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In the first definitive book on defence mechanisms, The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence (1936), [9] Anna Freud enumerated the ten defence mechanisms that appear in the works of her father, Sigmund Freud: repression, regression, reaction formation, isolation, undoing, projection, introjection, turning against one's own person, reversal into the opposite, and sublimation or displacement.
Undoing is a defense mechanism in which a person tries to cancel out or remove an unhealthy, destructive or otherwise threatening thought or action by engaging in contrary behavior. For example, after thinking about being violent with someone, one would then be overly nice or accommodating to them.
George Vaillant divided defense mechanisms into a hierarchy of defenses ranging from immature through neurotic to healthy defenses, [12] and placed intellectualization – imagining an act of violence without feeling the accompanying emotions, for example – in the mid-range, neurotic defenses. [13]
Rationalization is a defense mechanism (ego defense) in which apparent logical reasons are given to justify behavior that is motivated by unconscious instinctual impulses. [1] It is an attempt to find reasons for behaviors, especially one's own. [2]
In its malignant forms, it is a defense mechanism in which the ego defends itself against disowned and highly negative parts of the self by denying their existence in themselves and attributing them to others, breeding misunderstanding and causing interpersonal damage. [2] Projection incorporates blame shifting and can manifest as shame dumping ...
For example: "When a child envelops representational images of his absent parents into himself, simultaneously fusing them with his own personality." "Individuals with weak ego boundaries are more prone to use introjection as a defense mechanism."
Compartmentalization may lead to hidden vulnerabilities related to self-organization and self-esteem [10] in those who use it as a major defense mechanism. [11] When a negative self-aspect is activated, it may cause a drop in self-esteem and mood. [9] This drop in self-esteem and mood is what the observed vulnerability is attributed to. [9]
The defense that effects (brings about) this process is called splitting. Splitting is the tendency to view events or people as either all bad or all good. [ 1 ] When viewing people as all good, the individual is said to be using the defense mechanism idealization : a mental mechanism in which the person attributes exaggeratedly positive ...