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Personality Disorder Research Paper

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Sigmund Freud, known as the Father of Psychoanalysis, explored the human mind more thoroughly than any of his colleagues before him. With his intense studies, he created the topographical model of personality. The topographical model distinguished three key things which creates ones' personality that deals with ones' consciousness. The most important aspect is the Ego, which is the balancing act for the Id and the Superego. While the Id seeks to fulfill ones' desires on impulse, the Superego tends to think of a more morally acceptable way to get ones' desire fulfilled. When the demands of ones' desires are too stressful to comprehend for the Id and the superego, defense mechanisms are commonly used to protect the Ego from the distressing anxiety. …show more content…

The two most healthy defense mechanism to use are sublimation and intellectualization. Sublimation is a healthy defense mechanism that allows one to act out unacceptable behavior by converting the behavior into a more acceptable form. Sublimation is one of the healthiest defense mechanisms to use because it transforms ones' unacceptable behavior into a more right one. For example, a person may have an urge to hurt someone physically or act out ones' anger by using physical force. If one uses sublimation, one will use this urge into a more socially acceptable way by taking up contact sports like football or boxing. Sublimation will be a healthy defense mechanism to use in ones' daily, social relationships. It will allow one to act in a more correct social way in the culture one lives in. …show more content…

Displacement is when one put ones' own frustration out on someone or an object instead of the real cause of ones' frustration. One may think it is a healthy defense mechanism, but this defense mechanism can lead oneself into unhealthy social relationship with ones' love ones if used too often. Displacement can ruin ones' relationship with a love one because the person who is using the defense mechanism may display ones' frustration on to a love one by mentally or physically hurting them. This defense mechanism will cause a strain on the relationship causing the love one to become distant, or worse, leave. The unhealthy defense mechanism called Rationalization can harm ones social relationship also, most importunately one self. Rationalization is when ones self rationalizes ones' own unacceptable behavior in a positive way to avoid dealing with the anxiety of having done something wrong. This is an unhealthy defense mechanism because it prevents ones self to improve themselves. For example, one may work on a group project, but forgets to do ones' part. For that person to feel better one will say that the entire group was at fault or that it was not ones' duty to complete the assignment it was the groups since it was a group project. This type of defense mechanism if used often can interfere with ones' social relationships negatively because the person will not have any responsibility for

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