BHM: GENERAL LECTURE FIRST SHIFT

EGO PSYCHOLOGY AND DEFENSE MECHANISMS LEC # 5

Ma. Lourdes Joson, MD AUG 27 TH 2020

OUTLINE B. TOPOGRAPHIC THEORY OF THE MIND

I. Ego Psychology IV. Aspects of Ego • Composed of Conscious, Preconscious, and Unconscious
A. Sigmond Freud Functioning states
B. Topographic Theory of A. Pleasure Principle
• What’s known to us is only a portion of the entire psyche that
the Mind B. Reality Principle
C. Structural Theory of V. Defense Mechanisms we have – Conscious state
the Mind A. Narcissistic Defenses • Preconscious, and unconscious are buried
II. Topographical Theory of B. Immature Defenses • Some things cannot be explained by Topographic Theory of
the Mind C. Neurotic Defenses Mind → shift to the Structural Theory of the Mind
A. The Conscious System D. Mature Defenses
C. STRUCTURAL THEORY OF THE MIND
B. The Preconscious VI. Independent Study
System Content • Superego and Id – nonconscious
C. The Unconscious System A. Interpretation of Dreams • Ego – spans throughout the entire system (conscious,
D. Limitations of the B. Instinct or Study Drive preconscious, unconscious states)
Topographical Theory C. Concept of Narcissism → All three are topographical states
III. Structural Theory of the D. Functions of the Ego
Mind II. TOPOGRAPHICAL THEORY OF THE MIND
A. The Id VII. Review Questions
B. The Ego VIII. References • The interpretation of dreams (1900)
C. The Superego IX. Appendix → Heralded Freud’s Topographic Model of the Mind
→ Viewed the dream experienced as the conscious expression
of unconscious fantasies or wishes not readily acceptable to
must know book previous trans conscious waking experience
▪ Dream activity = normal manifestation of unconscious
I. EGO PSYCHOLOGY processes
• Divided the mind into three regions:
A. SIGMUND FREUD
→ Conscious
• Father of Psychoanalysis → Preconscious
→ Psychiatry, specifically psychoanalysis → Unconscious
• Psychoanalysis A. THE CONSCIOUS SYSTEM
→ Bedrock of psychodynamic understanding
• Perception from the outside world or from within the body or mind
→ Forms fundamental theoretical frame of reference for a variety
are brought into awareness.
of therapeutic intervention.
• Although the science and theory of psychoanalysis has • Consciousness is a subjective phenomenon whose content
advanced far beyond Freud, his influence is still strong and can be communicated only by means of language or behavior
pervasive.
• Consciousness used a form of neutralized psychic energy
• Freud’s conception of the Human Psyche – Iceberg Metaphor
→ Attention cathexis
▪ Whereby persons were aware of a particular idea or
feeling as a result of investing a discrete amount of psychic
energy in the idea or feeling
• If you want to put something up to your consciousness, you have
to give it attention.
• “You will not be fully conscious if you don’t pay attention. […]
definitely, attention is needed to be able to be fully aware of what
is happening within our surroundings.”
B. THE PRECONSCIOUS SYSTEM
• Composed of mental events, processes, and contents that can
be brought into conscious awareness by the act of focusing
attention
• To reach conscious awareness, unconscious thoughts must be
linked with words and become preconscious
→ Unconscious → pass through preconscious → Conscious
• Interfaces with both unconscious and conscious regions of
Figure 1. Freud’s Iceberg (ppt.) the mind
→ Remember… “ang dami nating alam and we can’t just think of
everything we know in one sitting. So sometimes you need to
set aside some of the ideas to focus with the ideas you have
to do now.”
→ Those ideas you set aside will be placed into the
subconscious state until you give them attention.
C-TG2 Lim, E., Lim, S, Limjoco, B., Locsin, P., Lopez, J., Lopez, T. TL: Lopez, M. TC: Profeta, D.N.
• Acts as the repressive barrier and censors’ unacceptable
wishes and desires
→ Selects what goes through the consciousness
C. THE UNCONSCIOUS SYSTEM
• It is dynamic
• Its mental concepts and processes are kept from conscious
awareness through the force of censorship or repression
• Related to instinctual drives (sexual and self-preservative)
• Content of unconscious = wishes seeking fulfillment (motivation
for dream and neurotic symptom formation)
• It involves primary process thinking
→ Facilitates wish fulfilment and instinctual discharge
→ Governed by the pleasure principle
Figure 2. Topographical Theory of the mind (ppt.)
• The topographical theory of the mind doesn’t hold much now,
→ Because not everything can be explained by this
• Today, bulk of the ego psychology or psyche uses the structural
theory of the mind.
D. LIMITATIONS OF THE TOPOGRAPHICAL THEORY
• There are two main deficiencies in the topographical theory:
→ (1) Many patients’ defense mechanisms that guard against
distressing wishes, feelings, or thoughts were not initially
accessible to consciousness
o Repression is not identical with the preconscious
o Preconscious can be brought to awareness;
repression cannot
→ (2) Freud’s patients frequently demonstrated an
unconscious need for punishment
o Unlikely that the moral agency making the demand for
punishment is available to conscious awareness in the
preconscious
III. STRUCTURAL THEORY OF THE MIND
• Cornerstone of Ego psychology
• Three provinces that are distinguished by their different
functions – Id, Ego, Superego
Figure 3. Structural theory of the mind (ppt.)
