Psychological Defense Mechanisms

Comprehensive vocabulary cards covering primitive and mature psychological defense mechanisms based on clinical exam study materials.

Psychological defense mechanisms

Mental processes that help the ego cope with anxiety, frustration, and unacceptable impulses, relieving tension between inner psychological reality and external demands.

Primitive defenses

A category of defenses including denial, reaction formation, and projection that are considered more out of touch with reality.

Mature defenses

A category of defenses including sublimation, undoing, rationalization, displacement, identification, and intellectualization that represent higher levels of functioning.

Rationalization

A defense process where plausible reasons are used to justify an action or opinion, helping a person cope with disappointments by blaming external circumstances.

Repression

A mechanism that refuses to let unacceptable impulses into conscious awareness, effectively pushing intolerable thoughts away so they are often forgotten.

Denial

A defense that involves distorting or refusing to accept reality by acting as though an event or situation never occurred.

Projection

A process where a person places their own unacceptable feelings onto another person and accuses that person of having those feelings instead.

Displacement

A defense mechanism where affect is transferred from one object to another, typically involving a third party or situation rather than expressing feelings directly to the source.

Projective Identification

A step beyond projection where the person who has been projected onto begins to believe and behave in a way that aligns with the projection.

Intellectualization

A process by which content is separated from repressed affect, such as talking about trauma as if reading a scripted story or researching facts to avoid emotional pain.

Asceticism

A defense characterized by rigor and self-denial, involving the refusal to engage in pleasurable activities or basic needs like sleep to cope with tension.

Sublimation

The displacement of unacceptable instincts into constructive and socially acceptable behaviors, such as turning aggressive impulses into kickboxing.

Introjection/Internalization

The process of taking in outside events or the characteristics and voices of other people and making them part of one's own internal world.

Identification

A process by which qualities of an external object are absorbed into one’s own personality, often occurring on a continuum following introjection.

Reaction Formation

A defense where unacceptable impulses are expressed as their exact opposites, such as being overly nice to someone you despise.

Undoing

A process intended to avoid punishment or guilt by engaging in a contrary behavior to 'nullify' a threatening thought, feeling, or previous action.