Defense Mechanisms :: Free Essays Online

Defense MechanismsPeople use defense mechanisms so often that it is perhaps difficult to pick out individual cases to plow with. Additionally, it would be markedly easier for me to look for evidence of these mechanisms within myself. However, others do display such defenses against anxiety-inducing thoughts, memories, and impulses. In the healthy range of defense mechanisms, repression is key. Simply not intellection about something for a long period of time is often quite helpful. This particular mechanism poop at times be rather obvious, as when, in a discussion, a person states that he or she would rather not talk about this. Of course, repression is not always this aware, but in this case it is make manifest by a conscious effort to avoid the topic. Of the neurotic defense mechanisms, humor is perhaps most seen on this campus. Self-deprecating humor helps violate the glare of our shortcomings, especially when they surface in public. Sometimes, jokes are made specific to the s ituation (I tripped Im such a clutz) but they are often generalized. These jokes are similarly often not very funny, on the order of Im a dumbass...hahaha Of the psychotic coping mechanisms, denial is much more obvious than reaction formation. I can think of one specific case, a friend who set his sights too high in sending out transfer applications. As rejections have vex in, my notion that he was a non-starter for most of his choices because of grades was proven correct, but this is not something that he can seem to come to terms with. He claims not to derive why myself and several other friends, with near-4.0 GPAs have gotten into several prestigious schools, while he has not. Seems like denial an inability to face his failings. Reaction formation as well interests me a lot, because it is rather counter-intuitive as a defense mechanism. I cant really identify it in others very well, but I can see it in myself. In the case of a couple of failed friendships, in which I felt hur t by the actions of the other person, I compensate for my desire to get hand-to-hand to them again (which produces anxiety because I am afraid of a repeat) by being very bitter towards them and going out of my way to avoid them.