BHM.1.05 Ego Psychology and Defense Mechanism [REV]
A. THE ID
• The most primitive and instinctive component of personality
• Present at birth (inherited component)
→ Eros - sex (life) instinct (which contains the libido)
→ Thanatos - aggressive (death) instinct
• Reservoir of unorganized instinctual drives
• Operates under the primary process; pleasure principle
• The id lacks the capacity to delay or modify the instinctual drives
• Should not be viewed as synonymous with unconscious
→ Both ego and superego have unconscious components
• The id remains infantile in its function throughout a person’s life
→ Does not change with time or experience, as it is not in touch
with the external world
• The id is not affected by reality, logic, or the everyday world
→ It operates within the unconscious part of the mind
B. THE EGO
• Most important of the three
• Present by age 1 to 3 y/o
• Spans all three topographical dimensions
→ Logical and abstract thinking, and verbal expression are
associated with the conscious and preconscious functions of
the ego
→ Defense mechanisms reside in the unconscious domains
of the ego
• The ego develops to mediate between the unrealistic id and the
external real world
• The executive organ of the psyche
→ Controls motility, perception, contact with reality, delay and
modulate of drive expression (through the defense
mechanisms)
→ Operates under secondary process thinking (uses logic)
• Ego operates according to the reality principle
→ Works out realistic ways of satisfying the id’s demands often
compromising or postponing satisfaction to avoid negative
consequences of society
• The ego considers social realities and norms, etiquette, and rules
in deciding how to behave
• Freud made the analogy of the id being a horse while the ego is
the rider
→ The ego is ‘like a man on horseback’, who has to hold in
check the superior strength of the horse
→ If the ego fails in its attempt to use the reality principle, and
anxiety is experienced, unconscious defense mechanisms
are employed to help ward off unpleasant feeling (i.e.
anxiety) or make good things feel better for the individual
→ If you always give in to the id, it is pathologic
(develop anxiety)
Figure 4. Ego balances id and superego (ppt.)
C. THE SUPEREGO
• Incorporates the values and morals of society learned from
parents and others
→ Establishes and maintains individual’s moral conscience
▪ Individuals with higher superego function would end up
being more controlling
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 ▪ Become perfectionists and will overcontrol the ego
disrupting the balance between the id and the
superego
• Develops around 3-5 y.o during the Phallic Stage of
psychosexual development
→ Freud: superego as the “Heir to the Oedipus complex”
→ Children internalize parental values and standards at
about the age of 5 or 6 years.
• Scrutinizes person’s behavior, thoughts, and feelings
• Makes comparisons with expected standards of approval or
disapproval
• These activities occur largely unconsciously
Figure 5. Superego scrutinizes id and ego (ppt.)
Two Systems
• The Conscience
→ Can punish the ego through causing feelings of guilt
→ E.g. If ego gives in to id’s demands, the superego may make
the person feel bad through guilt
• The Ideal Self (ego-ideal)
→ An imaginary picture of how you ought to be
→ Represents career aspirations, how to treat other people,
and how to behave as a member of society
→ Can either be punished or rewarded
• The ideal self and conscience are largely determined in childhood
from parent values and how you were brought up.
Self
Figure 6. Kinds of self (ppt.)
• Ideal self
→ What I aspire to be
→ Too high: whatever a person does will represent a failure
→ Reason why younger people are depressed
→ They cannot achieve what they perceive as ideal self
A. PLEASURE PRINCIPLE
• “id”, “instincts”, “primary process”
• Biological Function
→ Inborn tendency to avoid pain and to seek pleasure
• Immediate fulfilment of desires
→ Manifests as discharge of tension
• Examples:
→ “What’s best for me?”
→ “I want it now”
B. REALITY PRINCIPLE
• “Ego” “secondary process”
• Psychological function:
→ Learned principle
→ Balances id and superego
• Ego Maturation
→ “If you are mature, the reality principle should be superior
over your pleasure principle”
• Modifies the pleasure principle
→ Requires delayed gratification
→ Uses reasoning to satisfy the Id in a safe, appropriate, and
socially acceptable way
→ More long term and goal oriented than pleasure principle
→ Manifests as defense mechanisms
• Examples
→ Prioritizing examinations over sleep
→ “What is best for everyone involved?”
