Repression.

o Blocking a threatening idea, memory, or emotion from consciousness.

Reaction formation.
o Transforming anxiety-producing thoughts into their opposites in consciousness.
o taking the opposite belief because the true belief causes anxiety
Regression.
o

Returning to more primitive levels of behaviour in defence against anxiety or

frustration.

o returning to a previous stage of development

Rationalization.
o Justifying ones behaviour or failures by plausible or socially acceptable reasons
in place of the real reason.
Denial.
o Refusing to admit that something unpleasant is happening, or that a taboo emotion
in being experienced.
o Denial distorts the way you perceive events
o arguing against an anxiety provoking stimuli by stating it doesnt exist
Displacement.
o Discharging pent-up feelings, usually of hostility, on objects less dangerous than
those that initially aroused the emotion.
o taking out impulses on a less threatening target

Projection
o placing unacceptable impulses in yourself onto someone else

Ouroboros Serpent or dragon eating itself

-

symbolizes self-reflexivity, introspection, cyclicality

many different cultures
Hindu mythology (Shiva has a serpent eating itself
around him in statues as he is the God of destruction
the one who controls the cycle of life)
Ancient Egypt used to symbolise beginning and end
of time
Greece Plato described it as the first living being
self eating, circular the immortality of the universe
Norse mythology
Alchemy