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The defense mechanisms Freud's daughter, Anna, who still does psychoanalysis, summarized several ego defenses in The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense (1936). As noted above, the ego protects itself from three threats: (l) the id, because the urges from the id can become so strong that they overwhelm the ego, bringing with them irrational chaos. Thus, we might panic if our sexual or brutally hostile urges popped into our conscience. (2) The outside world or real danger. For example, the ego would realize that a child's parents staunchly forbid any aggression; thus, showing the slightest hint of murderous urges to them would produce severe anxiety. Likewise, a fear of driving recklessly or of being rejected by a lover may have a certain basis in reality. (3) The superego is a threat to the ego too.
The basic duty of the ego is to find some satisfaction for the id. If the superego detects any immoral aspects in our behavior, there is hell to pay in the form of self censure and guilt. The ego tries to avoid this discomfort. But, keep in mind that, according to Freud's original theory, the ego defenses are successful only so long as the conscious part of the ego is unaware that another part of the ego is defending itself! Uncovering some of your ego defenses may be interesting fun, but your defenses against really threatening urges or ideas are not likely to disclose what they are doing to your conscious awareness. Anna Freud used the defenses as hints of the repressed, scary impulses (instincts) that were underlying the patient's troubles.
For example, the goodie-goodie 5 -year-old dethroned king, who never shows anger towards his younger sister, his competitor, is assumed to be hiding his sibling rivalry. The defenses can also give us insight into our own mental processes -- sometimes mental gymnastics or contortions. All defenses involve distortions of reality; they are ways of feeling better by fooling ourselves. If we realized these defenses in our lives, we might handle reality better.
Almost all adjustment books mention these defense mechanisms, even the writers who are arrogantly critical of Freud. An excellent text about Sigmund and Anna Freud and the ego defenses is by Christopher Monte (1980). Repression: shoving thoughts and urges that are unacceptable or distressing into our unconscious. This is what happens to the unacceptable urges of childhood -- the ego represses them.
Taboo ideas, like incest, would probably never get into consciousness or, if they got there, they'd be quickly repressed. Sometimes dreams or slips of the tongue or attempts at humor reveal our unconscious motives. For example, if a teacher ridiculed you in class, you might dream he / she had a horrible auto accident. Or, trying hard to say something nice to the teacher a few days later, you comment after class, 'each of your lectures seems better than the next. ' Or, if you were unfortunate enough to be asked to introduce your former teacher at a symposium and said, 'I'd like to prevent -- huh -- I mean present Dr. , 's ome might guess the truth. All these speculations about repressed feelings are just guesses. Repression must be distinguished from suppression and withdrawal.
Suppression is more conscious and deals with unpleasant but not usually utterly despicable acts or thoughts. Examples: You may want to forget a bad experience or an unpleasant chore to be done (a term paper to write or expressing sympathy to a friend whose mother has just died). You just forget to do things or you may deliberately try to think of other things so you can 'settle down' and function better. It may, indeed, be rational to worry about one thing at a time (suppressing the other worries) and to withdraw from a stressful situation. Counting to 10 before acting in anger is another good example of brief suppression. Denial: refusing to admit or face a threatening situation.
Denial can be unconscious as when a dying person refuses to admit what is going to happen or when a person with a heart condition denies that their overeating or smoking is of any consequence. Denial can be semi-conscious as when a person refuses to see any problem in a relationship when it is pretty obvious to everyone else. Denial is probably quite conscious when a post-puberty young man of 13 says, usually with a grin, 'I'm not interested in girls. ' Research (Roth & Cohen, 1986) has shown that there are two major ways to cope with stress: (a) avoiding, repressing, looking away, forgetting, escaping and letting someone else be responsible or (b) approaching, learning more, obsessing, being vigilant, and taking charge of planning what to do. The first way (denial) reduces stress; the second way (sensitization) increases our chances to cope. We all use both ways, although we may tend in general to be avoider's or approaches, while in specific situations, like facing surgery, we each have our favorite way of coping. Which is the better way?
Denial is probably better when the situation is out of your control (a sudden crisis or in surgery) and approach better when you can do something about the situation (avoid or lessen a problem). The disadvantages of each way are: more stress and useless worry for the approaches, and more failures to act and lack of awareness for the avoider's. As you can see, ideally we would use both avoiding and approaching ways of coping with a particular stress over time. This knowledge about denial is gradually being gathered (Breznitz, 1983). For instance, Lazarus has found that patients facing surgery who deny the dangers and have a false sense of security have a better post-operative recovery (Derlega and Jan, 1981). However, many patients could have avoided surgery in the first place by carefully attending to their health.
