Question

Instructions: Each of the following 12 scenarios illustrates one of Freud’s defense mechanisms from the list below. Select your answers from the defense mechanisms listed below. Read each case, identify the defense mechanism, and explain how it is illustrated by the example (1⁄2 point for correctly identifying the defense mechanism, 1⁄2 point for correct explanation = 12 points total). See pages 40-41 in the lab manual as well as the textbook and powerpoint for definitions and examples.

Name
Lab Day and Time Instructor

Displacement Reaction Formation Sublimation

Projection Rationalization Regression Repression Denial

5. Reina was embarrassed when she kept forgetting her appointment with the dentist, where she was scheduled to get a painful root canal.

6. Toni has a heart condition but refuses to acknowledge the seriousness of the condition and avoids seeking medical attention or making healthy lifestyle changes.

7. Angela really likes her older sister’s boyfriend and wants him to ask her out despite the fact that he has eyes for only her older sister. On a conscious level, she knows her feels are unacceptable, so she turns it around. Angela tells her best friend, “I think Roberto dates my sister to be nearer to me.” What defense is Angela using?

8. A man accused of rape justifies his behavior to himself by thinking that the woman had dressed and acted so provocatively that she was “just asking for it.”

9. Bob Smith, a top baseball player, sometimes strikes out on an easy pitch. When he does, Bob gets angry and throws his bat or kicks the water cooler.

10. Jin, a college student, decided that he was flunking out because the teaching was so poor at his school.

11. Two months ago, Maris did not win a major scholarship that she had been counting on to help her pay for college. Now she is always fighting with you, her boyfriend, and her roommates.

12. Edith never had gotten along with her mother since she was a young girl. Edith usually tells her friends that her mother is a terrific person and that she loves her very much.

Answer 1

Reina was embarrassed when she kept forgetting her appointment with the dentist, where she was scheduled to get a painful root canal.

As Reina the thoughts unbearable pain of the root canal become conscious, she is involves the self defense mechanism of repression. Because of this self defense mechanism she forgets the appointment with the dentist.

Answer. Repression.

Toni has a heart condition but refuses to acknowledge the seriousness of the condition and avoids seeking medical attention or making healthy lifestyle changes.

Toni is involved in the self defense mechanism of Denial. He is using this to avoid the anxiety of his heart condition, and the consequences of it.

Answer. Denial

Angela really likes her older sister’s boyfriend and wants him to ask her out despite the fact that he has eyes for only her older sister. On a conscious level, she knows her feels are unacceptable, so she turns it around. Angela tells her best friend, “I think Roberto dates my sister to be nearer to me.” What defense is Angela using?

Answer. Projection

A man accused of rape justifies his behavior to himself by thinking that the woman had dressed and acted so provocatively that she was “just asking for it.”

Answer. Rationalization.

Bob Smith, a top baseball player, sometimes strikes out on an easy pitch. When he does, Bob gets angry and throws his bat or kicks the water cooler.

Answer. Displacement

Jin, a college student, decided that he was flunking out because the teaching was so poor at his school.

Answer. Projection

Two months ago, Maris did not win a major scholarship that she had been counting on to help her pay for college. Now she is always fighting with you, her boyfriend, and her roommates.

Answer. Displacement

Edith never had gotten along with her mother since she was a young girl. Edith usually tells her friends that her mother is a terrific person and that she loves her very much.

Answer. Reaction formation