scriptshrink: scriptshrink: Common Defense Mechanisms, from Personality Disorders in Modern Life, Se

scriptshrink: scriptshrink: Common Defense Mechanisms, from Personality Disorders in Modern Life, Second Edition.  Theodor Millon et al. 2004. This (relatively) old post has suddenly gained a lot of traction, so I’ve finally transcribed the image. My apologies for forgetting to include content warnings in the original post. CW: Suicidal ideation mention, animal abuse mention, pregnancy mention, violence mention. Acting Out - Conflicts are translated into action, with little or no intervening reflection. A student disrupts class because she is angry over an unfair grade. Denial - Refusal to acknowledge some painful external or subjective reality obvious to others. A woman refuses to acknowledge a pregnancy, despite positive test results. Devaluation - Attributing unrealistic negative qualities to self or others, as a means of punishing the self or reducing the impact of the devalued item. The formerly admired professor who gives you a D on your term paper is suddenly criticized as a terrible teacher. Displacement - Conflicts are displaced from a threatening object onto a less threatening one. A student who hates his history professor sets the textbook on fire. Dissociation - Conflict is dealt with by disrupting the integration of consciousness, memory, or perception of the internal and external world. After breaking up with a lover, a suicidal student is suddenly unable to recall the periods of time during which they were together. Fantasy -  Avoidance of conflict by creating imaginary situations that satisfy drives or desires. A student from a troubled home daydreams about going to college to become a famous psychologist. Idealization - Attributing unrealistic positive qualities to self or others. A student worried about intellectual ability begins to idolize a tutor. Isolation of Affect - Conflict is defused by separating ideas from affects, thus retaining an awareness of intellectual or factual aspects but losing touch with threatening emotions. A biology student sacrifices a laboratory animal, without worrying about its right to existence, quality of life, or emotional state. Omnipotence - An image of oneself as incredibly powerful, intelligent, or superior is created to overcome threatening eventualities or feelings. A student facing a difficult final exam asserts that there is nothing about the material that he doesn’t know. Projection - Unacceptable emotions or personal qualities are disowned by attributing them to others. A student attributes his own anger to the professor, and thereby comes to see himself as a persecuted victim. Projective Identification - Unpleasant feelings and reactions are not only projected onto others, but also retained in awareness and viewed as a reaction to the recipient’s behavior. A student attributes her own anger to the professor, but sees her response as a justifiable reaction to persecution. Rationalization - An explanation for behavior is constructed after the fact to justify one’s actions in the eyes of self or others. A professor who unknowingly creates an impossible exam asserts the necessity of shocking students back to serious study. Reaction Formation - Unacceptable thoughts or impulses are contained by adopting a position that expresses the direct opposite. A student who hates some group of persons writes an article protesting their unfair treatment by the university. Repression - Forbidden thoughts and wishes are withheld from conscious awareness. A student’s jealous desire to murder a rival is denied access to conscious awareness. Splitting - Opposite qualities of a single object are held apart, left in deliberately unintegrated opposition, resulting in cycles of idealization and devaluation as either extreme is projected onto self and others. A student vacillates between worship and contempt for a professor, sometimes seeing her as intelligent and powerful and himself as ignorant and weak, and then switching roles, depending on their interactions. Sublimation - Unacceptable emotions are defused by being channelled into socially acceptable behavior.  A professor who feels a secret disgust for teaching instead works ever more diligently to earn the teaching award. Undoing - Attempts to rid oneself of guilt through behavior that compensates the injured party actually or symbolically. A professor who designs a test that is too difficult creates an excess of easy extra-credit assignments -- source link

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