Turning Against the self; object of aggressive drive is changing from another to the self, especially in depression and masochism. 

Psychological binding of instinctual drives in intellectual activities. Ex: the adolescents preoccupation with philosophy and religion 

Used the intellectual process to avoid affective expression. 

"All the methods used to get to this dx (end stage cancer) are really interesting.

Ascribing a painful idea or impulse to the external world. 

Attribute feelings/thoughts onto someone else. 

Ex: I don't like a boy named Mike, and I say "I know that dude hates me, I know it" 

You might hate someone but the superego tells you that such hatred is unacceptable. You can solve the problem by believing they hate you.

See you faults in others

Effort to give a logical explanation for painful unconscious material to avoid guilt and shame 

Excuses excuses. Rational explanations to justify ones behavior

"I didn't pass the exam cause it was way more difficult that other years"

Replacing in conscious awareness a painful idea of feeling with its opposites. 

Unacceptable impulse transformed into its opposite. 

Pretend you are different 

EX: Pyromaniac becomes a firefighter 

Ex: a mother has a child she does not want becomes very protective of the child

Withdrawal to an earlier phase of psychosexual development 

Return to an earlier stage of development 

Ex: My 7yr old is wetting his bed again, since he found out he is having a sister"

Act much younger to feel better

The act of obliterating material from conscious awareness. Is capable of mastering powerful impulses. Employed by the ego to keep disturbing or threatening thoughts from being conscious. 

A bad idea or feeling eliminated from consciousness.

forget & forget! Avoid!

Ex" The child was abused by his father, but he doesn't recall any of it. 

Type of reaction formation aimed at protection from painful thoughts/feelings 

Redirecting energies of instinctual drives to generally positive goals that are more acceptable to the ego and superego. (socially acceptable) 

Unacceptable impulse into acceptable channel.

Healthiest of mechanisms. 

Ex": Pyromaniac starts working in a special effect company in Hollywood, where he can blow up things."

2. Using sports to put our aggressions into something constructive. 

Protection against feelings of inferiority and inadequacy stemming from real or imagined personal defects or weakness.

Strengthen one to hide another 

Somatic changes conveyed in symbolic body language; psychic pain is felt in a part of the body. 

Client would transform his/her emotional conflict into physical manifestations. 

Anxiety is transformed into overt physical manifestations 

Avoidance of awareness of some painful aspects of reality 

Refuse to face negative behavior

Blocking external events from awareness if some situation is just too much to handle, the person may refuse to experience it. 

Smokers may refuse to admit to themselves that smoking is bad for your health.  

Investing repressed feelings in a substitute object. Shifting of actions from a desired target to a substitute target when there is some reason why the first target is not permitted or not available 

Take it out on someone else 

Satisfying an impulse (i.e. aggression) with a substitute object 

Ex: Someone who is frustrated by their boss at work may go home and kick their dog 

Ex: A woman rejects her boyfriend but goes out with another man.

Altruism: acquiring gratification through connection with and helping another person who is satisfying the same instincts 

Manner by which one becomes like another person in one or more respects: a more elaborate process than introjection 

Attach to something positive 

Absorbing an idea or image so that it becomes part of oneself. 

Conforms feelings for approval 

Unconscious imitation

Ex: The resident acts and dresses like the attending he admires most"  

Unconscious process in which the ego attempts to expel anxiety-provoking sexual and aggressive impulses from consciousness. 

Defense mechanisms are attempts to protect the self from painful anxiety and are used universally. 

Effects the Amygdala: feels danger - defense (coping skills) - Keeps safe and happy

Separates from ones experience, like outer body experience. 

Ex" When a woman is raped, she felt like she was watching it from above"

Conscious forgetting (only conscious mechanism).

forget & remember.

ex: id rather forget that my dog was run over by a car

Client has thoughts that are inappropriate to the current situations 

Ex: thinking about a party when they are at a funeral