Extreme patterns of Reaction Formation are found in paranoia and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), where the person becomes trapped in a cycle of repeating a behavior that they know (at least at a deep level) is somehow wrong. Compensation is the process of masking perceived negative self-concepts by developing positive self-concepts to make up for and to cover those perceived negative self-concepts.
Freud believed people had to repress "phantasies" or wish-fulfillment ideas generated by the id. Have you ever had a really bad day at work and then gone home and taken out your frustration with family and friends? As Freud described it, rationalization was supposed to be an automatic self-protective reaction.
A friend who taught gross anatomy at a medical school told me how he saw it in action every term. The negative self-concept for each family member comes from identifying with the father because he is a part of the family; the father cannot be viewed as a negative image, or everyone else in the family, too, will be considered to be that negative image. Thank you, {{form.email}}, for signing up. This way, you can get some approval for the feelings that you disapprove of. Psych Web has over 1,000 pages, so it may be elsewhere on the site. Denial is probably one of the best-known defense mechanisms, used often to describe situations in which people seem unable to face reality or admit an obvious truth (e.g., "He's in denial"). In Sigmund Freud's model of personality, the ego is the aspect of personality that deals with reality. Freud was a keen observer and identified many interesting defense mechanisms. This identification is a way to think of yourself as good self-concepts or images. Then you have experienced the ego defense mechanism of displacement. For example, a student once wrote an essay in which he described, with shock and sorrow, having a fist fight with his father, who he deeply resented for abandoning his mother. Freud saw the libido as a general life energy, generated by the id, sexual in origin, but expressed in many different ways. Think of the last time you referred to someone as being "in denial" or accused someone of "rationalizing." The ego thereby fortifies itself at its point of greatest weakness. That happened (Freud thought) if repression was successful. Formation: Going to the opposite extreme; overcompensation for unacceptable impulses.Examples: (1) a man violently dislikes an employee; without being aware of doing so, he "bends over backwards" to not criticize the employee and gives him special privileges and advances. Review of General Psychology, 10 74-86.