Defense Mechanisms
Name ___________________________
Rationalization:
The attempt to justify actions, attitudes, or thoughts on what are meant to be logical grounds.
This defense usually involves making up acceptable excuses for behaviors that cause us to feel
anxious.
Repression:
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. An unconscious, but purposeful ejection of painful wishes and memories from the
conscious mind or the forgetting of a future event that is dreaded.
Denial:
Refusing to accept the reality of something that makes you anxious.
Projection:
This occurs when a person’s inner feelings are thrown, or projected, outside the self and assigned
to others. The ego attempts to avoid or reduce anxiety by projecting your own instinctual
impulses onto the external world.
Reaction Formation:
Involves replacing an unacceptable feeling or urge with an opposite one. By using this defense,
an individual can conceal his/her true feeling by giving strong expression to its opposite.
Regression:
An individual reacts to environmental frustration by reverting to behavior that was satisfying at a
less mature period of life. When a person is under severe pressure, he/she may start acting in
ways that helped him/her in the past.
Displacement:
This occurs when you cannot take out your anger on the source of your frustrations, so you
displace it or take it out on a less powerful substitute. This behavior becomes more likely when
circumstances do not favor direct and open expression of the emotion.
Sublimation:
Redirecting a forbidden desire into a socially acceptable desire.
Compensation:
This is an attempt to make up for weakness or deprivation in one area by excelling in a different
or a similar activity. The weakness to be compensated for may be real or imaginary.
Fantasy:
An attempt to escape into a dream world when conflicts become too overwhelming. Daydreams
may be a substitute for what a person is unable to accomplish in reality.
Identification:
This occurs when a person attempts to pattern himself/herself after another who is admired. The
behavior serves as one technique by which individuals make themselves acceptable to new
groups.