→ “I will plan and wait in order to have it”
V. DEFENSE MECHANISMS
• Unconscious mental processes employed b ego to reduce
anxiety (prime function of the ego)
→ Ego employs range of defense mechanisms (depending on
how you would want to face the problem)
→ When defenses are most effective, they can abolish anxiety
and depression
▪ Abandoning a defense increases conscious anxiety
and depression
▪ Major reason that those with personality disorders are
reluctant to alter their behavior
• Manners in which we behave or think in certain ways to
better protect or “defend” ourselves
→ One way of looking at how people distance themselves from
full awareness of unpleasant thoughts, feelings, or behavior
→ Operate unconsciously to help ward off unnecessary
feelings or make things better for the individual
• Specific drive components evoke characteristic ego defenses
→ Anal phase is associated with reaction formation, as
manifested by the development of shame and disgust in
relation to anal impulses and pleasures
• Should be used normally to prevent from being pathologic
• George Valliant Classification groups defenses hierarchically
according to the relative degree of maturity
\

Table 1. George Valliant Classification of Defense Mechanisms

• Projected self Narcissistic Immature Neurotic Mature
→ How I project myself to others/how others see me Denial Acting out Controlling Altruism
Distortion Blocking Displacement Anticipation
• Real self Projection Hypochondriasis Dissociation Ascetism
→ What I am (note: Introjection Externalization Humor
• To become a good person, since everything overlaps, it is best Projection is Passive Inhibition Sublimation
listed under aggression Intellectualization Suppression
to get hold of the real self and lessen the demands of the ideal Narcissistic Projection Isolation
self. and Immature Regression Rationalization
in the book; Somatization Reaction formation
IV. ASPECTS OF EGO FUNCTIONING Dra. Joson’s Schizoid fantasy Repression
lecture lists it Sexualization
only under
• Recast the dichotomy of primary and secondary processes Narcissistic)
into pleasure and reality principles
• Solidified the notion of the ego by Freud in 1911

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 A. NARCISSISTIC DEFENSES
• Most primitive & appear in children or psychotically disturbed
people
• Provides immediate relief and gratification for release of anxiety
→ makes it convenient to use
• Usually found as part of a psychotic process
• May also occur in young children and adult dreams or fantasies
• Common note: avoiding, negating or distorting reality
1. Denial
• Most common mechanism used
• Psychotic denial of external reality
→ Unlike repression which affects perception of external reality
• Blocking of external events from awareness
→ Refusing to acknowledge what one sees
→ Hearing and negating what is heard
• Avoids becoming aware of some painful aspects of reality
→ If a situation is too much to handle, the person refuses to
experience it
• Pathogenic if used too much that you get stuck in one stage and
do not move forward
• Example:
→ A smoker refusing to accept smoking is bad for their health
• Functions:
→ Psychotic
▪ At the psychotic level, the denied reality may be replaced
by a fantasy or delusion
→ Adaptive
▪ Not all denial is necessarily psychotic; denial may function
in the service of more neurotic or even adaptive
objectives
2. Distortion
• Grossly reshaping the experience of external reality to suit
inner needs
→ Includes unrealistic megalomanic beliefs, hallucinations,
wish fulfilling delusions, and employing sustained feelings of
delusional grandiosity, superiority, or entitlement
→ Distortion of reality to make themselves happier
• Commonly seen in bipolar or manic individuals
• Example:
→ A working student from a very poor family suddenly
developed a delusion of grandeur after his struggle to send
himself to school
3. Projection
• Perceiving and reacting to unacceptable inner impulses and
their derivatives as though they were outside the self
→ Involves taking our own unacceptable qualities or feelings
and ascribing them to other people
→ Impulses may derive from id or superego
• Hallucinated recriminations
→ Man who wants another woman thinks that his wife is
cheating on him
• Paranoid delusions
→ On a psychotic level, this takes the form of frank delusions
about external reality, usually persecutory,
→ Includes both perception of one’s own feelings and those of
another with subsequent acting on the perception
• Examples:
→ Mother projects her anger at her children for her own
shortcomings
BHM.1.05 Ego Psychology and Defense Mechanism [REV]
Figure 7. Example of Projection (ppt.)
B. IMMATURE DEFENSES
• Seen in pre-adolescents, adolescents, and some
nonpsychotic patients, adult character disorders
• Often mobilized by anxieties related to intimacy or its loss
1. Acting Out
• Direct expression of an unconscious wish or impulse in action to
avoid being conscious of the accompanying effect
→ Unconscious fantasy, involving objects is lived out and
impulsively enacted in behavior, gratifying the impulse
more than the prohibition against it
• On a chronic level, it involves giving in to impulses to avoid the
tension that would result from postponement of expression
• Self-injury
→ Expressing in physical pain what one cannot stand
emotionally
• Examples:
→ Teenager cutting wrist because of pent up stress
→ Instead of saying he/she is angry, a person acts out by
throwing an object or punch the wall
2. Blocking
• Temporarily or transiently inhibiting thinking
→ Affects and impulses may also be involved
→ Unintentionally used
→ Commonly seen as "changing topics" of conversations
• Close to repression in its effects but has a component of tension
arising from the inhibition of the impulse, affect, or thought
• Examples:
→ Kapag kinumusta ka after your breakup, you just block the
topic and divert the conversation to another
3. Hypochondriasis
• Exaggerating or overemphasizing an illness for the purpose
of evasion and regression
→ Real illness may be overemphasized or exaggerated for its
evasive and regressive possibilities
→ Responsibility & guilt may be avoided, and instinctual
impulses may be warded off
• Transformation of reproach toward others into self-reproach
→ Reproach toward others arises from bereavement,
loneliness, or unacceptable aggressive impulses
→ Self-reproach in the form of somatic complaints of pain,
illness, and neurasthenia
• Examples:
→ May nararamdaman na totoo pero ine-exaggerate lang
→ Looking up of symptoms in the internet and jumping to the
conclusion that they have a life-threatening disease
