BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE .

02
EGO DEFENSES: MATURE AND IMMATURE DEFENSES
 Learning Objectives
• To understand how the different defenses are
used to manage internal conflicts.
• To understand the clinical significance of
defense mechanisms in mental disorders.
 Defense Mechanisms
• Defense mechanisms are mental techniques or tools
used by the ego to keep conflicts out of the conscious
mind/ manage the conflicts between the id and superego
• These are the means by which the ego decreases
anxiety, guilt or other undesirable emotions that arise
when the id or superego becomes too demanding.
• To maintain safety, self esteem or make the individual
feel better.
 Defense Mechanisms
• All defenses are unconscious except suppression
• Defenses change overtime. We are only aware of our
defenses in retrospect.
• Defenses are adaptive as well as maladaptive.

.
 Defense Mechanisms
• Sigmund Freud (1894, 1896) noted a number of ego
defenses which he refers to throughout his written works.
• His daughter Anna Freud (1936) developed these ideas and
elaborated on them, adding ten of her own. Many
psychoanalysts have also added further types of ego
defenses.

* Translation: There are a large number of defense mechanisms.

Defense Mechanisms

MATURE EGO
IMMATURE EGO
DEFENSES
DEFENSES
 Immature Defenses
• Behaving in an attention getting, often

Acting out
socially inappropriate manner
• When an emotional or behavioural
outbursts masks underlying feelings or ideas

Denial
• Avoiding the acknowledgment of a painful
aspect of reality

• Redirecting emotions or impulses to a

Displacement neutral person or object

• Separates the self from one’s experience

• Here, there is a drastic change in
Dissociation personality, memory, consciousness or
motor behaviour to avoid emotional stress
DISPLACEMENT
 Immature Defenses
Fixation
• Partially remaining at a more childish level of
development, different from regression.

• Expressing extremely positive thoughts of self

and others while ignoring negative thoughts
Idealisation • Seeing self / others as more powerful or
competent than they are
• Aka introjection
• Patterning one’s behaviour after another
Identification person or group (can be either positive or
negative)

• Using facts and logic to emotionally

Intellectualisation distance oneself from a stressful situation.
FIXATION
 Immature Defenses
Isolation of • Separating feelings from ideas and
affect events .

Passive • Demonstrating hostile feelings in a non

confrontational manner
Aggression
• When a person attributes his own wishes,
thoughts, desires and emotions to someone
Projection else
• Internal states are perceived as a part of
someone else or of the world in general

• Asserting plausible explanations for events

Rationalisation that actually occurred for other reasons,
usually to avoid self blame
RATIONALISATION
PROJECTION
 Immature Defenses
Reaction • When an unacceptable impulse is
formation transformed into its opposite

• Returning to an earlier stage of

Regression development you already completed.

• Involuntarily withholding an idea or feeling

from conscious awareness , different from
Repression suppression
• Aka unconscious forgetting

• Believing that people / things are

Splitting either all bad or all good at different
times due to intolerance of ambiguity.
REGRESSION
 Immature Defenses
• Performing an act to undo a previous
Undoing unacceptable act or thought.

• When psychological conflict is

Somatisation converted into bodily symptoms
 Example
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
• Denial, Projection, Splitting
• DPs
 MATURE ADULTS wear a SASH

• Sublimation

• Altruism

• Suppression

• Humour
 Mature Defenses
• Expressing a personally unacceptable feeling
Sublimation or wish with an action that is similar to the
wish but socially acceptable.

• Alleviating negative feelings via

Altruism unsolicited generosity, which provides
gratification

• Deliberately pushing personally

Suppression unacceptable emotions out of conscious
awareness.

• Lightheartedly expressing
Humor uncomfortable feelings to shift the
internal focus away from the distress .
 TRANSFERENCE
1. In positive transference, the
patient has confidence in the
doctor. If intense, the patient may
over-idealise the doctor or develop
sexual feelings toward the doctor.
2. In negative transference, the
patient may become resentful or
angry toward the doctor if the
patient’s desires and expectations
are not realized. This may lead to
poor adherence to medical advice.
 COUNTERTRANSFERENCE
• In countertransference, Feelings about a patient who
reminds the doctor of a close friend or relative can
interfere with the doctor’s medical judgment.
 Sample Question
• A physician becomes very angry with a patient
when the patient does not take his medication. The
patient reminds the doctor of her rebellious
daughter. This physician’s intense reaction to the
patient’s behavior is most likely to be a result of;
(A) positive transference
(B) negative transference
(C) countertransference
(D) dislike of the patient
(E) Fear of the patient
 Sample Question
• A primary care physician notices that many of his
patients use statements like “when I’m not feeling
well, I only want to eat junk food.” A statement like
this
(A) produce conflict in the conscious mind
(B) are conscious mental techniques
(C) increase anxiety
(D) is an example of the use of defense
mechanisms
(E) decrease a patient’s sense of self -esteem
 Sample Question
Choose the defense mechanism that he or she is
most likely to be using.
• A 27-year-old woman who was abused by her brother
throughout her childhood manages her hostility
toward him by baking cookies for him
(A) Dissociation
(B) Reaction formation
(C) Intellectualization
(D) Sublimation
(E) Displacement
 Sample Question
Choose the defense mechanism that he or she is
most likely to be using.
• A 55-year-old male patient scheduled for surgery the
next day insists that his mother stay overnight in the
hospital with him.
(A) Reaction formation
(B) Intellectualization
(C) Sublimation
(D) Displacement
(E) Regression
 Sample Question
Choose the defense mechanism that he or she is most likely
to be using.
• A lawyer who has been diagnosed with obsessive–compulsive
disorder tells the doctor that she has to count all the lights in
the ceiling before she can sit down in her office. If she does not
count the lights, she becomes anxious and is unable to work .
(A) Reaction formation
(B) Intellectualization
(C) Undoing
(D) Displacement
(E) Regression
 REFERENCES
• Tao, L. , Vikas, B. (2021). FIRST AID FOR THE USMLE STEP 1, 2021: 576-577
• Kaplan (2018). Behavioural Science & Social Sciences,5:67-72
• McLeod, S. A. (2019, April 10). Defense mechanisms. Simply Psychology.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/defense-mechanisms.html
• All images from Google Images