FRUSTRATION Frustration is an emotion that occurs in situations where a person is blocked from reaching a desired outcome.

. a deep chronic sense or state of insecurity and dissatisfaction arising from unresolved problems or unfulfilled needs. 1. Personal/Internal Frustration Internal sources of frustration usually involve the disappointment that get when we cannot have what we want as a result of personal real or imagined deficiencies such as a lack of confidence or fear of social situations. Another type of internal frustration results when a person has competing goals that interfere with one another. 2. Environmental/External Frustration The second type of frustration results from external causes that involve conditions outside the person such as physical roadblocks we encounter in life including other people and things that get in the way of our goals. One of the biggest sources of frustration in today's world is the frustration caused by the perception of wasting time. When you're standing in line at a bank, or in traffic, or on the phone, watching your day go by when you have got so much to do, that's one big frustration. CONFLICTS mental struggle resulting from incompatible or opposing needs, drives, wishes, or external/internal demands. when our needs or goals are not compatible with environmental or social requirements TYPES OF CONFLICTS: 1. Approach- approach Conflict Contradictory situations involving the choice of alternatives can be a source and trigger conflicts. Conflicts also occur when two positive goals, both equally attractive and tempting are presented at the same time and the individual could not decide which to choose. Conflicts of this type are usually resolved by choosing one goal over another. One is made to choose between going to abroad for a scholarship grant or marry the man of her choice for a long time. 2. Approach Avoidance Conflict This is a type of conflict when there is an attraction to an object or state of affairs and at the same time repulsion towards something associated with it. This situation has two elements one is desirable while the other is undesirable. It is the most difficult conflict to resolve. When a young woman who is figure-conscious is very fond of eating chocolates but at the same time, she wants to maintain her slim body. 3. Avoidance Avoidance Conflict The type of conflict is characterized when there are two unpleasant alternatives and usually, one cannot be avoided without encountering the other. Two kinds of behavior are likely in conflict. A student who dislikes his teacher has to attend his subject, otherwise, he will be flunked by him. 4. Double approach avoidance Conflict

This type of conflict is characterized when there are two courses of action each of which has both pleasant and unpleasant consequences. This conflict usually takes a longer time to resolve. Each goal has both a positive and a negative threat. A college student who decides whether to go on to a professional school or to seek a job that will provide income for him right away. 5. Multiple Conflicts This conflicts results from many aspect of conflicts. Several situations occur where in, it maybe positive or negative in effect. A woman who won a beauty contest and she was assigned to go to abroad to represent the country, then she was offered to be a model. Also her boyfriend asked her to get married while her mother needs money to cure her sickness. DEFENSE MECHANISMS an often unconscious mental process that makes possible compromise solutions to personal problems. are behavior patterns that protect an individual from pain, shame, or guilt are used when coping fails. Forms of defense mechanism: A.) Aggressive reaction In psychology, the term aggression refers to a range of behaviors that can result in both physical and psychological harm to oneself, other or objects in the environment. The expression of aggression can occur in a number of ways, including verbally, mentally and physically. Forms of Aggression Physical Verbal Mental Emotional Purposes of Aggression Aggression can also serve a number of different purposes: To express anger or hostility To assert dominance To intimidate or threaten To achieve a goal To express possession A response to fear A reaction to pain To compete with others 1. Direct Aggression Frustration often leads to an actual or direct aggression against the individual or object that is the source of the frustrating condition Adults usually express their aggression verbally rather than physically. 2. Displaced Aggression This is a defense mechanism wherein the individuals pent up emotional tensions are redirected toward, ideas, persons or objects other than primary source of .frustration.

 Forms of Displacement: Scape-goating - The hostility is expressed against a person or an object other than the original source of frustration. A man who fails all his business ventures may blame the entire economic system for all his failures. Suicide The hostility is directed towards oneself. When aggression cannot be directed towards the source of frustration because society disapproves the expression of such feelings, a hostile feeling is directed towards oneself which may eventually lead to suicide. A wife who feels depressed upon learning of her husbands extramarital affairs may turn her anger towards herself and attempt to commit suicide. Free Floating Anger Hostility becomes generalized so that hostility is directed at almost anything or anybody. Young people with great deal of resentment towards their status in life commit vandalism, destroying public property without apparent reasons. B.) Withdrawal reaction Withdrawal is a term referring to the feelings of discomfort, distress, and intense craving for a substance that occur when use of the substance is stopped. These physical symptoms occur because the body had become metabolically adapted to the substance. The withdrawal symptoms can range from mild discomfort resembling the flu to severe withdrawal that can actually be life threatening. 1.) Repression Is a process of completely excluding from consciousness thoughts, feelings, experiences, or impulses which are psychologically disturbing. It is an attempt to keep forbidden impulses from reaching consciousness. A girl may deliberately tend to forget the moments she had shared with her past boyfriend because thoughts of him would only make her grow fond of him and recall the events that accompanied their breaking up. 2.) Apathy Apathy is the absence of caring. It's a lack of desire to engage in activities, make changes, or find crave anything positive. Apathy can affect each and every anxiety disorder, and while is most common with severe anxiety. Often a person guilty of murder, while being tried in court shows no emotion. He obviously feels nothing. He is not moved. He cannot even be roused to take matters seriously enough to show much tension, or unhappiness, nervousness, caring. 3.) Fantasy or Daydreaming It is a temporary escape from the difficulties of real life into a world of fantasy where ones desires can be fulfilled in imagination. It provides relief from frustrations. The fantasy which a child creates is an important part of his development. This mechanism becomes harmful, however, when we overuse it to the point where we can no longer concentrate on our activities, or can no longer distinguish reality from unreality.

