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A)	ANXIETY AND DEFENSE MECHANISMS Sigmund Freud proposed a set of defense mechanisms in one’s body. These set of defense mechanisms occur so one can hold a favorable or preferred view of themselves. For example, in a particular situation when an event occurs that violates ones preferred view of themselves, Freud states that it is necessary for the self to have some mechanism to defend itself against this unfavorable event; this is known as defense mechanisms. Freud’s work on defense mechanisms focuses on how the ego defends itself against internal events or impulses, which are regarded as unacceptable to one’s ego. These defense mechanisms are used to handle the conflict between the id, the ego, and the super ego. Freud noted that a major drive for people is the reduction of tension and the major cause of tension was anxiety. He identified three types of anxiety, reality anxiety, neurotic anxiety, and moral anxiety. Reality anxiety is the most basic form of anxiety and is based on the ego. It is typically based on the fear of real and possible events, for example being bit by a dog or falling off of a roof. Neurotic anxiety comes from an unconscious fear that the basic impulses of the id will take control of the person, leading to eventual punishment from expressing the ids desires. Moral anxiety comes from the superego. It appears in the form of a fear of violating values or moral codes, and appears as feelings like guilt or shame. When anxiety occurs, the minds first response is to seek rational ways of escaping the situation by increasing problem solving efforts and a range of defense mechanisms may be triggered. These are ways that the ego develops to help deal with the id and the superego. Defense mechanisms often appear unconsciously and tend to distort or falsify reality. When the distortion of reality occurs, there is a change in perception which allows for a lessening in anxiety resulting in a reduction of tension one experiences. Sigmund Freud noted a number of ego defenses which were noted throughout his work but his daughter, Anna Freud, developed and elaborated on them. The defense mechanisms are as follows: 1) Denial- believing that what is true is actually false 2) Displacement- taking out impulses on a less threatening target 3) Intellectualization- avoiding unacceptable emotions by focusing on the intellectual aspects 4) Projection- attributing uncomfortable feelings to others 5) Rationalization- creating false but believable justifications 6) Reaction Formation- taking the opposite belief because the true belief causes anxiety 7) Regression- going back to a previous stage of development 8) Repression- pushing uncomfortable thoughts out of conscious awareness 9) Suppression- consciously forcing unwanted thoughts out of our awareness 10) Sublimation- redirecting ‘wrong’ urges into socially acceptable actions. These defenses are not under our conscious control and our unconscious will use one or more to protect one’s self from stressful situations. They are natural and normal and without these neurosis develops such as anxiety states, phobias, obsessions, or hysteria.

B)	TOTEM AND TABOO WITH RELIGION Sigmund Freud was born to Jewish parents in a heavily Roman Catholic town. Freud desired to understand religion and spirituality and deals with the nature of religious beliefs in many of his books and essays. He regards God as an illusion, based on the infantile need for a powerful father figure. Freud believed that religion was an expression of underlying psychological neuroses and distress. In some of his writing, he suggests that religion is an attempt to control the Oedipal complex, as he goes on to discuss in his book Totem and Taboo.	In 1913, Freud published the book, Totem and Taboo. This book was an attempt to reconstruct the birth and the process of development of religion as a social institution. He wanted to demonstrate how the study of psychoanalysis is important in the understanding of the growth of civilization. This book is about how the Oedipus complex, which is when an infant develops an attachment for the mother early on in life, and incest taboo came into being and why they are present in all human societies. The incest taboo rises because of a desire for incest. The purpose of the totemic animal is not for group unity, but to re-enforce the incest taboo. The totemic animal is not a symbol of God but a symbol of the father and it is an important part of religious development. Totemism originates from the memory of an event in pre-history where the male group members eat the father figure due to a desire for the females. The guilt they feel for their actions and for the loss of a father figure leads them to prohibit incest in a new way. Totemism is a means of preventing incest and as a ritual reminder of murder of the father. This shows that sexual desire, since there are many social prohibitions on sexual relations, is channeled through certain ritual actions and all societies adopt these rituals so that sexuality develops in approved ways. This reveals unconscious desires and their repression. Freud believes that civilization makes people unhappy because it contradicts the desire for progress, freedom, happiness, and wealth. Civilization requires repression of drives and instructs such as sexual, aggression, and the death instinct in order that civilization can work. According to Freud, religion originated in pre-historic collective experiences that became repressed and ritualized as totems and taboos. He states that most, if not all religions, can be traced back to early human sacrifice including Christianity in which Christ on the Cross is a symbolic representation of killing the father and eating the father figure is shown with ‘the body of Christ’, also known as Communion. In this work, Freud attributes the origin of religion to emotions such as hatred, fear, and jealousy. These emotions are directed towards the father figure in the clan from the sons who are denied sexual desires towards the females. Freud attributed totem religions to be a result of extreme emotion, rash action, and the result of guilt.

C)	THE PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE The Psychopathology of Everyday Life is one of the most important books in psychology. This was written by Freud in 1901 and it laid the basis for the theory of psychoanalysis. This book contains twelve chapters on forgetting things such as names, childhood memories, mistakes, clumsiness, slips of the tongue, and determinism of the unconscious. Freud believed that there were reasons that people forget things like words, names, and memories. He also believed that mistakes in speech, now referred to as Freudian Slips, were not accidents but instead the “dynamic unconscious” revealing something meaningful. Freud suggests that our everyday psychopathology is a minor disturbance of mental life which may quickly pass away. Freud believed all of these acts to have an important significance; the most trivial slips of the tongue or pen may reveal peoples secret feelings and fantasies. Pathology is brought into the everyday life which Freud points out through dreams, forgetfulness, and parapraxes. He uses these things to make his case for the existence of an unconscious that refuses to be explained or contained by consciousness. Freud explains how the forgetting of multiple events in our everyday life can be consequences of repression, suppression, denial, displacement, and identification. Defense mechanisms occur to protects one’s ego so in Psychopathology of Everyday life, Freud states, “painful memories merge into motivated forgetting which special ease” (p. 154)