reaction formation

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A psychological defense mechanism by which an objectionable impulse is expressed in an opposite or contrasting behavior.

The repression of an unacceptable feeling or condition by reversing it to a directly opposite emotion or condition. For example, an athlete may deny his or her real feelings about a coach, and instead reverse the personally less acceptable dislike, or, hate, into liking or even love. Reaction formation is regarded by some as a mechanism of ego defence, where the energies of the id are redirected in the opposite direction.

"Reaction-formation" refers to an attitude or a character-trait that responds to an unconscious (repressed) wish or desire by evoking the opposite of such a desire. For example, generosity covers or conceals avariciousness and hoarding; modesty may replace megalomania; kindness or reluctance to engage in conflict can mask sadistic tendencies. Reaction-formation is thus also a symptom of a psychic conflict and a defense against instinctive reactions.

Even though it occurs in various pathologies, reaction-formation is most readily apparent in cases of obsessional neurosis. In his early writings, Freud described the mechanisms of obsessive patients, discerning in them clear signs of conflicts of ambivalence through regression from tender to sadistic impulses. In "Instincts and Their Vicissitudes" (1915c), he distinguished between reaction formation and similar concepts, such as substitute formation and compromise formation, by showing that repression is carried out differently in each case. Thus, a hostile impulse towards a loved one is subject to repression, such an impulse itself being the result of regression of the erotic drive. At first the work of repression succeeds—that is, contents of the representation vanish and the associated affect disappears. A substitute formation would entail a modification of the ego through establishment of scruples of moral conscience, distinct from the symptom per se, that involves a compromise formation.

Reaction-formation, by contrast, serves repression by intensifying the opposite. However, although conceptually and chronologically distinct, reaction formation and substitute formations are not unrelated. The former distinguishes itself by the antithetical choice of the substitution, which at least indirectly implies ambivalence. And, contrary to compromise formation, the instinct inhibited with respect to a reaction formation is not represented. In fact, it remains active and in evidence in various situations, in the subject's defensive rigidity and in specific contradictions to the reactive stance.

In Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905d), Freud gave reaction-formation a more extended meaning. He suggested it as a pathway to sublimation inasmuch as the instinct is diverted from its aim. Unlike sublimation, however, with reaction formation the instinctual aim is not merely different but is diametrically opposed to the original. On the other hand, reaction formation does not entirely succeed in this diversion, and the inhibited desire attempts constantly to resurface.

Reaction-formation can also become a permanent character trait and its significance can grow more general; it can become not just a symptom of a specific pathology, but it heralds the process of socialization. We become social beings by acquiring, as permanent character-traits, "virtues" which move counter to our sexual goals. "A sub-species of sublimation is to be found in suppression by reaction-formation," wrote Freud (1905c), "which. . .begins during a child's period of latency and continues in favourable cases throughout his whole life. What we describe as a person's 'character' is built up to a considerable extent from the material of sexual excitations and is composed of instincts that have been fixed since childhood, of constructions achieved by means of sublimation, and of other constructions, employed for effectively holding in check perverse impulses which have been recognized as being unutilizable. The multifariously perverse sexual disposition of childhood can accordingly be regarded as the source of a number of our virtues, in so far as through reaction-formation it stimulates their development" (pp. 238-239).

Reaction-formation is not restricted to character and moral virtues, but also includes the domain of thought and intellect. The counter-cathexis of the system of conscience, organized as a reaction formation, supplies the first repression (Freud, 1915d). In "Thoughts for the Times on War and Death" (1915b), Freud showed how altruism may originate from selfishness, and compassion from cruelty. "Noble" motives can have the same effect as "non-noble" motives. We cannot divine the instinctual life of a subject, however; we only can observe his or her behavior.

Humankind's capacity to reshape instinctual selfishness is otherwise known as its aptitude for culture. People have unequal abilities in this regard, and the most solid among them may prove the least well-defended. This explains how instinctual remodeling can be more or less thoroughly undone by circumstance—war being an event that puts culture most completely at risk—and how acquired civility, or the capacity to conduct oneself towards others according to ethical considerations, may entirely unravel. Reaction-formation thus exposes the fragility of morality and suggests how repressed instincts are able to return with a great intensity, as acts of barbarism and cruelty.

