Exploring Defense Mechanisms in Personality Structure
In "Understanding Personality Structure in the Clinical Process" by Nancy McWilliams, various defense mechanisms are illustrated through real-life examples. These mechanisms include primitive withdrawal, denial, omnipotent control, idealization and devaluation, and projection with projective identification. Each mechanism sheds light on how individuals cope with stress and protect their psyche in different situations.
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Defense Mechanisms quotations from Nancy McWilliams Understanding Personality Structure in the Clinical Process Updated: July 07, 2018
Primitive Withdrawal Wife s complaint: He just fiddles with the TV remote control and refuses to answer me. A propensity to use chemicals to alter one s consciousness can also be considered a kind of withdrawal. Falling asleep babies fall asleep if they get stressed out but not too upset 2
Denial Oh, no! People who skip an annual medical or dental check up the real reason? fear of bad news I do not have a drinking problem!!! People stuck in an abusive relationship He really love me just has a different way of showing it! Manic episode (bad judgment): I am okay I am taking the retirement fund to Las Vegas it s a sure thing! 3
Omnipotent control (omnipotence of thought) Forgetting one s umbrella causes it to rain that what you wish has anything to do with the weather Anyone who has had a feeling of impending luck and won a gamble: That what a person desires has any influence on what happens unless one takes specific action (or non action) Cleaning one s plate eating one s vegetables has any effect on hungry children elsewhere in the world 4
Idealization and devaluation My Dad can take your Dad, said by a six year old Children admiring their parents or fans admiring a movie star wanting to be just like someone Admiration for or hatred of certain politicians, demographic groups, racial or ethnic backgrounds, mentors or movie stars or sports celebrities 5
Projection and projective identification Getting messages from the TV telling the individual to hurt himself or someone else Taking an inner process or thought or feeling and unconsciously transferring it across the boundary of the self so that it comes at one from outside Projective identification: A person inaccurately accuses me of mistreating him he continues to do so creating a self-fulfilling prophecy, causing me to get angry (and want to mistreat him) 6
Introjection and projective identification Introjection: The son or daughter of an MD becomes an MD Children s games in which one pretends to be a bird or superhero and fly the object (bird, etc) has been introjected 7
Splitting of the ego Political scientists can attest to how attractive it is for any unhappy group to develop a sense of a clearly evil enemy, against which the good insiders must struggle. Visions of good versus evil, God versus the devil, democracy versus communism, cowboys versus Indians A person regards other individuals as all good or all bad what is missing are all the nuances and shades of gray between the black and white 8
Splitting [continued] Those mental health workers associated with a borderline client s care find themselves in repeated arguments in which some of them feel a powerful sympathy toward the patient and want to rescue and nurture, while the others feel an equally powerful antipathy and want to confront and set limits 9
Dissociation Out-of-the-body experiences during war, life- threatening disasters, and major surgery have been reported often People who undergo unbearable calamities at any age may dissociate; those who are repeatedly subject to horrific abuse as young children may learn to dissociate as their habital reaction to stress. Where this is true, the adult survivor is legitimately conceptualized as suffering from a characterological dissociate disorder, or mutiple personality 10
Repression A clinically inconsequential example of repression the psychopathology of everyday life, would be a speaker s momentarily forgetting the name of a person he or she was introducing, in a context in which there was evidence for some unconscious negative feeling by the speaker towards the person 11
Repression [continued] Keeping certain upsetting ideas of an aggressive and sexual or immature nature out of consciousness by deleting them from consciousness While the memory can be a tricky thing, repression is a mechanism that underlies some of the tricks of its forgetting Repression is a delete button for experiences or memories 12
Regression Boy (five years old) gets a baby sister and starts wetting his bed Some people react to stress and the stress of growth and change by getting sick somatization The woman who lapses unwittingly into compliant, little-girlish ways of relating right after realizing some ambition or the man who thoughtlessly raises his voice at his wife just after attaing some new level of intimacy with her are regressing ... 13
Isolation Dealing with anxiety or other painful states of mind by isolating feeling from knowing Surgeons famously have to isolate their feelings to do their jobs The old Star Trek Mr Spock, the Vulcan he is mostly reasoning and has trouble getting in touch with his emotions (though he can sometimes do that because he had one human parent) 14
