Defense Mechanisms
1. Returning to an earlier developmental level to adjust to and avoid anxiety.
2. Attaching repressed feelings through another idea or object.
3. Disowning own thoughts or actions from painful reality; putting them out of awareness.
4. Making excuses for actions or thoughts in order to maintain self respect or prevent guilty feelings.
5. Keeping something from awareness that might drive memories or evoke guilt, shame, or lower self esteem
6. Turning undesirable traits into their opposite characteristics.
7. Provides outlet for repressed tendencies by attributing these tendencies to others and then criticizes them for the
same actions.
8. Turning feeling and attitudes such as love and hate from the original object to another.
