Anna Freud: Ego Defense Mechanisms

A child psychoanalyst and theorist who identified defense mechanisms.

Anna Freud

Are unconscious strategies used by the ego to minimize distress caused by the conflicting demands of the id and superego.

Ego Defense Mechanism

Typically meets the conflicting demands of the id and superego through a process of acknowledging the demands and developing a way of meeting these challenges as much as possible.

Mature Ego

Is apt to resort to the frequent use of defense mechanisms, which involves self-deception and deception to others.

Immature Ego

Compensation, Conversation, Denial, Displacement, Identification, Isolation of Affect, Intellectualization, Projection, Rationalization, Reaction Formation, Regression, Repression, Sublimation, Substitution, Undoing.

Defense Mechanisms identified by Anna Freud:

Acting Out, affiliation, Aim Inhibition, Altruism, Anticipation, Autistic Fantasy, Avoidance, Deflection, Devaluation, Dissociation, Fixation, Help-rejecting Complaining, Humor, Idealization, Imitation, Incorporation, Introjection, Isolation, Omnipotence, Passive aggression, Projective Identification, Resistance, Restitution, Self-Assertion, Somatization, Splitting, Suppression, Symbolization.

Defense Mechanisms not identified by Anna Freud:

Is the seeking of success in one area of life as a substitution for success in another area of life that has been limited because of personal or environmental barriers.

Compensation

A disabled athlete becoming a computer expert.

Example of Compensation

Is the transformation of anxiety into a physical dysfunction, such as paralysis or blindness, which does not have a physiological basis.

Conversion

An individual who was abused and became blind as a defense against further abuse.

Example of Conversion

Is a refusal to acknowledge an aspect of reality, including one's experience, because to do so would result in overwhelming anxiety.

Denial

An individual who manifested symptoms of cancer but refused to accept the diagnosis because he or she could not face the truth.

Example of Denial

Is a shifting of negative feelings one has about a person or situation onto a different person or situation.

Displacement

A husband who was angry with his boss and then berated his wife when he came home.

Example of Displacement

A mechanism by which anxiety is handled through identifying with a person or thing producing the anxiety, such as "identifying with a kidnapper."

Identification

Is a mechanism by which painful feelings are separated from the incident that triggered them initially.

Isolation of Affect

An individual who was in a serious automobile accident but expressed no emotion regarding the accident.

Example of Isolation of Affect

Is a mechanism by which reasoning is used to block difficult feelings and it involves removing one's emotions from a stressful event.

Intellectualization

A wife who refers to her husband's heart attack in medical terminology rather than expressing her emotions.

Example of Intellectualization

One's own characteristics are denied and instead seen as being characteristics of someone else.

Projection

An individual who criticizes her mother for being a perfectionist when she herself is extremely compulsive about having every detail correct.

Example of Projection

Is a mechanism by which a person substitutes a more socially acceptable, logical reason for an action rather than identifying the real motivation.

Rationalization

An individual who states that she is unable to attend a family outing because she has a work project that she has to complete, when she doesn't really want to attend.

Example of Rationalization

Is adopting a behavior that is the antithesis of the instinctual urge.

Reaction Formation

An individual who expresses support for a particular racial group when the individual actually has strong negative feelings towards the group.

Example of Reaction Formation

Is reverting to more primitive mode of coping associated with earlier and safer developmental periods.

Regression

An individual who, when upset, clutches her blanket for security.

Example of Regression

Is the unconscious pushing of anxiety-producing thoughts and issues out of the conscious and into the unconscious.

Repression

An individual who cannot remember being sexually abused as a child because she has pushed those memories into her unconscious. The memories may not be recalled except through psychoanalysis or hypnosis.

Example of Repression

Is a mechanism by which intolerable drives or desires are diverted into activities that are acceptable.

Sublimation

An individual who has strong sexual urges and redirects those urges into sports activities.

Example of Sublimation

Is a mechanism by which a person replaces an unacceptable goal with an acceptable one.

Substitution

An individual who wanted to be a tattoo artist but decided instead to become an oil painter because of pressure by his family.

Example of Substitution

Is a mechanism by which an individual engages in a repetitious ritual in an attempt to reverse an unacceptable action previously taken.

Undoing

An individual who ritualistically washes his hands in attempt to symbolically wash off blood that was on his hands when he got into a fight.

Example of Undoing