Defense Mechanisms

›Involves making up acceptable excuses for behaviors that cause us to feel anxious 

• Projection
• Reaction Formation
• Rationalization
• Denial

If you refuse to accept the reality of something that makes you anxious

• Rationalization
• Denial
• Repression
• Sublimation

›Refers to redirecting a forbidden desire into a socially acceptable desire

• Displacement
• Sublimation
• Reaction Formation
• Rationalization

›Occurs when you cannot take out your anger on the source of your frustrations, so you take it out on a less powerful person 

• Reaction Formation
• Projection
• Regression
• Displacement

›Going back to an earlier and less mature pattern of behavior 

• Repression
• Regression
• Rationalization
• Reaction Formation 

›When a person has painful memories and unacceptable thoughts and motives that cause the ego too much anxiety, he/she may push those thoughts or urges out of consciousness down into the unconscious

• Sublimation
• Reaction Formation
• Projection
• Repression

›The ego avoids anxiety by believing impulses coming from within are really coming from other people. 

• Projection
• Reaction Formation
• Denial
• Rationalization

›Involves replacing an unacceptable feeling or urge with an opposite one

• Rationalization
• Reaction Formation
• Displacement 
• Denial

›“The test questions were bad; they didn’t make sense” Is an example of...

• Repression
• Denial
• Sublimation
• Rationalization

›A boy who is extremely jealous of his girlfriend but does not want to admit to himself that he is threatened by her independence may claim, “I’m not jealous—she’s the one who’s always asking where, I’ve been, who that girl was I was talking to. She’s the one who’s jealous. Would be an example of 

• Reaction Formation
• Displacement
• Projection
• Sublimation