Fantasytakes place when the ego imagines successes or accomplishments that
are not presently obtainable in actual day-to-day living. For example, nineteen-
year-old Faith has a crush on a male coworker. She sometimes daydreams that she
is his bride or that they are on a honeymoon cruise. The kind of emotional grat-
ification associated with fantasy is called vicarious gratification,meaning sub-
stitute gratification.
Rationalizationtakes place when the ego provides a rational-sounding rea-
son for a failure or a transgression. Diana receives an F on an algebra test. She
rationalizes by thinking, “The questions were unfair. And the teacher didn’t give
us enough time to study.” Grant is on a diet, and eats a candy bar one afternoon.
He rationalizes by thinking, “I was feeling faint. My blood sugar must have been
low. I needed something to keep going.” A rationalization may have little or no
basis in reality, and not be rational at all. However, its superficial logic is a balm to
the threatened ego.
Reaction formationis characterized by converting a repressed wish into its
psychological opposite at the conscious level. Prudence has a history of abusing
food. Now on strict diet, she counts every calorie and seems to be afraid to eat.
She has put herself temporarily into a kind of psychological prison in order to
contain her desire to overeat. The desire is not gone. It is has been banished to an
unconscious level. The reaction formation helps her to block off her forbidden
impulse. Another example of reaction formation is associated with Conrad in
chapter 7. Conrad is hostile toward his wife’s sister. The hostility, a reaction for-
mation, helps him to repress a forbidden sexual wish.
The defense mechanisms overlap to some extent. For example, identification,
as explained above, contains elements of fantasy.
(a) takes place when the ego attaches itself to a person perceived to have
some particularly desirable attribute.
(b) The kind of emotional gratification associated with fantasy is called.
(c) takes place when the ego provides a rational sounding reason for a fail-
ure or transgression.
Answers: (a) Identification; (b) vicarious gratification; (c) Rationalization.
Other Psychodynamic Theories: Is There a Collective
Unconscious Mind?
Freud’s general approach to the study of personality is said to be psychodynamic.
A psychodynamic theoryassumes that the personality is a field of forces that are
sometimes in opposition. For example, the energy of the id is often opposed to
the energy of the superego. The id may say, “Go. Do it!” The superego may say,
Personality: Psychological Factors That Make You an Individual 199