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 4. Introjection
• Introjection of a loved object
→ Internalization of characteristics of the object with the goal of
ensuring closeness to and constant presence of the
object
▪ The painful awareness of separateness or the threat of loss
may be avoided
▪ Anxiety consequent to separation or tension arising out of
ambivalence toward the object is thus diminished
▪ If object is lost
− Introjection nullifies or negates the loss by taking on
characteristics of the object, internally preserving object
▪ If object is not lost
− Shift of cathexis reflecting altering object relationship
• Introjection of a feared object
→ Avoid anxiety through internalizing the aggressive
characteristics of the object, putting aggression under own
control
→ Aggression no longer felt as coming from outside, but is taken
within and utilized defensively, turning the subject’s weak,
passive position into an active one, strong one
→ Putting inside of you what you feel so you gain a sense of
control over it
• Examples
→ Identification with the aggressor
▪ Stockholm syndrome (Most classic example)
− Hostage expresses empathy and has positive
feeling towards their captors
− Sometimes to the point of defending them
→ Identification with the victim
▪ Can also take place out of a sense of guilt in which the self-
punishing introject is attributable to the hostile-
destructive component of an ambivalent tie to an
object
▪ Self-punitive qualities of the object are taken over and
established within one’s self as a symptom or character trait
→ effectively represents both the destruction and
preservation of the object
5. Passive-Aggressive Behavior
• Aggression toward an object expressed indirectly and
ineffectively through passivity, masochism, and turning
against the self
• Examples:
→ A person’s coworker agrees to take on one of his
assignments, but then does not meet the deadline
6. Projection
• Non-psychotic level: Attributing one’s own unacknowledged
feelings to others
→ Severe prejudice, rejection of intimacy through
suspiciousness, hypervigilance to external danger and
injustice collecting
• Operates correlatively to introjection
→ The material of the projection derives from the internalized
but usually unconscious configuration of the subject’s
introject
→ May take the form of misattributing or misinterpreting motives,
attitudes, feelings, or intentions of others
BHM.1.05 Ego Psychology and Defense Mechanism [REV]
7. Regression
• Return to a previous stage of development or functioning to
avoid the anxieties or hostilities involved in later stages
→ Return to earlier points of fixation embodying modes of
behavior previously given up
→ Return to an earlier libidinal phase of functioning to avoid the
tension and conflict evoked at the present level of
development
• Result of a disruption of equilibrium at a later phase of
development
→ Basic tendency to achieve instinctual gratification or to
escape instinctual tension by returning to earlier modes and
levels of gratification
• Normal phenomenon
→ Certain amount of regression is essential for relaxation,
sleep, and orgasm in sexual intercourse
→ Normally done to recharge (such as sleeping)
• Examples:
→ A child may begin to suck their thumb again or wet the bed
when faced with an unpleasant event.
▪ From latency, goes back to phallic, anal, or oral stage
→ A teenager throws a temper tantrum when not allowed to go
on the spring break trip he wanted.
8. Somatization
• Defensive conversion of psychic derivatives into bodily
symptoms
→ React with somatic rather than psychic manifestations
→ No physical pain
→ Mostly seen as psychological stress being converted into
bodily symptoms instead of addressing its mental aspect
• Example:
→ “A school age child develops abdominal pain to avoid going
to school, where he/she is being bullied”
• Desomatization
→ Infantile responses are replaced by thought and affect during
development
• Resomatization
→ Regression to earlier somatic forms or response; may result
from unresolved conflicts and play an important role in
psychophysiological and psychosomatic reactions
9. Schizoid Fantasy
• Tendency to use fantasy and to indulge in autistic retreat for
the purpose of conflict resolution and gratification
→ Interpersonal intimacy is avoided, and eccentricity serves to
repel others
→ Likes to go solo; fixated to their fantasies
→ The person does not fully believe in the fantasies and does
not insist on acting them out
• Not commonly seen; usually seen in schizophrenic or
psychotically disturbed individuals
• Examples:
→ A kid fantasizes of being a world chess champion, but refuses
to play with others to practice
→ A 15-year-old boy dreams of being the world chess
champion. He spends nearly all of his time alone studying the
game and won’t discuss other topics
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 C. NEUROTIC DEFENSES
• Encountered in obsessive-compulsive and hysterical patients,
as well as in adults under stress
• Common in apparently normal and healthy individuals as well as
in neurotic disorders
• Alleviation of distressing effects and may be expressed in
neurotic forms of behavior
• Depending on circumstances, can also have an adaptive or
socially acceptable aspect
• Common in anxious individuals
1. Controlling
• Excessive attempt to manage or regulate events or objects
in the environment in the interest of minimizing anxiety and
solving internal conflicts
→ Get severe anxiety when things do not go according to as
planned
• Fixated in the anal stage; “very anal”
• Seen in type A personalities (Ex. med students)
• Examples:
→ Those who panic right away when there’s a change in the
schedule or even the seating arrangement
→ A person who attempts to dictate how everything around
them is done
2. Displacement
• Purposeful, unconscious shifting of impulses or affective
investment from one object to another (that resembles the
original in some aspect) in the interest of solving a conflict
→ Although the object is changed, the instinctual nature of the
impulse and its aim remains unchanged
→ Permits the symbolic representation of the original idea or
object by one that is less highly cathected or evokes less
distress.
→ You shift or displace it to someone who is inferior to you or,
at least, at your level.
• Examples:
→ Your boss did not grant you the promotion that you requested,
but you could not get mad at him because you might lose your
job. So once you got home, you displaced your anger towards
your child.
→ If you had a bad day at school and gone home and taken your
frustration out on your family or friends.
