The nurse is caring for a patient whose son recently died. The patient is unable to recall the circumstances of her son's death. This woman employs which of the following defense mechanisms?

Explanation

•Repression is excluding emotionally painful or anxiety provoking thoughts and feelings from conscious awareness.

•Freud believed the human ego uses defense mechanisms, which are methods of attempting to protect the self and cope with basic drives or emotionally painful thoughts, feelings, or events.

•Most defense mechanisms operate at the unconscious level of awareness, so people are not aware of what they are doing and often need help to see the reality.

•Denial is refusal to accept or acknowledge an unbearable condition or the reality of a situation.

•Undoing is exhibiting acceptable behavior to make up for or negate unacceptable behavior. Suppression is a conscious exclusion of unacceptable thoughts and feelings from conscious awareness.

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