Thus, denial lets us eat lots of fat, relaxes us during our heart attack, and then again interferes with our taking care of serious health problems. Regression: resorting to earlier ways of acting or feeling, although it is no longer appropriate. Examples: Throwing a temper tantrum like a 3 -year-old at age 18. Under stress an adult might curl up in bed, suck their thumb, and clutch their old teddy bear. A 23 -year-old experiencing serious financial difficulties might feel an urge to return to his / her parent's home and let them take care of him / her . These are not planned actions; they are old habits that return automatically.
Rationalization: Giving excuses for shortcomings and thereby avoiding self-condemnation, disappointments, or criticism by others. Examples: After stealing from a large company, 'they won't miss it. Everybody does it. ' After getting about average grades on the GRE (not good enough to get into Ph. D. programs), 'I would have hated five more years of research and theory anyway. ' This is called 'sour grapes, ' from Aesop's tale about the fox who decided the grapes too high to reach were sour anyway.
The reverse is 'sweet lemons, ' an assumption that everything happens for the best, 'failing the GRE's was a blessing in disguise, now I know I want to become a counselor -- maybe a social worker -- and not a Ph. D. ' Projection: Attributing to others one's own unacceptable thoughts, feelings, impulses, etc. So, the white person with repressed sexual urges may believe that all blacks are preoccupied with sex. The moralistic spouse, who is tempted to have an affair, begins to suspicion that his / her partner has been unfaithful. A slightly different form of paranoid projection is when a self-critical feeling or idea is attributed to others.
Suppose a young woman from a religious family has strong feelings against any sexual urges she might have and, thus, almost never has them. She might start to believe, however, that others are critical of her whenever she wears a dress that shows her shape. Displacement: redirecting our impulses (often anger) from the real target (because that is too dangerous) to a safer but innocent person. The classic case is the frustrated worker, who can't yell at the boss but comes home and yells at the spouse, who yells at the children, who kick the dog, i.
e. we take it out on the people we love. Suppose we were very envious of the relationship between our sister and our mother. Our feelings may never be expressed towards them directly but take the form of resentment and distrust of most other women. Another form of displacement is what Anna Freud described as 'turning-against-self. ' In the last example, instead of the hatred of one's sister and mother being turned on women in general, it could be turned against oneself. This is a commonly assumed dynamic in depression and suicide.
Reaction formation: a denial and reversal of our feelings. Love turns into hate or hate into love. 'Hell has no fury like a spurned lover. ' Where there is intense friction between a child and a parent, it can be converted into exaggerated shows of affection, sometimes sickeningly sweet and overly polite. The feelings and actions resulting from a reaction formation are often excessive, for instance the loud, macho male may be concealing (from himself) sexual self-doubts or homosexual urges. Or, the person who is unconsciously attracted to the same sex may develop an intense hatred of gays. People, such as TV preachers, who become crusaders against 'loose morals' may be struggling with their own sexual impulses.
Identification: allying with someone else and becoming like them in order to allay anxiety. Remember Freud's notion that the Oedipus and Electra Complexes are resolved by identification with the same sexed parent. Other examples: occasionally an oppressed person will identify with the oppressor, some Jews helped Hitler, some women want their husbands to be dominant and feel superior to them and other women. In other cases, a person may associate with and emulate an admired person or group to reduce anxiety.
High school cliques serve this purpose. A new college freshman may feel tense and alone and out of place; she notices that most other students are 'a little dressed up, ' not sloppy shirt and jeans. Her roommates insist on studying from 7: 00 to 10: 00 every night except Friday and Saturday; they are more serious than her old friends and their conversations reflect these differences. They commented about her 'country' accent and the fact that she didn't watch the news. She started dressing up occasionally, watched the news, got more interested in politics, and studied a lot more than ever before. When she went home at Christmas, her friends told her she had changed and dad commented that he was losing his little girl.
She didn't know it but she had identified with a new group and learned to feel more comfortable. Sublimation: transforming unacceptable needs into ac...
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Research essay sample on Anna Freud Reaction Formation
