DefenseMechanisms心理防御机制英文版.docVIP

Defense Mechanisms Defense mechanisms, also called ego-defense mechanisms or mental mechanisms, are put into play by the ego to protect the personality from anxiety associated with the conflicts of internal drives and desires. All of the defense mechanisms except suppression are unconscious. Defense mechanisms are an important part of the adaptive process that allows the individual to continue with the daily tasks of living in the face of internal and external conflicts. However obvious another person’s methods of coping may appear, they are not that obvious to the individual using them. Everyone uses defense mechanisms to obtain relief from emotional conflict and anxiety. Healthy individuals may use many of them throughout their lives in times of stress. For example, many people commonly use rationalization to justify ideas, actions, or feelings; reduce guilt; and maintain respect and social approval. But as long as the individual is growing and progressing emotionally an able to solve most problems in a manner congruent with his or her stage of development, then the person is most likely not in danger of maladaptive use of defense mechanisms. Problems arise when an individual uses the same defense mechanism repeatedly, to the exclusion of reality, probably because the individual perceives most situations as threatening even though they may not be viewed as such by others. For example, the person who constantly projects his or her own negative feelings, attitude, or beliefs onto another person is demonstrating a rigid, maladaptive use of a defense mechanism. One of the reasons people develop psychiatric problems is because the ego loses its ability to use defense mechanisms in a way that relieves the person’s psychic pain. Put another way, their psychic stress is greater than the ego’s ability to relieve it through healthy use of defense mechanisms. A major task for nursing, then, is not to remove the client’s defense mechanisms through exposure and confrontation b