Defense Mechanisms (A. Freud) Worksheet

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 (e.g. a disabled athlete becoming a computer expert).
The transformation of anxiety into a physical dysfunction, such as paralysis or blindness, which does not have a physiological basis (e.g. an individual who was abused and became blind as a defense against further abuse).
The refusal to acknowledge an aspect of reality, including one’s experiences, because to do so would result in overwhelming anxiety (e.g. an individual who manifests symptoms of cancer but refused to accept the diagnosis because he/she could not face the truth).
The shifting of negative feelings one has about a person or situation onto a different person or situation (e.g. a husband who was angry with his boss and ten berated his wife when he came home).
Mechanism by which painful feelings are separated from the incident that triggered them initially (e.g. an individual who was in a serious automobile accident but expressed no emotion regarding the accident).
Mechanism by which reasoning is used to block difficult feelings. It involves removing one’s emotions from a stressful event (e.g. a wife who refers to her husband’s heart attack in medical terminology rather than expressing her emotions).
Mechanism by which one’s own negative characteristics are denied and instead seen as being characteristics as someone else (e.g. an individual who criticizes her mother for being a perfectionist when she herself is extremely compulsive about having every detail correct.
Mechanism by which a person substitutes a more socially acceptable, logical reason for an action rather than identifying the real motivation (e.g. 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 really does not want to attend).
Adopting a behavior that is the antithesis of the instinctual urge (e.g. an individual who expresses support for a particular racial group when the individual actually has strong negative feelings about the group).
Reverting back to more primitive modes of coping associated with earlier and safer developmental periods (e.g.an individual who, when upset, clutches their blanket for security).
The unconscious pushing of anxiety-producing through and issues out of the conscious and into the unconscious (e.g. an individual who cannot recall being sexually abused as a child because he/she has pushed those memories into their unconscious; these memories may not be recalled except through psychoanalysis or hypnosis).
Mechanism by which intolerable drives or desires are diverted into activities that are socially acceptable (e.g. individual who has strong sexual urges and redirects those urge into sports activities).
Mechanism by which a person replaces an unacceptable goal with an acceptable one (e.g. an individual who wanted to be a tattoo artist but instead became a painter as a result of pressure from his/her family).
Mechanism by which an individual engages in a repetitious ritual in an attempt to reverse an unacceptable action previously taken (e.g. an individual who ritualistically washes his/her hands in attempt to symbolically was off blood that was on his/her hands from a physical altercation).