Talk:Defence mechanism

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Definately not a stubwhicky1978 02:18, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

My hat goes off to whomever wrote the example for Splitting LamontCranston 10:21, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Rationalization

Rationalization is not mentioned! Its incredible, having on account that it from the original list made by Freud, and that its probably the main one.

Rationalization is addressed through Intellectualization, but I agree that it deserves its own listing. XarBiogeek (talk) 19:18, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Suppression

the link for suppression leads to an article on censorship that is more political than psychological, in fact it mentions nothing of the inner workings of the human mind. Should suppression not link to it's own article or stub like the other mechanisms? -- suuta

[edit] Categorizations of defenses and Adaptation to Life

If we're going to crib shamelessly from Vaillant, we might as well reference him (I have done so); but we ought probably to replace that silly text about 'unhealthy' with the division into psychotic, neurotic, immature and mature mechanisms that he espoused. I seem to recall that humor, sublimation and suppression were the mature mechanisms, but I don't have my copy lying around - anyone? Ikkyu2 08:17, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I added Vaillants classification as I remember it. Actually my knowledge is from Andrews & Bonds's empirical work, which is based on Vaillant's. I am planning also to add more classification, like in "Defense Mechanisms Inventory" (Ilijevits?): turning against the object (TAO), projection (PRO), principalization (PRN), turning against the self (TAS) and reversal (REV). Jalind 09:20, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Is there error in Vaillant's classification now? Should psychotic defenses be narcissistic defenses? If someone has the source, please correct. Jalind 15:47, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
(Moved from article hidden comment:) I added a great number of defenses and grouped them as above - I decided to do this work "off-site" because of the size of the job - feel free to drop by and edit User_talk:A_Kiwi/draft-Defense_Mechanisms
I appreciate your work Kiwi. Still I am not sure if all the defenses mentioned should be classified in this article. This is because I think this article should not be restrained to any particular theorist's view (ie. Vaillant). It could be problematic to decide what classifications should be used in the main article. Jalind 11:36, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, Vaillant certainly has a great number of adherents.. Who would you consider to be the other two major theories of classification?
I think it is important to present one or more classification systems for it is so vital to help the reader clarify in their mind that "not all defenses are created equal". To forego addressing this fact is unforgivable. --A green Kiwi in learning mode 13:44, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree that it is mandatory to introduce classifications of defense mechanisms. I meant that it would be best to preserve list of single defenses, AND apart from this to introduce different classifications. It may become problematic if we present BOTH the list and classification in the same chapter. Some proponents of different classifications could be based on questionnaires (the Coping and Defending Scales (Joffe & Naditch, 1977); the Defense Mechanisms Inventory (Gleser & Ihilevich, 1969); the Life-Style Index (Plutchik, Kellerman, & Conte, 1979)). Vaillant's work is best reflected in the Defense Style Questionnaire (Bond, Gardner, Christian, & Sigal, 1983). Also (observer based) classification from Perry & Cooper (1989) would be interesting, as well typological perspective such as Weinberger's or Byrne's repressors. For more proponents see my discussion with topic "Nothing About Recent Developments...". Jalind 15:42, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I am adding here my proposition about the chapter of categorizations of defense mechanisms. Comments and corrections (please check my english) are more than welcome. I would like to see Kiwi's text about Vaillant's work added here (detailed descriptions of different levels of defenses etc.). Also, unfortunately, I don't have DSM-IV TR where I could check the classification (now it is adapted from Vaillant's Adaptive Mental Mechanisms -article (2000) in American Psychologist and it is based on DMS-IV not TR). I know this is a bit stub, but good start IMHO. Jalind 19:13, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Jalind ... This is exactly what I dreamed of seeing and I am so excited at what is happening here. Way to go, everyone! -Kiwi 07:28, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Kiwi! I am now moving this chapter to article, I think it is ok... Jalind 18:55, 20 November 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Examples

I think it would help to add examples of each mechanism like they do on the Defence Mechanism section in the Sigmund Freud entry.

I think the article antiprocess should be included.

[edit] Number of defence mechanisms

It says Anna Freud identified 10 defence mechanisms but then lists 19. Where did the others come from?

[edit] Missing Defense Mechanism

Also, undoing, one of Sigmund Freud's original defence mechanisms, and not developed by Anna, is not listed. I'll get some info together and edit it later.Dallas 17:26, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

As for the examples, I'll try to provide a few, and make them unique from the Sigmund Freud entry. Dallas 17:31, 28 June 2006 (UTC)


Why isn't "Identification with the Agressor" on the list?

[edit] Why the Freudian?

Freud was NOT a scientist, yet many psychologists regard his work as fact. All he did was come up with definitions for drives: the id, ego and super ego... and applied them to a machine, one that was totally made up. The human brain does not have an "id" gland or a "superego" cortex. These three words are toted around as facts, but in fact, they are just beliefs. Freudianism is a religion, not a theory. It is based on little or no observation or experimentation. He didn't know how the mind worked, so he made up several mechanisms for it. When we hear thunder, we know that it's not from God bowling. It's time we applied that kind of logic to psychology.

