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defence mechanisms

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defence mechanisms

Methods of coping with anxiety caused by conflict between desires and socially approved behaviour. The mechanisms include exclusion from consciousness (repression), denial, explaining away (rationalization), making exceptional efforts (compensation) and transfer of unacceptable qualities to others (projection). Strife commonly arises from unwise attempts to point out and demolish one another's defence mechanisms. See also DISSOCIATIVE DISORDERS.
Collins Dictionary of Medicine © Robert M. Youngson 2004, 2005
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References in periodicals archive
"We have had to prioritise and the properties which have been given the individual flood defence mechanisms as they have been effected by flooding not just last year but on previous occasions as well."
The latest Commission proposal recommends scrapping the poison pill defence mechanism whilst still permitting multiple voting rights.
Klein's work (1946) suggests that emotional growth develops from a predominant reliance on the primitive defence mechanisms mobilized in the "paranoid-schizoid position" to the higher order defences of the "depressive position".
From this a profile is created which indicates how the defence mechanisms, mobilized by the ego to cope with the anxiety generated in stressful situations, have impinged on the individual's development.
The defence mechanisms act as the unconscious shock absorbers of the mind, preventing excessive stimulation either from the inner world or from the external world and thereby protecting the individual from anxiety.
One of Ichazo's disciples, Claudio Narango, who also studied psychology, adapted the Ichazo personality types into psychological concepts similar to Freud's defence mechanisms, and took them with him to the Esalen Institute, a New Age centre in Big Sur, California.
Second, six Thematic Apperception Test--TAT cards (Murray, 1934), specifically cards number 8GF, 1, 13MF, 8BM, 7GF, and 5 were used to detect the types of defence mechanisms used by the respondents.
Psychoactive drug addicts have poor self-esteem, low self-concept, deviant personality profile, frequently using immature, primitive and psychotic forms of defence mechanism. These traits are developed because they employ poor coping behavior to combat stress and anxiety they experience in every day life.
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