENCES• 101 DEFENSES: How the mind shields itself by

Jerome.S.Blackman• Grohol, J. (2007). 15 Common Defense

Mechanisms. Psych Central. Retrieved on February 24, 2015, from http://psychcentral.com/lib/15-common-defense-mechanisms/0001251

• Seven Pillars of Defense Mechanism Theory By Phebe Cramer[Paper presented on June 13, 2009, at the Annual Meeting of the Rapaport-Klein Study Group]

Thank You!