Why Do I Do That?


Book Description

Why Do I Do That? adapts the basic strategies of psychodynamic psychotherapy to a guided course in self-exploration, highlighting the universal role of defense mechanisms in warding off emotional pain. With easy-to-understand explanations, the first part teaches you about the unconscious mind and the role of psychological defenses in excluding difficult feelings from awareness. Individual chapters in the longer middle section explore the primary defense mechanisms one by one, with exercises to help you identify your own defenses at work. The final part offers guidance for how to "disarm" your defenses and cope more effectively with the unconscious feelings behind them. Psychological defense mechanisms are an inevitable and necessary part of the human experience; but when they become too pervasive or deeply entrenched, they may damage our personal relationships, restrict or distort our emotional lives and prevent us from behaving in ways that promote lasting self-esteem.










The Handbook of Personality Dynamics and Processes


Book Description

The Handbook of Personality Dynamics and Processes is a primer to the basic and most important concepts, theories, methods, empirical findings, and applications of personality dynamics and processes. This book details how personality psychology has evolved from descriptive research to a more explanatory and dynamic science of personality, thus bridging structure- and process-based approaches, and it also reflects personality psychology's interest in the dynamic organization and interplay of thoughts, feelings, desires, and actions within persons who are always embedded into social, cultural and historic contexts. The Handbook of Personality Dynamics and Processes tackles each topic with a range of methods geared towards assessing and analyzing their dynamic nature, such as ecological momentary sampling of personality manifestations in real-life; dynamic modeling of time-series or longitudinal personality data; network modeling and simulation; and systems-theoretical models of dynamic processes. - Ties topics and methods together for a more dynamic understanding of personality - Summarizes existing knowledge and insights of personality dynamics and processes - Covers a broad compilation of cutting-edge insights - Addresses the biophysiological and social mechanisms underlying the expression and effects of personality - Examines within-person consistency and variability







Protecting the Self


Book Description

Integrating theory, research, and applications, this book examines the defense mechanisms and their role in both normal development and psychopathology. It describes how children and adults mobilize specific kinds of defenses to maintain their psychological equilibrium and preserve self-esteem, particularly in situations of trauma or stress.










The Mind And Its Body


Book Description

First Published in 1999. This is Volume VI of thirty-eight in the General Psychology series. Written in 1931, this book using a concrete psychological world approach, investigates the relation of mind to the body