3. Dissociation
• Temporary but drastic modification of character or sense of
personal identity to avoid emotional distress
→ Used to battle severe emotional distress
→ Like a temporary amnesia; not intentional
• Common manifestations
→ Fugue states
→ Hysterical conversion reactions
• Examples:
→ Person exhibiting multiple personalities
→ An adolescent witnesses a shooting and is unable to recall
any details of the event
4. Externalization
• Tendency to perceive in the external world and in external
object components of one’s own personality
→ Includes impulses, conflicts, moods, attitudes, thinking style
→ Correlative to internalization
BHM.1.05 Ego Psychology and Defense Mechanism [REV]
• More general term than projection, which is defined by its
derivation from and correlation with specific introjects
→ Larger-scale version of projection, but similarly you project
what you don’t like outside
• Example:
→ Person who is very argumentative easily perceives others as
argumentative and finds himself blameless
→ Being mad at people who have the same likes as you, as
seen in the Filipino salawikain "ang magnanakaw ay galit sa
kapwa magnanakaw"
5. Inhibition
• Unconsciously determined limitation or renunciation of
specific ego functions, singly or in combination, to avoid
anxiety arising out of conflict with instinctual impulses, superego,
or environmental forces or figures
• Loss of motivation to engage in some goal directed activities
to prevent anxiety
• Commonly used by people with phobias
• Example:
→ A person avoids going to high places due to the fear of
heights
6. Intellectualization
• Excessively using intellectual processes to avoid affective
expression or experience
→ Control of affects and impulses by way of thinking about them
instead of experiencing them
→ Systematic excess of thinking, deprived of its affect, to defend
against anxiety caused by unacceptable impulses
→ Reduces anxiety by thinking in a cold, clinical way
• Closely allied to rationalization
→ Difference is that the emotion has been totally removed
• Detachment from the emotional aspect of events
→ Unconsciously separates the emotion from the facts
→ Allows us to avoid thinking about the stressful, emotional
aspect
▪ Focus only on intellectual, factual component
• Examples:
→ Death of a loved one provokes the person to take care of the
documents, the food, etc. instead of grieving or crying
→ A person who has just been diagnosed with a terminal illness
might focus on learning everything about the disease in order
to avoid distress and remain distant from the reality of the
situation
7. Isolation
• Intrapsychic splitting or separation of an affect from the
content resulting in repression of either idea/affect or the
displacement of affect to a different or substitute content
→ Avoid painful thought or feeling by emotionally detaching
oneself
• Social isolation
→ The absence of object relationships
• Higher level than intellectualization
• Example:
→ If you are annoyed with a person, you would rather just go out
of the way to avoid the person
→ Children who narrate their experiences of being physically
abused do not show any anguish or pain and seem very
casual about it
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 8. Rationalization
• A justification of attitudes, belief, or behavior that might
otherwise be unacceptable by an incorrect application of
justifying reasons or the invention of a convincing fallacy
→ Usually instinctually determined
▪ Unintentional but instinctually determined
→ You create a valid excuse to avoid the guilt
• Examples:
→ You paid only half of your tuition and used the other half to
buy an iPad because all your classmates have one. You
reason out to your mom that you might fail school if you don’t
have an iPad
→ A student might blame a poor exam score on the instructor
rather than his lack of preparation
9. Reaction Formation
• Management of unacceptable impulses by permitting
expression of the impulse in antithetical form (transforming
an unacceptable impulse into its opposite)
→ Equivalently an expression of the impulse in the negative
→ Over-compensating or demonstrating the opposite behavior
of what is felt
→ Exaggerated demonstration of opposite behavior
• If instinctual conflict is persistent, reaction formation can become
a character trait on a permanent basis, usually as an aspect of
obsessional character
• Examples:
→ Josh is angry with his father for leaving them. When his father,
sick and dying, returns, instead of getting mad, he overly
takes care of him even at his deathbed. He
overcompensates, opposite of his hostility towards his father
→ High school crush: you notice the bad things about a person
but actually, you have crush on him/her. Later on you realize
that you are reacting; you’re having a reaction formation
10. Repression
• Expelling and withholding from conscious awareness of an
idea or feeling due to a barrier
→ Preconscious does not allow it to become conscious
• Seen in the resolution of Oedipus complex
→ Rivalry against same-sex parent eventually terminates as the
child learns it is bad, and learns to associate more with that
same sex parent
• Primary Repression:
→ Curbing ideas and feelings before they have attained
consciousness
→ Example:
▪ You can’t remember extreme traumatic events because of
amnesia in the first place
• Secondary Repression:
→ Excluding from awareness what was once experienced on a
conscious level
▪ You already know but because of pain, the ego has decided
that it must be repressed so you can’t remember it”
→ The “forgetting” associated with repression is unique
▪ Often accompanied by highly symbolic behavior, which
suggests that the repressed is not really forgotten
→ Examples:
▪ Andrew had no recollection that he was involved in a fatal
car accident, he always says that he sold his car because
he dislikes driving
▪ Abandoned, molested, or abused children have trust issues
BHM.1.05 Ego Psychology and Defense Mechanism [REV]
▪ Lexie was sexually abused when she was a child, because
of her repressed memories she has difficulty forming a
relationship
11. Sexualization
• Endowing of an object or function with sexual significance
that it did not previously have
• To ward off anxieties connected with prohibited impulses or
their derivatives
• Delaying of sexual urges leads to the ego adding sexual
contexts to non-sexual objects or ideas
• Example:
→ An individual inside a class with elevated libido makes a
green joke. The whole class laughs, not knowing that the
individual is using a defense mechanism to release tension
D. MATURE DEFENSES
• Healthy and adaptive mechanisms
• Socially adaptive and useful in:
→ Integration of personal needs and motives
→ Social demands
→ Interpersonal relations
• Admirable and virtuous patterns of behavior
• Optimizes one’s ability to have normal relationships; enjoy
their work and take pleasure in life
• Must be used all the time
1. Altruism
• Vicarious but constructive and instinctually gratifying service to
others, even to the detriment of the self
→ Altruism- “U come before I”
→ Getting pleasure from giving, to others, what the individual
would have liked to receive
• Satisfies internal needs through helping others
→ “When you’re stressed out, you do good things to others”
2. Anticipation
• Realistically anticipating or planning for future inner
discomfort
→ Goal-directed and implies careful planning or worrying
→ Premature but realistic anticipation of dire/dreadful outcomes
• Capacity to keep affective response to an unbearable future
event in mind in manageable doses.
