Theories Of Personality

Theories of Personality

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Institution

Freudian defense mechanisms

Freudian defense mechanisms are numbers of psychological strategies which are used by a person to overcome anxiety. These mechanisms are unconsciously used by individuals to protect them from unacceptable feelings and thoughts.

Repression

Repression is a type of defense mechanism in which a person’s ego is unconsciously stopping threatening and disturbing thoughts from becoming conscious. In a repression mechanism, the though which may result in guilt are repressed by a person’s unconscious mind. This mechanism is not effective in the long run as the repressed thought may create anxiety CITATION Fre22 \l 1033 (Freud, 1922). The repressed thoughts and memories may also reflect unconsciously in a form of dream or slips of the tongue.

Regression

Regression is another type of defense mechanism in which a person’s ego unconsciously direct him to a time where the problem has not developed. In this technique/ mechanism, a person’s unconscious mind retreat to a point in life where he felt safer. In this mechanism, a person may act in a childish manner in a stressful situation CITATION AWa15 \l 1033 (A Waqas, 2015).

Rationalization

Rationalization is a defense mechanism in which a person’s cognitive skills helps in protecting against a threatening situation. In this mechanism, a person consciously makes an excuse for a stressful situation. A person justifies his behavior by believing their own lies and by making excuses. When it is difficult for someone to accept a situation, he/ she will make logical reasoning of why the situation has happened CITATION SCL17 \l 1033 (SC Lin, 2017).

Real-life situation

My old school friends were in town and we were planning a get together at night. Knowing that my father was not in a good mood, I informed my mom that I will be meeting my old friends after so long and I will be late. Although I haven’t informed my parents that I want to spend the night at the gathering, but I changed my mind. Ignoring my mom’s texts and even a few calls from my dad, I knew I was in a tough situation. After an hour I called my dad back, which he declined in anger and he went to sleep. After another 30 minutes, I knew that my dad will be asleep and he had put his phone in silent. I called my dad several times and eventually texting him that “Dad where are you? I am standing at the front door and its almost an hour”. After this, I spend the whole night at friend’s place playing the game and the next day I came back to home. My dad was guilty that he declined my call and I was alone outside in the middle of the night. In this situation, I have used each three of the techniques unconsciously, and now I realize that I have done wrong that day. My father was extra nice to me the next day and I repressed by negative thoughts that I have wrong the previous night. Being treated nicely by my father I used regression to set my mind in a time when I and my dad were connected. I have used rationalization mechanism to make me believe that for so long that my dad is an unreasonable person and what I did was wrong ethically.

I have used these defense mechanisms to get a quick escape from a threating situation in my life. At some point, I even defend myself by saying that I was too young at that time. But the act was unethical and was simply a defense mechanism for protecting myself from the consciousness of my actions. It is a common human nature to use these defense mechanisms to protect him/ herself from negative thoughts. I have used these defense mechanisms make myself believe that I am right and nothing I did was wrong in any way. Moreover, I even repressed my memories from that time so that I don’t feel bad about myself.

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY A Waqas, A. R. (2015). [HTML] Association of ego defense mechanisms with academic performance, anxiety and depression in medical students: a mixed methods study. Cureus. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4627837/

Freud, S. (1922). Repression. The Psychoanalytic Review. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/openview/98b0b2ae835a059633461b6b9f53868f/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1820903

SC Lin, J. Z. (2017). Moral traps: When self-serving attributions backfire in prosocial behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Retrieved from https://scholar.google.com.pk/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=2015&q=A+person+justifies+his+behavior+by+believing+their+own+lies+and+by+making+excuses.&btnG=