This document discusses defense mechanisms according to Sigmund Freud and later theorists. It begins by defining defense mechanisms as unconscious mental processes that the ego uses to reduce anxiety. It then outlines Freud's concepts of the ego, id, and superego and how they relate to anxiety. The document proceeds to summarize different theorists' contributions, including Anna Freud's focus on defenses operating against anxiety and George Vaillant's classification system. It provides examples and descriptions of different defense mechanisms, grouping them into narcissistic-psychotic, immature, neurotic, and mature categories. Overall, the document provides a comprehensive overview of psychoanalytic theories and classifications of defense mechanisms.

1. PRESENTER-DR. SHANUSONI
MODERATOR-MAJOR(DR.) RAKESH
SAXENA
DEFENSE MECHANISM

2. Ego, Id and
Superego

3. Ego is the mediator of
the struggle between
superego and id.
When superego and
id are in conflict, there
is anxiety.

4. Defense mechanisms according
to Sigmund Freud
“ Defense mechanisms are unconscious
mental processes used by ego to reduce
anxiety”
People seek to avoid anxiety.
When person cannot think of rational ways of escaping
the situation, ego uses defence mechanisms to escape
anxiety.

5. Genesis of defense
mechanisms

6. Properties of defence
mechanisms
According to Freud,
1. Major means of managingconflictandaffect.
2. Relatively unconscious.
3. Discrete from each other
4. Although often the hallmarksofpsychiatric
syndromes, they are reversible
5. Adaptive as well as pathological.

7. They deny, falsify or distort reality
They work through self- deception(distorting reality so
that it becomes less threatening.)
Specific to id impulses.
Depends on developmental stage

8. Anna
Freud
First comprehensive study of
defense mechanisms.
Ego and mechanisms of
defense- 1937
Defense operates against the
un-pleasure or the anxiety
generated by an unacceptable
wish.
Signal anxiety-
“ not directly a conflicted instinctual
tension, but a signal occurring in the
ego of an anticipated instinctual
tension”
Anxiety which alerts the ego to
danger and stimulates defense

9. George Eman
Vaillant
“ Defence mechanisms are
innate, involuntary
regulatory processes that
allow individuals to reduce
cognitive dissonance and
to minimize sudden
changes in internal and
external environment by
altering perception of self
or object or idea or feeling.”
Classified defences based
on psychoanalytical
developmental level.

10. Unconscious responses to external stressors as
well as to anxiety arising from internal
conflict.
Originally described by Sigmund Freud
.
Later elaborated by his daughter , Anna Freud.
Freud identified defense mechanisms in his
study of the ‘psychopathology of ever yday
life’

11. George Valliant’sClassification
Four types:-
Narcissistic-Psychotic Defenses
Immature Defenses
Neurotic Defenses
Mature Defenses

12. NARCI SSI STI
C- PSY CHOTI
C
I MMATUR E NEUR OTIC MATURE
DENIAL ACTING OUT CONTROLLING ALTRUISM
PROJECTION BLOCK ING DISPLACEMENT ANTICIPATION
DISTORTION HYPOCHONDRIASIS DISSOCIATION ASCETICISIM
INTROJECTION EX TERNALIZATION HUMOR
PASSIVE-
AGGRESSIV E
BEHAVIOR
INHIBITION SUBLIMATION
PROJECTION INTELLECTUALIZA
TI ON
SUPRESSION
REGRESSION ISOLATION
SCHIZOID FANTASY RATIONALIZATION
SOMATIZATION REACTION
FORMATIO
N

13. Narcissistic-Psychotic
Defenses
These defenses are usually found as part of a
psychotic process, but may also occur in young
children and adult dreams or fantasies.
They share the common note of avoiding, negating,
or distorting reality.

14. 1.Projectio
nPerceiving and reacting to unacceptable inner
impulses and their derivatives as though they were
outside the self.
On a psychotic level, this takes the form of frank
delusions about external reality, usually
persecutory, includes both perception of one's own
feelings and those of another with subsequent
acting on the perception (psychotic paranoid
delusions).
Impulses may derive from id or superego
(hallucinated recriminations).

15. 2.Denia
l Psychotic denial of external reality, unlike repression,
affects perception of external reality more than
perception of internal reality.
Seeing, but refusing to acknowledge what one sees, or
hearing and negating what is actually heard are
examples of denial and exemplify the close
relationship of denial to sensory experience.
Not all denial, however, is necessarily psychotic. Like
projection, denial may function in the service of more
neurotic or even adaptive objectives.
Denial avoids becoming aware of some painfu l aspect
of reality. At the psychotic level, the denied reality may
be replaced by a fantasy or delusion.