While his methods were certainly not ideal, Freud did contribute a significant amount to the study of the mind. His theories (I must admit they would be better called hypotheses) were at least supported by the evidence that he examined, although they are largely disregarded now.
As for the concept that mental classifications would have corresponding physical structures in the brain, that idea is simply infantile. As noted by Freud, the manifestations of his concept of "id", "ego", and "superego" had extensive interaction with each other; if this is to be the case, then anyone with the most limited information regarding the operation of neural networks would know that they would have to be extensively integrated, physically, to sustain that amount of cross-influence. These Freudian concepts are neither facts nor beliefs, but are linguistic constructs that are useful tools for referring to different classifications of thought; one uses "id" to refer to thoughts that they do not consciously monitor and act upon, the "ego" to refer to the mental entity that they identify as their conscious mind, and the "superego" to refer to the sociological conditioning and codes of conduct to which they are held. Regardless of whether such things are actually distinct, the words remain a valuable component of communication, as demonstrated by their widespread use.
Additionally, you typed "When we hear thunder, we know that it's not from God bowling." This makes about as much sense, in terms of logic, as "If you know immediately that the candle is fire, then the meal has been cooked long ago." In the most objective sense, one cannot logically prove that thunder is NOT a deific entity bowling, but rather one can effectively demonstrate that the same sound can be produced by lightning, and therefore the probability that it is caused by lightning is exceedingly great. If we applied such logic to psychology, as you suggested, we could end up with ideas like "When we remember stuff, we know it actually happened," which is certainly not the case, as erroneous memory is a part of everyday life. ~XarBioGeek (talk) 00:57, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Don't Confuse Psychology with Psychiatry

Defense mechanisms are psychological, the structure of the physical brain is psychiatry, of course they inter-relate, but not every aspect of phychology and how the mind works, relates the the physical structure of the brain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.188.130.152 (talk) 08:58, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

"Psychiatry is a medical specialty which exists to study, prevent, and treat mental disorders in humans.[2][3][4]" - as indicated, it is in no way limited to the physical structure of the brain, and analysis of defense mechanisms can certainly be used in psychiatry. ~XarBioGeek (talk) 00:57, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Response to Why the Freudian?

In reference to the comment above:

Please be careful what you say certain groups believe unless you genuinely understand said training. I have never met a psychologist who believes -- and I was never taught in training -- that Freudian theory is "fact." Freudian theory is Freudian theory that different people regard with different levels of belief and respect. He never pretended to base his work on quantitative research -- but many important contributions to psychology have been qualitative. Freud was the first to come up with a complicated theory of personality, and given that Wilhelm Wundt and other early psychologists were off introspecting, Freud really did do something worth remembering.

Second, Freud didn't "make up" this machine. He based his ideas on drive-reduction theory, which was the popular understanding of how the body worked at the time. Drive reduction theory was developed by Clark Hull. You can read about it (and how it contributed to psychoanalysis) at http://allpsych.com/psychology101/motivation.html .

Your statement that Freudian theory is a religion is ridiculous. (And your implication that it's a pseudoscience is also a little disturbing. Pseudoscience does not involve methodology, peer-reviewed journals, or studies involving statistical significance. I assure you that psychoanalysis has been subjected to all of these things.) I would encourage you to check out some of the peer-reviewed research journals like TheInternational Journal of Psychoanalysis or one of the many other journals listed on the APA's website: http://www.apa.org/psycinfo/products/scan-analysis.html. You might also take a look at Nancy Williams' amazing books on psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic theory, readily available in bigger bookstores. I would also encourage you to learn a little about psychodynamic theory, which is the umbrella term for modern descendents of analysis, such as object relations and self psychology. While Freudian theory is rarely used as Freud originally envisioned it, it was a great impetus for modern psychology.

I'm glad you put your opinions on the discussion board rather than the wiki page, but they're misleading enough that I felt I had to respond.

I completely respect your right to be opinionated, but opinions should be backed by critical thinking and evidence, just like everything else on Wikipedia. I have tried to do just that in my argument above.

Katsesama

Freud may be a way of thinking. Psychology and sociology aren't limited to one dominant theory or paradigm. He may have made some bizarre and unsupported claims but his theory can either be supported and used or disproven and not used. This wiki page takes Freud's theory in attempt to explain defense mechanisms.

One can either disprove everything on here or attempt to explain defense mechanisms with another theory.

-SonicKuz —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.107.230.145 (talk) 22:53, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nothing about "recent developments" in defense theory?

