Psychoanalysis Defense Mechanisms

Question 1

What is the primary purpose of defense mechanisms in psychoanalytic theory?

Accepted Answer

To protect the ego from anxiety arising from conflicts between the id, ego, and superego

Answer

To strengthen the superego's moral function over the id

Answer

To increase conscious awareness of unconscious drives

Answer

To facilitate direct expression of repressed desires

Question 2

Which defense mechanism involves attributing one's own unacceptable thoughts or feelings to another person?

Accepted Answer

Projection

Answer

Repression

Answer

Displacement

Answer

Rationalization

Question 3

Which defense mechanism is considered the most fundamental, forming the basis for all other defenses according to Freud?

Accepted Answer

Repression

Answer

Denial

Answer

Rationalization

Answer

Sublimation

Question 4

A person who is furious at their boss but comes home and yells at their dog is demonstrating which defense mechanism?

Accepted Answer

Displacement

Answer

Projection

Answer

Reaction formation

Answer

Splitting

Question 5

Which defense mechanism involves channeling unacceptable impulses into socially valued activities, such as a person with aggressive drives becoming a surgeon?

Accepted Answer

Sublimation

Answer

Reaction formation

Answer

Displacement

Answer

Intellectualization

Question 6

Which defense mechanism is at work when someone who harbors unconscious hatred for a person behaves in an excessively loving and devoted manner toward them?

Accepted Answer

Reaction formation

Answer

Regression

Answer

Isolation of affect

Answer

Undoing

Question 7

Anna Freud's landmark 1936 work 'The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense' contributed to psychoanalysis primarily by:

Accepted Answer

Systematically cataloguing and elaborating the ego's defensive operations

Answer

Introducing the concept of defense mechanisms for the first time

Answer

Replacing Freud's drive theory with an object relations model

Answer

Demonstrating that defense mechanisms are entirely conscious processes