Page 22 - History of Psychology

Anxiety and Anxiety Ego Defense Mechanisms
Anxiety is a warning of impending danger, and Freud distinguished three types.

Objective anxiety arises when there is an objective threat to a person's well-being.
Neurotic anxiety arises when the ego feels that it will be controlled by the id, when
the needs of the id become so strong that the ego feels that it will not be able to
control it and that the irrationality of the id will manifest in the person's thoughts
and behavior. Moral anxiety arises when someone will violate internalized values.
This is the self-punishment we experience when we act against the values
internalized in the superego.

Any form of anxiety is uncomfortable, so individuals who experience it try to
reduce or eliminate it. The ego's job is to deal with anxiety. To reduce objective
anxiety, the ego must deal effectively with the physical environment. To overcome
neurotic and moral anxiety, the ego must use a process Freud called the ego
defense mechanism. Freud believed that all ego defense mechanisms have two
things in common: They distort reality, and they operate on a subconscious level.

Ego Defense Mechanism.
Repression is a fundamental defense mechanism because it is involved in all the
others. Repressed ideas enter consciousness only when they are subtle enough so
as not to cause anxiety. Repressed and modified ideas appear in dreams, in
humor, in physical phenomena. Displacement is another important defense
mechanism. In general, displacement involves replacing an anxiety-provoking
object or goal with one that does not. When displacement involves substituting a
nonsexual goal for a sexual one, the process is called sublimation. Freud
considered sublimation to be the basis of civilization. Because we are often unable
to express our sexual urges directly, we are forced to express them indirectly in
the form of poetry, art, religion, sports, politics, education, and everything else
that characterizes civilization. Thus, Freud viewed civilization as a compromise.
Another way to deal with thoughts that trigger anxiety is to associate them with
someone or something other than yourself. Such a process is called projection. A
person sees the causes of failure, unwanted drives, and secret desires as "out
there" rather than within because seeing them as part of oneself will cause
anxiety. Rationalization involves giving rational and logical, but false, reasons for
failure or deficiencies rather than actual reasons for it. Sometimes, when people

have the urge to do something but doing it will cause anxiety, they do the opposite
of what they really want to do. This is called reaction formation.

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