Bibliography

Freud, Sigmund. (1905d). Three essays on the theory of sexuality. SE, 7: 123-243.

——. (1915b). Thoughts for the times on war and death. SE, 14: 273-300.

——. (1915c). Instincts and their vissicitudes. SE 14: 109-140.

——. (1915d). Repression. SE, 14: 141-158.

—MICHÈLE BERTRAND

Part of a series of articles on Psychoanalysis

Constructs Psychosexual development Psychosocial development Conscious • Preconscious • Unconscious Id, ego, and super-ego Libido • Drive Transference • Sublimation • Resistance Important Figures Sigmund Freud • Carl Jung Alfred Adler • Otto Rank Anna Freud • Margaret Mahler Karen Horney • Jacques Lacan Ronald Fairbairn • Melanie Klein Harry Stack Sullivan Erik Erikson • Nancy Chodorow Susan Sutherland Isaacs Ernest Jones • Heinz Kohut Important works The Interpretation of Dreams Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" Civilization and Its Discontents Schools of Thought Self psychology • Lacanian Analytical psychology • Object relations Interpersonal • Relational Attachment • Ego psychology

Psychology Portal

In Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory, reaction formation is a defense mechanism in which anxiety-producing or unacceptable emotions are replaced by their direct opposites. This mechanism is often characteristic of obsessional neuroses. When this mechanism is overused, especially during the formation of the ego, it can become a permanent character trait. This is often seen in those with obsessional character and obsessive personality disorders. This does not imply that its periodic usage is always obsessional, but that it can lead to obsessional behavior.

Sexual identity

A man who is overly aroused by pornographic material who utilizes reaction formation may take on an attitude of criticism toward the topic. He may end up sacrificing many of the positive things in his life, including family relationships, by traveling around the country to anti-pornography rallies. This view may become an obsession, whereby the man eventually does nothing but travel from rally to rally speaking out against pornography. He continues to do this, but only feels temporary relief, because the deeply rooted arousal to an "unacceptable" behaviour such as watching pornography is still present, and underlying the implementation of the defense. At that point he can be said to have developed an obsessional personality above and beyond the defense mechanism.

An example of Freud's theory is when a "heterosexual" individual supports and maintains strong "homophobic" beliefs as a way to cover-up their deep-seated and often untouched homosexual desires. A reaction formation is used to balance the ego-id-superego emotion of this "homosexual" living as a "heterosexual" in order to relieve the individual's anxiety.^[1]

The case of prominent Congressman Mark Foley (R-Florida), in 2006, might also be considered an example of reaction formation. As chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus, Foley had introduced legislation to protect children from exploitation by adults over the Internet. He also sponsored other legislation designed to protect minors from abuse and neglect. His resignation followed the revelation that he exchanged sexually explicit electronic messages with a teenage boy, a former congressional page, and that he had engaged in potentially inappropriate contact with pages for a number of years.

A Muskogee lesson

In his autobiography The Wind Is My Mother,^[2] Muskogee shaman Bear Heart relays a lesson he as a child was presented by his uncle, Jonas Bear:

Jonas Bear once took me down to a pond and told me to look into it, asking, "What do you see?"

"I see my reflection."

"Put this stick in the water and stir up your reflection."

After I stirred it up, he asked, " Now what do you see?"

"My face is all distorted."

"Do you like what you see?"

"I know that it's not supposed to look that way."

"When you meet someone and you immediately dislike them, always remember you are seeing a reflection of yourself—there is something you don't like about yourself that you're not owning up to. When you see it in someone else, then you don't like that person, but in reality you are being displeased with yourself. Always remember that."

References

1. ^ Adams, H.E., Wright, R.W. & Lohr, B.A. (1996). Is Homophobia Associated With Homosexual Arousal? Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 105, 3, pp. 440-445.
2. ^ Heart, Bear; Larkin, Molly (1996). "A Well-Rounded Education", The Wind Is My Mother. New York: Berkley Books, pp. 24-25. ISBN 0-425-16160-9. 

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