Psychoanalysis Defense Mechanisms 1 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What is the primary purpose of defense mechanisms in psychoanalytic theory?
- To protect the ego from anxiety arising from conflicts between the id, ego, and superego (Correct answer)
- To strengthen the superego's moral function over the id
- To increase conscious awareness of unconscious drives
- To facilitate direct expression of repressed desires
Correct answer: To protect the ego from anxiety arising from conflicts between the id, ego, and superego
Defense mechanisms are unconscious strategies the ego employs to manage anxiety produced by conflicts among the id, ego, and superego.
Question 2: Which defense mechanism involves attributing one's own unacceptable thoughts or feelings to another person?
- Repression
- Projection (Correct answer)
- Displacement
- Rationalization
Correct answer: Projection
Projection involves externalizing unacceptable internal feelings by perceiving them as belonging to someone else rather than oneself.
Question 3: Which defense mechanism is considered the most fundamental, forming the basis for all other defenses according to Freud?
- Denial
- Rationalization
- Repression (Correct answer)
- Sublimation
Correct answer: Repression
Freud regarded repression as the cornerstone of all defenses because it is the primary mechanism by which threatening material is kept out of conscious awareness.
Question 4: A person who is furious at their boss but comes home and yells at their dog is demonstrating which defense mechanism?
- Projection
- Displacement (Correct answer)
- Reaction formation
- Splitting
Correct answer: Displacement
Displacement redirects an emotion from its original target to a safer or more accessible substitute object.
Question 5: Which defense mechanism involves channeling unacceptable impulses into socially valued activities, such as a person with aggressive drives becoming a surgeon?
- Reaction formation
- Sublimation (Correct answer)
- Displacement
- Intellectualization
Correct answer: Sublimation
Sublimation transforms socially unacceptable impulses into constructive, culturally approved behaviors and is considered one of the most mature defenses.
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?
- Regression
- Isolation of affect
- Reaction formation (Correct answer)
- Undoing
Correct answer: Reaction formation
Reaction formation converts an unacceptable feeling into its behavioral opposite to prevent the original impulse from becoming conscious.
Question 7: Anna Freud's landmark 1936 work 'The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense' contributed to psychoanalysis primarily by:
- Introducing the concept of defense mechanisms for the first time
- Systematically cataloguing and elaborating the ego's defensive operations (Correct answer)
- Replacing Freud's drive theory with an object relations model
- Demonstrating that defense mechanisms are entirely conscious processes
Correct answer: Systematically cataloguing and elaborating the ego's defensive operations
Anna Freud built on her father's work by providing a systematic account of the ego's defensive functions, greatly expanding the clinical understanding of defenses.
Psychoanalysis Defense Mechanisms 1
What is the primary purpose of defense mechanisms in psychoanalytic theory?