16. 3.Distortio
nGrossly reshaping the experience of external
reality to suit inner needs, including unrealistic
megalomanic beliefs, hallucinations, wish-fulfilling
delusions, and employing sustained feelings of
delusional grandiosity, superiority, or entitlement.

17. Immature
Defenses
These mechanisms are fairly common in
preadolescent years and in adult character
disorders.
They are often mobilized by anxieties related to
intimacy or its loss.
Although they are regarded as socially awkward
and undesirable, they often moderate with
improvement in interpersonal relationships or with
increased personal maturity.

18. 1.Acting
out
The direct expression of an unconscious wish or
impulse in action to avoid being conscious of the
accompanying affect.
The unconscious fantasy, involving objects, is lived
out and impulsively enacted in behavior, thus
gratifying the impulse more than the prohibition
against it.
On a chronic level, acting out involves giving in to
impulses to avoid the tension that would result
from postponement of their expression.

19. 2.Blockin
gAn inhibition, usually temporary in nature, of
affects especially, but possibly also thinking and
impulses. It is close to repression in its effects but
has a component of tension arising from the
inhibition of the impulse, affect, or thought.

20. 3.Hypochondriasi
sTransformation of reproach toward others arising
from bereavement, loneliness, or unacceptable
aggressive impulses, into self-reproach in the form
of somatic complaints of pain, illness, and so forth.
Real illness may also be overemphasized or
exaggerated for its evasive and regressive
possibilities. Thus, responsibility may be avoided,
guilt may be circumvented, and instinctual
impulses may be warded off.

21. 4.Introjectio
nIn addition to the developmental functions of the
process of introjection, it also can serve specific
defensive functions.
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.
Anxiety consequent to separation or tension arising
out of ambivalence toward the object is thus
diminished.
If the object is lost, introjection nullifies or negates the
loss by taking on characteristics of the object, thus in a
sense internally preserving the object.
Even if the object is not lost, the internalization usually
involves a shift of cathexis reflecting a significant
alteration in the object relationship.

22. lntrojection of a feared object serves to avoid anxiety
through internalizing the aggressive characteristic of
the object, thereby putting the aggression under one's
own control.
The aggression is no longer felt as coming from
outside, but is taken within and utilized defensively,
thus turning the subject's weak, passive position into
an active, strong one. The classic example is
"identification with the aggressor.
"lntrojection can also take place out of a sense of guilt
in which the self-punishing introject is attributable to the
hostile destructive component of an ambivalent tie to
an object.
Thus, the self-punitive qualities of the object are taken
over and established within one's self as a symptom or
character trait, which effectively represents both the
destruction and the preservation of the object. This is
also cal led identification with the victim.

23. 5.Passive aggressive
behaviour
Aggression toward an object expressed indirectly
and ineffectively through passivity, masochism,
and turning against the self.

24. 6.Projectio
nOn a nonpsychotic level, projection involves
attributing one's own unacknowledged feelings to
others; it includes severe prejudice, rejection of
intimacy through suspiciousness, hypervigilance
to external danger, and injustice collecting.
Projection operates correlatively to introjection,
such that the material of the projection derives
from the internalized but usually unconscious
configuration of the subject's introjects. At higher
levels of function, projection may take the form of
misattributing or misinterpreting motives, attitudes,
feelings, or intentions of others.

25. 7.Regressio
nA return to a previous stage of development or
functioning to avoid the anxieties or hostilities
involved in later stages. A return to earlier points of
fixation embodying modes of behavior previously
given up.
This is often the result of a disruption of
equilibrium at a later phase of development.
This reflects a basic tendency to achieve
instinctual gratification or to escape instinctual
tension by returning to earlier modes and levels of
gratification when later and more differentiated
modes fail or involve intolerable conflict.

26. 8.Schizoid
fantasy
The tendency to use fantasy and to indulge in
autistic retreat for the purpose of conflict
resolution and gratification

27. 9.Somatizatio
nThe defensive conversion of psychic derivatives
into bodily symptoms; tendency to react with
somatic rather than psychic manifestations.
Infantile somatic responses are replaced by
thought and affect during development
(desomatization); regression to earlier somatic
forms or response (resomatization) may result
from unresolved conflicts and may play an
important role in psychophysiological and
psychosomatic reactions.