Intellectualization Well, naturally I have some anger about that: delivered in a causal, detached tone, suggests that the actual expression of anger is inhibited and intellectualized. Shows ego strength but may cost the individual his or her sense of humor, artistic expression, or other forms of adult playfulness Thinking and talking and thinking and talking and getting no where . 15
Rationalization Inventing reasons Confabulation make up a story when one has no idea The house that you cannot afford is too big anyway Lose money on a conservative mutual fund in the stock market Well, it was a learning experience the college of hard knocks 16
Moralization Same idea as rationalization only the reasons given have to do with right and wrong The belief of the colonialists [imperialists] that they were bringing higher standards of civilization to the people whose resources they were plundering Burning heretics at the stake 17
Compartmentalization When someone compartmentalizes, he holds two or more ideas, attitudes or behaviors that are essentially and definitionally in conflict, without appreciating the contradiction hypocracy Professing belief int he Golden Rule and also int he principle of looking out for Number One The preacher for rails against sin but drinks and in unfaithful The crusader against pornography who has a collection of erotica 18
Undoing A spouse s arriving home with a gift that is intended to compensate for last night s temper outburst, Step on a crack, break your mother s back: a death wish against the mother Client brings the therapist flowers later acknowledges I guess they were really for your grave, she explained grinning The politician Adlai Stevenson accidently killed his young cousin when he was a boy; he devoted his life to public service 19
Turning against the self Stopped by the police for right turn on red: Thank you officer I am really an idiot I don t know what I was doing how stupid o me oh my God, what a fool I am - thank you for helping me avoid a tragic accident [dump on self the officer starts to feel sorry for this poor guy] If I beat myself up, the one in authority does not have to do so 20
Turning against the self [continued] One client: rather than feel chronic terror that her mother would kill herself and her father would disappear on some self-indulgent project both of which were possibilities she became adept at believing that if only she were a better person, her parents would give her their love and protection The abused spouse says to herself: if only dinner were ready on time, then the abuse would stop [of course that is false but the short term benefit is management of anxiety and fear] 21
Displacement Attending physician bullies the resident; the resident bullies the medical student; the medical student goes home and bullies the cat 22
Reaction formation With a preschool sister who has been displaced by a younger brother, there may be a distinct flavor of her loving the baby to death : hugging him too hard, singing to him to loudly, bouncing him too aggressively pincing the new baby s cheeks until in screamed ... Denial of ambivalent feelings (which, however, remain out of awareness) 23
Reaction formation [continued] The conscientiousness, fastidiousness, frugality, and diligence of obsessive compulsive people are the reaction formation against wishes to be irresponsible, messy, uninhibited, and rebellious, and that one can discern in the over-responsible style of obsessive and compulsive patterns a hint of the inclinations against which they are struggling 24
Reversal If one feels that the yearning to be cared for by someone else is shameful or dangerous, one can vicariously satisfy one s own dependency needs by taking care of another person and unconsciously identifying with that person s gratification in being nurtured 25
Reversal [continued] A person whose mother died and who was saved by an adoption that brought him a happier life, devotes his life to an adoption agency: I can t describe the high I get when I had the baby to the adoptive mother and know that a new life is beginning for that kid. 26
Identification I admire my therapist (or teacher or mentor, etc.) and show up wearing the same neck tie [did not intentionally buy it] A four your old suffers the loss of her kitten when it runs away and she gets down on her hands and knees, crawling around saying Meow! See the movie: The Lives of Others for over- identification 27
Sublimation Distinguish object of the sex drive and the aim of the sex drive the object is the penis, vagina, breast, anus, mouth, hair, legs, shoe same idea with aggression (has an object) The aim of the sex drive is (sexual) satisfaction, satisfaction, satisfaction All the other defense mechanism change the object sublimation changes the aim instead of sexual satisfaction the aim is write a poem, create a work of art, help the poor, and so on 28
Acting Out Instead of expressing stress or frustration or upset in language (talking about it), the person takes action does something Nancy McWilliams: A teacher I saw in treatment, who relationship to her judgmental mother had left her both frightened of and deeply hungry for intimacy, began a sexual affair with a colleague named Nancy a few weeks after entering therapy 29
