Psychological Mechanisms of Adjustment

In attempting to adapt to the demands of everyday life psychoanalytic theories has for decades suggested that individuals rely upon mechanisms of adjustment. The two dominant forms of mechanisms of adjustment are the defense mechanism and the escape mechanism. These two forms of adjustment account for a majority of the ways in which individuals modify their behavior as triggered by the stress and trauma which they daily encounter in their environments. According to the American Psychiatric Association's latest updates as issued in the Diagnosis Statistical Manual IV Sourcebook, mechanisms of adjustment enable individuals to cope with modern life's high degrees of unusual stress (Strain, 1996, p. 1039). This brief overview will highlight how the ego constructs reliable methods for defending itself against surgings of what feels like unreasonable levels of attack. Although these initial expressions of ego adjustment can at first prove effective over time they deteriorate into habitual and even tyrannizing responses.

Defense mechanisms manifest themselves as strategies developed by the ego to protect itself against information which it would rather not process a) fully; b) immediately; c) or at any time in the near future. As Freud suggested "this effortless and regular avoidance . . . of anything that had once been distressing affords us the prototype of repression" (Freud in Goleman, 1985, p. 118). Goleman characterizes this centr

. . .
stone, 1985, p. 21). In his conclusion, Firestone observes that individuals who choose to rely upon escape mechanisms are motivationally dishonest, they have during their lives become disengaged with what it is they actually want. Often what they proclaim they desire is in fact a cover-up which acts as a buffer zone to hide their true ultimate wishes (Firestone, 1985, p. 381). For Firestone many coping mechanisms are born of a misguided desire to slot one's self into the prearranged categories which conventionality prescribes. Firestone vehemently asserts that the single most remarkable fact about human behavior is the "perversity with which most people minimize experiences that are warm or constructive" even as they "reject or manipulate their environments to avoid any emotional interaction that would contradict our early conception of reality" (Firestone, 1985, pp. 35-36). Firestone laments that this condition is the single most "delimiting experience" which psychotherapist must daily wrestle against and hope to overturn (Firestone, 1985, p. 36). Firestone articulates that the fantasy bond allows individuals to defend themselves against an awareness of separateness and its accompanying terror of one's own inevitable death
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Freud Goleman, Lyubomirsky Nolan-Hacksama, IV Sourcebook, Mechanisms Adjustment, Journal Personality, goleman 1985, February Uncertainity, July Effects, Press Goleman, Social Psychology, firestone 1985, coping mechanisms, June Extraversion, escape mechanisms, mechanisms adjustment, journal personality, defense escape mechanisms, individuals rely, 1985 121, defense escape, fantasy bond, goleman 1985 121, goleman 1985 120, form close bonds, personality social psychology,
Approximate Word count = 1595
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

More Essays on Psychological Mechanisms of Adjustment