→ Reflects the capacity to perceive future danger affectively and
cognitively
• Master conflicts in small steps
• Examples:
→ You anticipate that you may fail an exam so you study
→ A person getting old think ahead of her retirement wisely
3. Asceticism
• Elimination of directly pleasurable affects
→ The moral element is implicit in setting values on specific
pleasures
• Directed against all “base” pleasures perceived consciously
→ Gratification is derived from the renunciation
→ You abstain from worldly pleasures often for the purpose of
pursuing spiritual goals
• Examples:
→ Monks
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 4. Humor
• Using comedy for overt expression of feelings without
personal discomfort or immobilization and without
unpleasant effect on others
→ Pointing out the funny or ironic aspects of a situation
→ Allows one to bear, and yet focus on, what is too terrible to be
borne
• Examples:
→ Babagsak ka na but instead, you laugh it off to get by
5. Sublimation
• Gratification of an impulse whose goal is retained but whose
aim is changed from a socially objectionable one to a
socially valued one
→ Allows instinct to be channeled (not blocked or dammed up
or diverted)
→ Feelings are acknowledged, modified, and directed toward a
relatively significant person or goal
• Libidinal Sublimation:
→ Desexualization of drive impulses
→ Placing a value judgement that substitutes what is valued by
the superego or society
• Sublimation of Aggressive Impulse:
→ Takes place through pleasurable games and sports
→ Examples:
▪ A person experiencing extreme anger might take up kick
boxing as a means of venting frustration
▪ After working, a person jogs to relieve the all the stress they
had because of working all the time
6. Suppression
• The conscious or semiconscious decision to postpone attention
to a conscious impulse or conflict
→ Modulates emotional conflict or internal /external stressors
through stoicism
→ Discomfort is acknowledged but minimized
→ Issues may be deliberately cut-off, but they are not avoided;
you only delay them
→ Sort things out, prioritize, and take one step at a time
→ dealing with problems one at a time to avoid being
overwhelmed by all the problems to be dealt with
• Most highly associated with other facets of mental health
• Suppression vs Repression
→ Repression - subconsciously withheld
→ Suppression – conscious postponement
• Examples:
→ A person who lost his job states he will worry about paying
his bills next week
VI. INDEPENDENT STUDY CONTENT
A. THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS
• Published by Freud (1900)
• A theory of the dreaming process that paralleled his earlier
analysis of psychoneurotic symptoms
• Dream experience
→ Viewed as a conscious expression of unconscious
fantasies or wishes not readily acceptable to conscious
waking experience
→ Considered one of the normal manifestations of conscious
processes
• Dream images represented unconscious wishes or thoughts,
disguised through a process of symbolization and other
distorting mechanisms
BHM.1.05 Ego Psychology and Defense Mechanism [REV]
• “Censor”
→ Postulated by Freud, pictured as a border between the
unconscious part of the mind and the preconscious level
→ Functions to exclude unconscious wishes during conscious
states
→ During the regressive relaxation of sleep, it allows certain
unconscious contents to pass the border
→ Works in the service of the ego, serving its self-preservative
objectives
• These unconscious thoughts and wishes include:
→ nocturnal sensory stimuli:
▪ Pain
▪ Hunger
▪ Thirst
▪ Urinary urgency
→ The day residue: thoughts and ideas that are connected with
that of dreamer’s current waking life
→ And repressed unacceptable impulses.
• Motility is blocked by the sleep state
• Dream enables partial but limited gratification of the repressed
impulse that gives rise to the dream
Two Layers of Dream Content
• Manifest content
→ Recalled by the dreamer
→ “literal subject matter of dream”
• Latent content
→ Involves the unconscious thoughts and wishes that threaten
to awaken the dreamer
→ “underlying meaning of symbols in dream”
• To pass the scrutiny of the dream censor, repressed wishes
must attach themselves to innocent or neutral images.
→ Involves selection of images from the dreamer’s current
experience which are associated with the latent images that
they resemble
Different Aspects of the Dream Work
• Condensation
→ Unconscious wishes, impulses, or attitudes can be combined
into a single image in the manifest dream content
▪ Ex: In a child’s nightmare, an attacking monster may come
to represent not only the dreamer’s father by may also
represent some aspects of the mother and even some of
the child
→ Occur in the dream work by a diffusion of a single latent wish
that is distributed through multiple representations in the
manifest dream content
→ Combination of condensation and diffusion
▪ Provides the dreamer with a highly flexible and economic
device for facilitating, compressing, and diffusing or
expanding the manifest dream content
• Displacement
→ Transfer of amount of energy (cathexis) from an original object
to symbolic representation of the object
→ The substitute object, which is relatively neutral, is less
invested with affective energy.
▪ It is more acceptable to the dream censor and can pass the
borders of repression more easily.