In this discussion it has been claimed that psychoanalysis and thereby also defense mechanism -theory is not scientific. Actually this proposition was most famously made by Karl Popper in 1963. (for a very recent discussion see for example [1]). The logic in his claim is that because there is no criteria to test (empirically or logically) psychoanalytic hypotheses, therefore psychoanalysis is pseudoscience. Historically this critisism was followed by critical studies and reviews by Holmes in 1970's, where he concluded that concept of defence mechanisms is not well-grounded. Of course from viewpoint of today, Popper's claim is not valid, and very interesting empirical research on defenses has been done. But still in this wiki-article there is total lack of empiric and scientific work done in the field of defense mechanisms. I think that in this article we need to move to larger focus from Freuds' theories, and also take into account more recent psychoanalytic theories. As empirically oriented researchers, I would like to mention authors such as Cramer P. (in development of defences and projective assessment tehniques), Vaillant and Bond (in theoretical and empirical classification of defenses), Plutchik R. (in evolutionary theory and emotions), and Weinberger (research done of repressive personality-type). Surely interesting related paradigms are emotion-regulation (Gross), coping (Lazarus), terror management (Pyszczynski) and attachment theory (ie. Horowitz, Mikulincer).

For enthusiastic people I would like to recommend the following sources for starters:

  • Huge review of the field. Paulhus, D.L., Fridhandler B., & Hayes S. (1997). Psychological defense: Contemporary theory and research. In R. Hogan, J. Johnson & S.R. Briggs (Ed.), Handbook of personality psychology (543-579). California: Academic Press.
  • Huge review including older empirical studies and Cramer's developmental theory Cramer P: The Development of Defense Mechanisms: Theory, Research, and Assessment. New York, Springer-Verlag, 1991
  • Review of quite recent study. Special edition of Journal of Personality (1998), 66(6).
  • Interesting viewpoint and easily available source. Emotional Control Theory and the Concept of Defense: A Teaching Document(J Psychother Pract Res 8:213-224, July 1999) Available in net: [2]

Jalind 12:04, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling

Motion to move the article to "Defense mechanism" as the primary spelling. --Htmlism 15:47, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Nevermind. Wikipedia's spelling policy is stupid. GO AMERICA!!! --Htmlism 20:01, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

To the anonymous IP that edited this page for spelling, note that the vast majority of terms are spelling in the style of British English. --Htmlism 21:56, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

So far, the "Defence mechanism" article's introduction and early sections use excessive Freudian jargon and can seem incomprehensible.

During any merge, please use the clearer, more natural wording of the "User:A Kiwi/Ego defense mechanisms" article in the introduction.

Also, the section defining the id, ego, and superego ("Definitions of individual psyche structures") should be moved upwards to appear before those terms are heavily used. Parsiferon 20:28, 4 June 2007 (UTC)


User:A Kiwi/Ego defense mechanisms appears to be well-written and well-referenced. Even though it doesn't conform to the Manual of Style, lacks embedded citations and I haven't had time to check the references, I think it probably has useful material to contribute (e.g. more detail about Vaillant's four levels). If there are no objections after 96 hours, I intend to proceed with the merge. (Do it Up, merge it..)NeonMerlin 03:21, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Remaining bits for merger

Here's a list of things that have not been categorized yet, please help!:

  • Conversion Reaction: Expression of psychic pain eg anxiety in the form of motor or somatic symptoms to express distress
  • Idealization: Form of denial in which the object of attention is presented as "all good" while masking one's true negative feelings towards the other
  • Inversion: Refocusing of aggression or emotions evoked from an external force onto one's self.
  • Rationalization: The process of constructing a logical justification for a decision that was originally arrived at through a different mental process; supplying a logical or rational reason as opposed to the real reason
  • Regression: Reversion to an earlier stage of development in the face of unacceptable impulses; returning to a previous stage of development
  • Somatization: Manifestation of emotional anxiety into physical symptoms
  • splitting: Primitive defense mechanism-when a person sees external objects or people as either "all good" or "all bad."
  • Substitution: When a person replaces one feeling or emotion for another
  • Undoing: A person tries to 'undo' a negative or threatening thought by their corrective actions

Thanks. Radagast83 (talk) 05:15, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

Defense Mechanism 3 was vandalized. It was removed and replaced with ridiculous blather. 70.237.209.168 (talk) 01:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. Miremare 15:02, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Categorization

I propose that Defence mechanisms and its linked subpages (for each of the mechanisms) be moved from Category:Personality Disorders (within Category:Personality) to Category:Psychological Adjustment (both Personality and Psychological Adjustment are under Category:Psychology, but I want to see if there is consensus, first. Is anyone for this? ~XarBioGeek (talk) 20:43, 20 January 2008 (UTC)


[edit] please

please take out the double brackets in the above post! 00:27, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I apologize for my inexperience with the effect of wikilinking categories. ~XarBioGeek (talk) 01:00, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Los Caprichos

I know that Los Caprichos is on the Spanish wiki analog of this article, and was recently placed on this one, but I really can't figure out what relevance it has to the topic. Would anyone care to explain? ~XarBioGeek (talk) 01:02, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merged

the psychological defense mechanism page into this one. Oldag07 (talk) 23:24, 27 May 2008 (UTC) remnants of talk page:

  • This article is already addressed, seemingly much more accurately and comprehensively, by Defence Mechanism. XarBiogeek (talk) 19:15, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

The old page archive