Forgetting Mechanism and Production of Mechanisms - Research Paper Example

?Running Head: Forgetting Mechanism Forgetting Mechanism [Institute’s Forgetting Mechanism Introduction Since many decades, huge number of experts and psychologists has been endeavoring to identify different reasons and factors related to human nature, behavior, and actions, and in the result, one can observe huge number of psychological theories that include propositions of various experts regarding different aspects of human life. In the history of psychology, Sigmund Freud is one of the most prominent names that have played an extraordinary role in resolving a number of controversies regarding human psychology with his psychoanalytic theory and model of personality. The focus of this paper is on forgetting mechanisms that play a crucial role in enabling humans to forget traumatic memories. Additionally, it is hypothesis of the paper that several forgetting mechanisms help humans in forgetting memories of traumatic events, and repression is not the only one psychologically, whereas, inhibitory controls play a crucial role in producing such defense mechanisms neurologically. Moreover, it is an understanding that Freud’s psychoanalytic theory will be very helpful in identifying and analyzing different mechanisms. Specifically, Freud (Velicer, 2003) identified human mind as a matter of three components that are id, ego, and superego where each presents in the unconscious, preconscious, and conscious levels of the mind. Freud proposed that ‘id’ stays in the unconscious level, superego in the preconscious level, whereas, ego flows in all the three levels indicating its active role in taking care of demands and needs of both id and superego (Velicer, 2003). From this understanding, it is an indication that ego deals with reality and all the practical principles, and whenever, an individual goes through a traumatic event, he/she feels the anxiety, depression, and similar effects due to overwhelming impact on the id and the superego. This inclines the ego to arrange reduction of the trauma that becomes possible with the help of forgetting mechanisms. This understanding of the three psychological components has now created a fundamental basis that will now make it easier to have an understanding of different forgetting mechanisms. Forgetting Mechanisms From abovementioned discussion, it is evident that ego plays the leading role in facilitating humans to forget memories of traumatic events. In this regard, psychologists and experts have identified a number of defense (forgetting) mechanisms of ego (Hentschel, 2004) that will be under discussion in this section. In particular, repression is the most common defense mechanism that refers to the process of pushing back of unpleasant and traumatic impulses from conscious to the unconscious level of the human mind. For instance, a girl goes through a traumatic event of her rape, and she feels that she will not be able to live with memory of such a shocking incident that results in her intentional forgetting, known as repression. However, repression (Hentschel, 2004) is not the only defense mechanism, and psychologists have indicated several other mechanisms that become helpful in forgetting process. For instance, denial is another defense mechanism that involves absolute negation of something whose occurrence was causing anxiety and distress. Besides, analysis has indicated that traumatic events often are results of our own mistakes, and in this situation, another defense mechanism ‘projection’ (Hentschel, 2004) becomes active that involves transfer of responsibility on someone else to avoid the feeling of being guilty. Scrutiny of psychological studies (Hentschel, 2004) has identified the defense mechanism of reaction formation in which, a person tries to forget the memory of a traumatic event by behaving or acting in opposite manner completely. For instance, a boy after a fight with a best friend gradually starts to interact with him affectionately to hide true feelings that indicate the defense mechanism of reaction formation. Regression (Hentschel, 2004) is another defense mechanism that has been under analysis of psychologists and experts, which points out the process of forgetting by slipping into to lesser maturity level to release stress and adverse feelings of the incident. For instance, it is an observation (Harnishfeger & Pope, 1996) that individuals often end up crying after losing a match or after an awful performance to release the stressful components from the psychological mind. Experts have indicated that such defense mechanism becomes active in cases of extreme anxiety, and usually, occurs on short-term basis. While reviewing different psychological resources related to forgetting mechanisms, the researcher has come across another common forgetting (defense) mechanism: displacement. In this mechanism, the human mind looks for a space away from the opponent target while identifying a less-threatening target to release aggression and anxiety. It is an observation that in traumatic incidents, individuals are often unable to express their anger on the responsible person, and in the result, they end up hitting someone less aggressive to discharge the traumatic memories (Harnishfeger & Pope, 1996). Production of Mechanisms From the abovementioned discussion, it is evident that repression is not the only forgetting mechanisms, and psychologists have identified a number of defense mechanisms that enable ego of the human mind to push back things from conscious level to the unconscious level, in order to forget memories of the traumatic events in life. Freud’s model has enabled an understanding that ego is responsible for production of such defense mechanisms, in order to reduce stress and anxiety of id and superego psychologically; however, from neurobiological aspect; neurologists have recognized the significant role of inhibitory control (Anderson & Green, 2001) in this process of forgetting mechanisms. In other words, when psychological defense mechanisms, such as regression, repression, displacement, projection, etc occurs to help individuals in forgetting traumatic memories, the neurological inhibitory processes play their role in overriding behavior. Experts (Anderson & Green, 2001) believe that in traumatic incidents, individuals should endeavor to avoid a habitual response to a stimulus. Furthermore, neurological findings have indicated connection of “increased dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activation, reduced hippocampal activation, and impaired retention of the unwanted trace and that the magnitude of activation in prefrontal cortex predicts memory suppression” (Anderson et al., 2004). This indicates the evident role of inhibitory processes in producing different psychological defense mechanisms that then facilitate individuals in forgetting traumatic memories, thus, fulfilling hypothesis of the paper. References Anderson, M. C., Green, C. (2001). “Suppressing unwanted memories by executive control.” Nature. Volume 410, pp. 131-134. Anderson, M. C., Kuhl, B., Cooper, J., Robertson, E. (2004). “Neural Systems underlying the suppression of unwanted memories.” Science. Volume 303, pp. 232-235. Harnishfeger, K. K., Pope, R. S. (1996). “Intending to Forget.” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. Volume 62, pp. 292-315. Hentschel, U. (2004). Defense Mechanisms. Elsevier. Velicer, W. F. (2003). Handbook of Psychology. John Wiley and Sons. Read More