In our everyday life, we meet and interact with different types of people that has diverse cultural view, behavior, and approach to similar situations. When Sigmund Freud coined the term “Defense Mechanism”, he gave it a simple definition to the term— “The ego’s protective method of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.” With this simple definition, these are some of the mechanism that my brother and I used unconsciously.
Regression
This type of defense mechanism is used when people are anxious and want to calm themselves down by performing a comforting act. In my brother’s case, whenever he feel anxious or worried, he reverts to eating his nails. By returning to his childhood stage of oral pleasure, he is able to forget or reduce the magnitude of the unpleasant situation. When my brother and I had an interview at American Embassy, we both was anxious whether the interview would go well and get our visa or not. At this moment, my brother was eating all his fingers nails one-by-one until the interviewer started asking questions.
Reaction Formation
Reaction formation can be defined as a mechanism that changes bad thoughts and feelings into their opposite. For example, sadness/anger into happiness and hating thoughts into affection. As it is a little hard to understand this defense mechanism, reaction formation is all about admitting. If a person does not want to admit that he/she has some kind of feeling or emotion on something or someone, they tend to show the opposite side of it. My brother has a strong feeling towards living on his own by the year he is eighteen, unfortunately this feeling at the same time made him anxious and he does not want to admit it. To reduce this stress, whenever there is a conversatio...
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...hone. The Next morning my family has received a phone call from America that said my uncle has passed away. He was living in America at the time. After I heard the sad news, I was totally confused, “this cannot be happing”, I had a talk with him yesterday evening, it was a painful time, I could accept the reality at the time. How could this happen over a night? We were so close to each other, and that makes it hard to believe and accept the fact. As a matter of fact I still could not believe that happened, and it will always be a mystery for me.
Overall, by using regression, reaction formation, projection, rationalization, displacement, and denial as a defense mechanism to alter the reality, gave the human kind a little time to think and reduced their stress. As all defense mechanism work involuntarily without our conscious, it is hard to control and avoid it.
When taking in new information it is natural to rationalize every behavior, event or phenomenon, in order to understand that new knowledge. We want a clear, logical and reasonable explanation of why we behave like this, or think like that. However, in order to reach the goal of understanding, sometimes we make up reasons to excuse, and claim that it is the truth. In “Immune to Reality,” Daniel Gilbert believes that when we face negative situations, especially extreme negatives, we naturally build up a “psychological immune system” to protect ourselves. This system automatically organizes, then reasons in order to explain the negatives and comfort our ill feelings. This type of self-deception helps us to emotionally survive the negativity; it
self-defeating behaviors by focusing on them and exaggerating them; 2) by severing the tight grip of thinking on behavior by retraining attention; and 3) by producing an integrated hypothalamic response that decreases sympath...
Some may say nail biting is an addiction, most people do it! Actually nail biting usually happens when stress overweighs someone or they do it subconsciously, or when that overhang nail has just been bothering
These three defense mechanisms allow the child to at least form an attachment bond with the caregivers, even if it is an unhealthy one. Denial is the refusal to accept the reality of things. Regression is when a child reverts to early stages of life such as thumb sucking. Dissociation is the separation of traumatizing events from memory. The use of these defense mechanisms short-term may serve as a protective barrier for the psyche and decrease the damaging effects of trauma. But long-term use will consequently lead to internal confusion and conflict (Hosier 1). Many children learn to use multiple defense mechanisms interchangeably to cope with complex trauma throughout their childhood.
Avoidance behaviors are generally driven by catastrophic hypotheses . By engaging in the avoidance behavior we get immediate relief from the distress because we avoid whatever catastrophic event we believe may happen if we were to confront or face the situation- this is the hook. In avoiding the situation we rob ourselves of the opportunity to test the hypothesis. Because negative thinking surrounds the situation we are seeking to avoid, our beliefs about the situation become more catastrophic as more time passes between the present and our last successful exposure to the situation. This increases the likelihood that we accept the hypothesis as fact without evidence.
...f your thinking" (Temes 11). The unconscious mind, which controls all of the automatic processes in your body involuntarily, allows any idea to stick in your brain. With the conscious mind absent, the brain does not judge any new incoming ideas, so the mind will agree and believe them with no doubt. In this comfortable, subconscious-free state, "your guard is down; Ideas you might ordinarily object to are easily transmitted into your mind. You will not reject new information that you might ordinarily be wary of" (Temes 12). As a result, one can easily overcome phobias the mind usually rejected or feared, and also take into consideration new characteristics or habits. With your brain mentally managing almost every aspect of your actions and character, this control of the mind allows for an effective alternative or medical technique to help aid in several situations.
