Is This A Real Defense Mechanism

What is a defense mechanism?

Yes, that could be an example. You are right about the denial thing, it is a way to cope when your mind can't cope with a drama or trauma. So for example if a girl was molested or raped, and they didn't deal with the trauma, they often gain a ton of weight. They gain weight to make themselves look fat and ugly so that in their mind another man will never want them and so they won't have to worry about getting raped again. They didn't deal with their trauma, but in their mind, with the weight gain, they think they won't have to deal with another sexual assault. That is how you can usually tell if a girl has been raped or molested,....they were a normal size prior to the rape, and then double in weight after the trauma.

Another example would be a man who goes to work and tells everyone he is great, his grandchildren are great, all A students, all active in sports, all the kids are going off to college. That is a denial he has created in order to cope with his world. He lives in a denial in order to cope with the reality of his life. So he pretends that his life is perfect and he is happy and everything is great, when the reality is that his grandchildren have all run away from home at least once, they have all been held back a grade, at least once, they are into drugs and alcohol, and none of them have graduated high school, and none of them will go to college. So he has created his fantasy in order to cope with the reality of life.

A girl might live in a fairy tale world, telling others how great her mother is because it is her minds way of coping with reality. She honestly believes in her mind that her mother was a great mother, and if she took a lie detector test, she would pass it, because her version of the truth is what she honestly believes. The "real truth" is that her mother was not a good mother, was a drug addict and alcoholic. They create a version of the "truth" in order to cope, a version of the 'truth' that they believe or have to believe, but it is not the "real truth"

What are some of the defense mechanisms?

okay, i actually got my notes from psych class out for this one (feel loved):

the ego (rational problem solving) is part of Freud's structural model of personality. it develops after the id (infant thinking...what we need) and before the superego (our conscience, what we think we should/shouldn't do)

defense mechanisms of the ego:

-denial - denying an event has occured

-repression - forgetting an event, and then forgetting you forgot...to avoid traumatic memories

-regression - retreating emotionally to earlier stage (acting like a child, basically)

-reaction formation - turn an emotion into its opposite (say, hating someone intensely, and worrying about them getting hurt and watch over them constantly)

-projection - see your impulses coming from other people (a person with homosexual tendencies thinks men are hitting on him)

-displacement - change the target of you emotion (you hate your boss so you come home and kick your cat)

-sublimation - take unacceptable impulses and turn them into acceptable things (someone with a lot of rage becoming a demolition artist)

What are defense mechanisms?

Spent the last month reading about personality disorders. Every text including Vaknin's "Malignant Self-love" talks about "defense mechanisms" but no one explains what they are! HELP!

What are the defense mechanisms of stingrays?

they have these tails which are real sharp
that can go up into you smooth and come out jagged
and leave a real bad wound and have posions in the tail.
Just like how it killed steve irwin by puting a hole in his chest and heart.

True or false: religion is a defense mechanism.?

The creation of God was manifested by primitive man as an evolutionary defense mechanism to accept not only their own mortality, but parental as well. The need to feel "taken care of" or carried by a higher power; is that not a child:parent relationship? Life was dispensable, so losing someone who "had your back" may have caused a state of psychosis severe enough to manifest a god.

We will meet in the afterlife, they are watching over me=very comforting in a savage world.

Can anyone explain the "religion" gene in an evolutionary way?

Can defense mechanism be harmful?

I’ll jump the gun and get right into my issue. I’ve been subject to many real emotional hardships in my time and have dealt with them very efficiently through the use of common defense mechanisms. I started to depend on them heavily about six years ago and I continue to do so till this day. However it’s dawned on me that in the past few years that I’ve become almost completely emotionally detached. More recently it’s even began to turn on myself. I veer off and begin to question why I put faith into anything at all (making myself the one at fault).

Is it possible the amount of stress I have put on defense mechanisms has taken its toll and affected me detrimentally?

Is rudeness a defense mechanism?

Yes, sometimes. Just like a book, you can't take speech and action out of context and assign a meaning to it. It all depends on the people and the social connection between them, as well as the context of the what setting you're in.

I'm not sure if it's an offensive strategy though. But the point there is to create an emotional distance between you and the other person. I see it more as, "Maybe, if I can keep this person away from me, they won't pry into my life. The last thing I need is THAT person in my thoughts."

Keep in mind though, some people are assholes and will be rude regardless. But depending on the situation, the purpose for defensiveness will change as well.