28. Neurotic
Defenses
These are common in apparently normal and
healthy individuals as well as in neurotic disorders.
They function usually in the alleviation of
distressing affects and may be expressed in
neurotic forms of behavior.
Depending on circumstances, they can also have
an adaptive or socially acceptable aspect.

29. 1.Controllin
gThe excessive attempt to manage or regulate
events or objects in the environment in the interest
of minimizing anxiety and solving internal conflicts.

30. 2.Displaceme
nt
Involves a purposeful, unconscious shifting of
impulses or affective investment from one object
to another in the interest of solving a conflict.
Although the object is changed, the instinctual
nature of the impulse and its aim remain
unchanged.

31. 3.Dissociatio
nA temporary but drastic modification of character or
sense of personal identity to avoid emotional
distress; it includes fugue states and hysterical
conversion reactions.

32. Externalizatio
nA general term, correlative to internalization,
referring to the tendency to perceive in the external
world and in external objects components of one's
own personality, including instinctual impulses,
conflicts, moods, attitudes, and styles of thinking.
It is a more general term than projection, which is
defined by its derivation from and correlation with
specific introjects.

33. Inhibitio
nThe unconsciously determined limitation or
renunciation of specific ego functions, singly or i n
combination, to avoid anxiety arising out of
conflict with instinctual impulses, superego, or
environmental forces or figures.

34. Intellectualizatio
nThe control of affects and impulses by way of
thinking about them instead of experiencing them.
It is a systematic excess of thinking, deprived of its
affect, to defend against anxiety caused by
unacceptable impulses.

35. Isolatio
nThe intrapsychic splitting or separation of affect
from content resulting in repression of either idea or
affect or the displacement of affect to a different
or substitute content.

36. Rationalisatio
nA justification of attitudes, beliefs, or behavior that
might otherwise be unacceptable by an incorrect
application of justifying reasons or the invention of a
convincing fallacy.

37. Reaction
formation
The management of unacceptable impulses by
permitting expression of the impulse in antithetical
form. This is equivalently an expression of the
impulse in the negative. Where instinctual conflict
is persistent, reaction formation can become a
character trait on a permanent basis, usually as an
aspect of obsessional character.

38. Repressio
nConsists of the expel ling and withholding from
conscious awareness of an idea or feeling. It may
operate either by excluding from awareness what
was once experienced on a conscious level
(secondary repression) or it may curb ideas and
feelings before they have reached consciousness
(primary repression).
The "forgetting" associated with repression is
unique in that it is often accompanied by highly
symbolic behavior, which suggests that the
repressed is not really forgotten.

39. Sexualizatio
nThe endowing of an object or function with sexual
significance that it did not previously have, or
possesses to a lesser degree, to ward off anxieties
connected with prohibited impulses.

40. Mature
defenses
These mechanisms are healthy and adaptive
throughout the life cycle. They are socially
adaptive and useful in the integration of personal
needs and motives, social demands, and
interpersonal relations. They can underlie
seemingly admirable and virtuous patterns of
behavior.

41. Altruis
m
The vicarious but constructive and instinctually
gratifying service to others, even to the detriment
of the self. This must be distinguished from
altruistic surrender, which involves a masochistic
surrender of direct gratification or of instinctual
needs in favor of fulfilling the needs of others to
the detriment of the self, with vicarious satisfaction
only being gained through introjection.

42. Anticipatio
nThe realistic anticipation of or planning for future
inner discomfort: Implies overly concerned
planning, worrying, and anticipation of dire and
dreadful possible outcomes.

43. Asceticis
m
The elimination of directly pleasurable affects
attributable to an experience. The moral element is
implicit i n setting values on specific pleasures.
Asceticism is directed against all "base" pleasures
perceived consciously, and gratification is derived
from the renunciation.

44. Humo
r 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.

45. Sublimatio
nThe gratification of an impulse whose goal is retained
but whose aim or object is changed from a socially
objectionable one to a socially valued one.
Libidinal sublimation involves a desexualization of
drive impulses and the placing of a value judgment
that substitutes what is valued by the superego or
society.
Sublimation of aggressive impulses takes place
through pleasurable games and sports.
Unlike neurotic defenses, sublimation allows instincts
to be channeled rather than dammed up or diverted.
Thus, in sublimation, feelings are acknowledged,
modified, and directed toward a relatively significant
person or goal so that modest instinctual satisfaction
results.

46. Supressio
nThe conscious or semiconscious decision to
postpone attention to a conscious impulse or
conflict.

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