Sigmund Freud was one of the most iconic psychologist in the twentieth century. He developed various theory in the field of psychology. Although, some of his work is outdated, his impact on the field is still strongly felt. One of his theory that he put forward was the belief that a person’s personality was set in childhood, along with the idea that if someone tried to analyze the psyche of a person, they’ll put up barriers, or defense mechanism, to “lie” to themselves. Freud’s work on the psychoanalytic is still used to treat depression and various anxiety disorder.
When I walked inside the front door something didn’t seem right. The feeling of sorrow overwhelmed the house. It was so thick I could literally feel it in the air. Everyone was motionless. They were sulking;I was befuddled. The most energetic people in the world, doing absolutely nothing. I repeatedly asked them what was wrong. After an hour or so, my dad pulled me aside. He said that my Aunt Feli had passed away last night. My mind went for a loop, I was so confused. I thought that he was joking, so I replied “You’re lying, don’t mess with me like that.” and punched his shoulder softly while I chuckled. My dad quickly started tearing up and said, “There...
Sigmund Freud’s theories on the construction of the mind are simple, but fundamentally changed the field of psychology. He proposed, among other things, that the human mind is composed of three parts: the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. The preconscious consists of information, such as a telephone number, that is “accessible to consciousness without emotional resistance” (Schellenberg 21). In Freud’s estimation, the unconscious is the most important area of the mind. The information stored within it has “very strong resistances” to becoming conscious (Freud 32). Residing in the unconscious is the id, which “contains everything…that is present at birth… – above all, therefore, the instincts which originate from somatic organization” (14). From birth, all action is instinctual, from the id. The id recognizes and entertains no desires but its own and is impatient to have its needs met. This phase lasts until a part of the id changes “under the influence of the real external world” (14). This changed portion b...
Biting my nails is a great because it relieves stress and helps with boredom. It is unwanted however because it leaves my finger nails in an undesired state.
Anxiety acts as a signal to the ego that things are not going right. The ego sits at the center of some appealing powerful forces: reality and society as symbolized by the superego and biology as represented by the Id. When these make contradictory strains upon the ego, that means if one feel threatened or feel as if it were about to failure under the weight of it all, it serves as a signal to the ego that its existence, and with it the survival of the whole organism, is in danger. The ego which is ruled by the id, and deterred by reality, struggles to overcome its economic duty of bringing about harmony among the forces and influences working in and upon it. Accordingly they are driven to
The moment we stepped foot into the hospital, I could hear my aunt telling my mother that “he is in a better place now”. At that moment, something had already told me that my dad was deceased; it was like I could feel it or something. I felt the chills that all of a sudden came on my arms. As my mother and grandmother were both holding my hand, they took me into this small room. The walls were white, and it had a table with four tissue boxes sitting on the top. My other grandmother was there, and so were my two aunts, my uncles, and
Defense mechanism, in psychoanalysis, any of a variety of unconscious personality reactions which the ego uses to protect the conscious mind from threatening feelings and perceptions. Sigmund Freud first used defense as a psychoanalytic term (1894), but he did not break the notion into categories, viewing it as a singular phenomenon of repression. His daughter, Anna Freud, expanded on his theories in the 1930s, distinguishing some of the major defense mechanisms recognized today. Primary defense mechanisms include repression and denial, which serve to prevent unacceptable ideas or impulses from entering the conscience. Secondary defense mechanisms-generally appearing as an outgrowth of the primary defense mechanisms-include projection, reaction formation, displacement, sublimation, and isolation.
February twenty-third 2010 was just a regular ordinary day. I was on my way to class on this cold February afternoon, when my phone rung. It was my cousin on the other end telling me to call my mom. I could not figure out what was wrong, so I quickly said okay and I hung up and called my mom. When my mom answered the phone I told her the message but I said I do not know what is wrong. My mom was at work and could not call right away, so I took the effort to call my cousin back to see what was going on. She told me that our uncle was in the hospital and that it did not look good. Starting to tear up I pull over in a fast food restaurant parking lot to listen to more to what my cousin had to say. She then tells me to tell my mom to get to the hospital as quickly as possible as if it may be the last time to see her older brother. My mom finally calls me back and when I tell her the news, she quickly leaves work. That after-noon I lost my Uncle.
It was a Sunday morning. We got the call from the convalescent home. I went up with my mother and brother. As I walked in, I remember seeing him in the bed. He just looked so peaceful; it was the best thing that could have happened. Even so, death is terrible no matter what the condition of the person. No one is prepared to accept death no matter what, where or how it happens.