Health Sciences 3820A/B Chapter 2: Reading B2 - Defence Mechanisms
17 Jan 2019
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Document Summary
Defence mechanisms unconscious strategies that the ego uses to protect a person from anxiety. Repression a mechanism employed by the ego to keep troublesome thoughts and feelings from becoming conscious. According to freud, it involves keeping something at a distance from the conscious. It is protective in its prevention of troublesome, behaviors, feelings, and thoughts, but can become unhealthy if it is relied upon too much. According to freud, repressed material resurfaces in symbols through dreams or accidents that occur in life. Regression occurs when a person unconsciously adopts a more child-like behavior as a way of dealing with troublesome thoughts or feelings. This can be simple or harmless but can become dysfunctional through its prevention of dealing with life issues that occur over a long period of time. Denial a mechanism in which the ego denies the reality of a troublesome event.