→ Facilitates distortion of unconscious wishes through transfer
of affective energy from one object to another
→ Symbolism
▪ Refers to the substitution of one object for another
→ Despite transfer of cathectic energy, the aim of the
unconscious impulse remains unchanged
▪ Ex: In a dream, the mother may be represented visually by
an unknown female figure (at least one who has less
emotional significance for the dreamer), but the naked
content of the dream nonetheless continues to derive from
the dreamer’s unconscious instinctual impulses toward the
mother.
• Symbolic Representation
→ Representation of highly charged ideas through images that
were somehow connected with the idea being represented
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 → Abstract concept toward a person could be symbolized by a
simple, concrete, or sensory image.
• Secondary Revision
→ More reasonable aspect of the ego works during dreams to
organize primitive aspects of dreams into more coherent
form. (Secondary Process)
→ Primary Process
▪ Mechanisms of condensation, displacement, and symbolic
representation
→ Dreams become somewhat more rational.
Affects in Dreams
• Secondary emotions may not appear in a dream, or they may be
experienced in somewhat altered form
→ Ex: Repressed rage towards a person’s father may take the
form of mild annoyance.
Anxiety Dreams
• Freud’s understanding of dreams stresses the importance of
discharging drives or wishes through the hallucinatory contents
of the dreams
→ Condensation, Displacement, Symbolic Representation,
Projection, and Secondary Revision facilitates the discharge
of latent impulses.
→ Reflects a failure in the protective function of the dream-work
mechanism
Punishment Dreams
• These dreams represented a special challenge because they
appear to represent an exception to Freud’s wish fulfillment
theory of dreams.
→ Reflect a compromise between the repressed wish and the
repressing agency or conscience
→ Ego
▪ anticipates condemnation on the part of the dreamer’s
conscience if the latent unacceptable impulses are allowed
direct expression in the manifest dream content
B. INSTINCT OR DRIVE THEORY
• Freud anchored his psychological theory in biological terms but
had terminological and conceptual difficulties in doing so.
• Instinct
→ refers to a pattern of species-specific behavior that is
genetically derived and can be learned independently.
→ can be modified through experience
• Drive
→ defined to be as self-motivation
→ this term has been closer to Freud’s meaning compared to
instinct
• Instinct has four principal characteristics:
→ Source – part of the body where the instinct arises
→ Impetus – force or intensity associated with the instinct
→ Aim – action directed toward tension discharge or
satisfaction
→ Object – target for this action
Instincts
• Libido
→ A sexual instinct
→ A psychophysiological process that had both mental and
physiological manifestations
→ Refers to the force by which the sexual instinct is
represented in the mind
→ This underwent a complex process of development with a
simple aim of genital union
• Ego Instinct
→ Freud invested ego instinct with libido by postulating an ego
libido (Self) and an object libido (other)
→ He viewed narcissistic investment as an essentially libidinal
instinct and called the remaining nonsexual components
the ego instinct
• Aggression
→ Dual Instinct Theory to libido and aggression
BHM.1.05 Ego Psychology and Defense Mechanism [REV]
→ Freud, first associated aggression with sexual instinct in the
form of sadism
→ He then made finer gradations – categorizing aggression
and hate as part of the ego instinct
→ In the end, he added aggression as a separate instinct
→ The source of the instinct was largely in the skeletal
muscles, and its aim was destruction
• Life and Death instincts
→ Regarded as forces underlying sexual/aggressive instincts
→ Death Instincts
▪ could be inferred by observing repetition compulsion,
or the tendency of the person to repeat past traumatic
behavior
→ Life Instincts
▪ refer to the tendency of particles to bind to one
another, as in sexual reproduction
→ Freud thought the dominant force in biological organisms
had to be the death instinct.
C. CONCEPTS OF NARCISSISM
Instincts
• Described by Freud
• Situations in which an individual’s libido was invested in the ego
itself rather than in other persons
• Situations in which a person’s libido is withdrawn from objects
and turned inward
→ The withdrawal of libidinal attachment to objects accounted
for the loss of reality testing in patients who were psychotic
→ Grandiosity and omnipotence reflected excessive libidinal
investment in the ego
• Libidinal investment was frequently withdrawn from external
objects and from outside activities and interests
• In normal sleep, libido was also withdrawn and reinvested in a
sleeper’s own body
• Homosexuality
▪ Instance of a narcissistic form of object choice
▪ Person falls in love with an idealized version of themselves
projected to another person
• The ability to influence external events through the magical
omnipotence of thought process
• A perversion in which persons used their own bodies or body
parts as objects of sexual arousal
• A developmental phase, as in the state of primary narcissism
• A particular object of choice
→ Love objects chosen to the narcissistic type
▪ The object resembles the subject’s idealized or
fantasied self-image
→ Love objects chosen to the anaclitic type
▪ The object resembles a caretaker from early in life
• Freud used narcissism interchangeable and synonymously with
self-esteem
Developmental Phase of Narcissism
• Primary narcissism at birth
→ There is Ego Libido
▪ The libido is stored in the ego
→ Neonate is completely narcissistic, with the entire libidinal
investment in physiological needs and their satisfaction
• Object attachment during infancy
→ Dawning awareness that the mothering figure is
responsible for gratifying an infant’s need
→ Gradual withdrawal of the libido from the self and its
