Canadian Medical Guide > Psychiatry and Psychology > Behavior and Behavior Mechanisms > Defense Mechanisms Terms and Definitions




Defense Mechanisms

Medical Definition: Unconscious process used by an individual or a group of individuals in order to cope with impulses, feelings or ideas which are not acceptable at their conscious level; various types include reaction formation, projection and self reversal.
Guide Notes: no qualif
Defense Mechanisms Categories.
Canadian Medical Guide Definition Acting Out - Expressing unconscious emotional conflicts or feelings, often of hostility or love, through overt behavior.
Canadian Medical Guide Definition Denial (Psychology) - Refusal to admit the truth or reality of a situation or experience.
Canadian Medical Guide Definition Displacement (Psychology) - The process by which an emotional or behavioral response that is appropriate for one situation appears in another situation for which it is inappropriate.
Canadian Medical Guide Definition Fantasy - An imagined sequence of events or mental images, e.g., daydreams.
Canadian Medical Guide Definition Helplessness, Learned - Learned expectation that one's responses are independent of reward and, hence, do not predict or control the occurrence of rewards. Learned helplessness derives from a history, experimentally induced or naturally occurring, of having received punishment/aversive stimulation regardless of responses made. Such circumstances result in an impaired ability to learn. Used for human or animal populations. (APA, Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms, 1994)
Canadian Medical Guide Definition Identification (Psychology) - A process by which an individual unconsciously endeavors to pattern himself after another. This process is also important in the development of the personality, particularly the superego or conscience, which is modeled largely on the behavior of adult significant others.
Canadian Medical Guide Definition Perceptual Defense - Selective perceiving such that the individual protects himself from becoming aware of something unpleasant or threatening, e.g., obscene words are not heard correctly, or violent acts are not seen accurately.
Canadian Medical Guide Definition Projection - A defense mechanism, operating unconsciously, whereby that which is emotionally unacceptable in the self is rejected and attributed (projected) to others.
Canadian Medical Guide Definition Rationalization - A defense mechanism operating unconsciously, in which the individual attempts to justify or make consciously tolerable, by plausible means, feelings, behavior, and motives that would otherwise be intolerable.
Canadian Medical Guide Definition Regression (Psychology) - A return to earlier, especially to infantile, patterns of thought or behavior, or stage of functioning, e.g., feelings of helplessness and dependency in a patient with a serious physical illness. (From APA, Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms, 1994).
Canadian Medical Guide Definition Repression - The active mental process of keeping out and ejecting, banishing from consciousness, ideas or impulses that are unacceptable to it.
Canadian Medical Guide Definition Sublimation - A defense mechanism through which unacceptable impulses and instinctive urges are diverted into personally and socially acceptable channels; e.g., aggression may be diverted through sports activities.

Defense Mechanisms Medical Definitions and Terms

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