Editing Mental Health and Psychosocial Nursing (section)

== Ego Defense Mechanisms ==
Defense mechanisms are unconscious. They are adaptive when they reduce anxiety enough to allow functioning, and maladaptive when overused or when they prevent problem-solving.

{| class="wikitable"
! Mechanism !! Definition !! Clinical example
|-
| Denial || Refusal to accept a painful reality || A newly diagnosed client with cancer keeps working and skips appointments
|-
| Repression || Involuntary exclusion of a memory or impulse from awareness || A survivor of assault cannot recall the event
|-
| Suppression || Voluntary, conscious setting aside of a thought || "I will worry about the biopsy after my daughter's wedding"
|-
| Projection || Attributing one's own unacceptable feelings to another || A client who wants to drink accuses the nurse of being judgmental
|-
| Displacement || Shifting feeling from a threatening target to a safer one || A client scolded by the provider yells at the nursing assistant
|-
| Rationalization || Creating an acceptable explanation for unacceptable behavior || "I only drink because my job is stressful"
|-
| Intellectualization || Focusing on facts to avoid emotion || A client recites survival statistics instead of discussing fear
|-
| Reaction formation || Acting the opposite of the true feeling || A client who resents a parent is excessively attentive to them
|-
| Regression || Returning to an earlier developmental behavior || A hospitalized 5-year-old who was toilet trained begins wetting the bed
|-
| Sublimation || Channeling an unacceptable impulse into a socially useful outlet || A client with aggressive urges takes up boxing
|-
| Compensation || Emphasizing a strength to offset a deficit || A student with a learning disability excels in athletics
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| Undoing || Performing an act to cancel out a previous one || A partner brings flowers after an argument
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| Identification || Adopting the traits of an admired person || A teen dresses like an older sibling
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| Introjection || Absorbing another's values as one's own || A child adopts a parent's prejudice wholesale
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| Splitting || Inability to integrate good and bad qualities; people are all good or all bad || A client with borderline personality disorder praises one nurse and condemns another
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| Conversion || Emotional conflict expressed as a physical symptom without organic cause || Sudden paralysis of an arm after a traumatic event
|-
| Dissociation || Detachment from self, surroundings, or memory || A client reports watching the event from outside the body
|}

'''Nursing application''': do not confront a defense mechanism that is currently holding a client together. Denial in the first 48 hours after a catastrophic diagnosis is often protective. Intervene when the defense endangers the client, such as denial that prevents insulin administration.