redirection towards the external object
→ The development of objects relations in infants parallel the
shift from primary narcissism to object attachment
→ Object libido
▪ The libidinal investment in the object
• Regressive posture secondary narcissism
→ When the object libido is withdrawn and reinvested in the ego
→ Happens if a developing child suffers rebuffs or trauma from
the caretaking figure
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 D. FUNCTIONS OF THE EGO Synthetic Function of The Ego

Control and Regulation of Intrinsic Drives • According to Herman Nunberg,

• Capacity to delay or postpone drive discharge
• Capacity to test reality is closely related to the early childhood
progression from the pleasure principle to the reality principle
• Essential aspect of the ego’s role as mediator between the id and
the outside world
• Part of infant’s socialization to the external world is the acquisition
of language and secondary process or logical thinking
Judgement
• Ability to anticipate the consequences of actions
• Develops in parallel with the growth of secondary process
thinking
• Ability to think logically allows assessment of how contemplated
behavior may affect others
Relation to Reality
• Mediation between the internal world and external reality
• Relations with the outside world
→ Sense of reality
▪ Infant’s drawing awareness to bodily sensations
▪ Ability to distinguish what is outside vs inside the body
▪ Disturbances of body boundaries, such as
depersonalization, reflect impairment in this ego
→ Reality testing
▪ Capacity to distinguish internal fantasy form external reality
▪ Differentiates persons who are psychotic vs not
→ Adaptation to reality
▪ The person’s ability to use their resources to develop
effective responses to changing circumstances
→ Synthetic function
▪ Ego’s capacity to integrate diverse elements into an overall
unity
▪ Different aspects of self and others are synthesized into a
consistent representation that endures over time
▪ Involves organizing, coordinating, or simplifying large
amounts of data
Primary Autonomous Ego Functions
• According to Heinz Hartmann,
→ Primary autonomous functions of the ego
▪ Refers to the rudimentary apparatuses at birth that develop
independently of intrapsychic conflict between drives and
defenses
▪ Includes perception, learning, intelligence, intuition,
language, thinking, comprehension, and motility
▪ Some of these conflict-free aspects of the ego may
eventually become involved in conflict
▪ Will develop normally in the infant if raised in average
expectable environment
Secondary Autonomous Ego Functions
• Synthetic function
→ Arises when the primary autonomous function becomes
involved with conflict
→ E.g. When child develops caretaking functions as a reaction
formation to murderous wishes in first few yrs of life. Defensive
functions may be neutralized when child grows up to be social
worker for homeless people
→

VII..REVIEW QUESTIONS
Object Relationships
1. (T/F) The Id is also known as the unconscious structural
• Capacity to form mutually satisfying relationships
theory of the mind.
• Related in part to patterns of internalization stemming from early
2. When an individual asks himself, “What is best for everyone
interactions with parents and other significant figures
involved?”, this falls under which principle?
• Satisfying relatedness depends on:
A. Pleasure principle
→ Ability to integrate positive and negative aspects of others and
B. Reality principle
self
C. Morality principle
→ Ability to maintain an internal sense of others even in their
D. Dream principle
absence
3. The 2 systems involved in the superego are:
• Mastery of drive derivatives is crucial to the achievement of A. Conscience and morality
satisfying relationships B. Morality and Ideal Self
• According to Ronal Fairbairn and Michael Balint, C. Ideal self and conscience
→ There is relationship with need-satisfying objects in the D. Ideal self and unconscious
early stages of infant
→ Then, there is a gradual development of a sense of Answer Key: 1.F , 2.B , 3.C
separateness from the mother
• According to Donald Winnicott VIII. REFERENCES
→ Transitional object • Joson MD, M.L. Ego psychology and defense mechanisms. [Video], Manila,
▪ The link between developing children and their mothers Philippines: UST Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, BEHMED1
▪ A child can separate from the mother because a transitional • C2022 Trans (2019, Sep. 09). Ego psychology and defense mechanisms
• Sadock, B. J., Sadock, V. A., & Ruiz, P. (2014). Chapter 4.1 Sigmund Freud:
object provides feelings of security in her absence
Founder of psychoanalysis. In Kaplan & Sadock's synopsis of psychiatry:
Table 2. Stages of human development and object relations theory Behavioral sciences/clinical psychiatry (11th ed.)
Instinctual Separation- Object relations Psychosocial
phases individualization crises IX..APPENDIX
Oral Autism, Primary Trust or mistrust
Symbiosis narcissism, Need Table 3. TWG Assignment
satisfying TWG Member Assignment
Anal Differentiation, Need-satisfying, Autonomy or Lopez, Jomari Nazarene pp. 1-3 (Ego Psychology,
Practicing, Object constancy shame, self-doubt Topographical and Structural
Rapprochement
Theory of Mind)
Phallic Object constancy, Object constancy, Initiative or guilt
Oedipal Complex ambivalence Lim, Ericka Denise pp. 3-5 (Aspects of Ego
Latency - - Industry or Functioning, Narcissistic and
inferiority Immature Defenses)
Adolescence Genitality, Object love Identity or identity Locsin, Patricia Therese pp. 5-8 (Neurotic and Mature
Secondary confusion
individuation
Defenses)
Adulthood Mature genitality - Intimacy or Limjoco, Bianca p. 8 (The Interpretation of Dreams)
isolation, Lopez, Timothy Justin p. 9 (Instinct or Drive Theory)
generativity or Lim, Sophia pp. 9-10 (Concept of Narcissism
stagnation,
integrity or
and Functions of the Ego)
despair

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