 A boy who is dissatisfied with his home life may imagine himself as a bionic man, great basketball player or astronaut. 2 kind of Daydreams: Conquering hero mechanism The person pictures himself in his daydream as the hero who does great deeds or achieves the things he desires. Suffering hero mechanism The person pictures himself as an underdog. 4.) Denial This is a negative fantasy where an individual may refuse to admit the existence of a reality too painful or unpleasant to face. A mother may refused to admit that her daughter has been raped because she cannot face this grim fact, she may even result to consistently ignoring criticisms hurdled against her daughter. 5.) Nomadism Is an attempt to get away from a frustrating situations. In nomadism, a person continuously moves from place to place usually without any tangible gain. This mechanism may take the form of frequently change of residence. A man who experienced an unhappy childhood, never be satisfied with any kind of or any marital partner. 6.) Regression Is a unconscious return to an earlier and less mature level of adaption. One flees from the painful realities and responsibilities of the present to the protected existence of his childhood. A person who is regressing may start to act in a childish way, such as going into temper tantrums, frowning, and crying. As a mode of adjustment, regression may occur at any period of life. An older child who feels threatened by a new baby in the family may begin to behave like a baby in order to get attention and to regain his previous secure position and the affection of the family. 7.) Suppression When there is an excessive psychological pain caused by a particular experience, the individuals conscious memory of the event may be blocked for the time being. There is a deliberate effort to forget such unpleasant experience by turning to other worthwhile activities. The effort to hide and control unacceptable thoughts or feelings You are attracted to someone but say that you really don't like the person at all 8.) Intellectualization Focusing on facts, figures, statistics, and scientific, rational data rather than experiencing unpleasant emotions or feelings A person who has just been diagnosed with a terminal illness might focus on learning everything about the disease in order to avoid distress and remain distant from the reality of the situation. 9.) Beatnik Reaction

This is manifested who stands apart from society and avoids most responsibilities of a citizen. Wearing special outfit, slang and use of drugs. 10.) Identification Identification is defined as Bolstering self-esteem by forming an imaginary or real alliance with some person or group. This is a fairly common method of attempting to forget about ones troubles, happens fairly often, especially in insecure people. The individual enhances his feeling of importance by limiting or acquiring the characteristics of a person whom he admires. Types: a.) Introjection This type of identification is when a person acquires or imitates the characteristics of a person whom he fears. Introjection is adopted in order to reduce the threat posed by another person. positive identification b.) Projection It is a defense mechanism wherein the individual attributes his unacceptable thoughts or desires to others. The individual has some undesirable thoughts and motives, but unconsciously convinces himself that it is others who have them. When a person finds his thoughts or feelings unacceptable or intolerable, he may repress the thoughts and feelings to others around him. negative identification

C.) Compromise reaction It involves acceptance of a substitution for one that is desired. An individual might give in to the frustrating obstacles but it is only partial. An individual does not give up completely to his/her original goal. 1.) Sublimation It is an adjustment mechanism by which unconscious and unacceptable desires are directed into activities that have strong social approval. The unacceptable desires are usually sexual in nature which may be sublimated through creative efforts as in music, arts and literature. When the frustrated impulses are expressed directly with no change in the conscious quality of the desire, the adjustment mechanism is one of substitution. A student who has sexual desire towards his teacher may sublimate through poems or painting nude models. 2.) Compensation a frustrated individual can overcome what he/she feels are personal limitations through emphasizing desirable ones.

a mechanism of adjustment wherein a person attempts to disguise the presence of a weak or undesirable trait by emphasizing a desirable one to reduce a feeling of inferiority. A boy who cannot join athletic activities because of a physical defect may compensate for his defect by excelling in scholarly pursuits. 3.) Reaction Formation The individual does the direct opposite of what he is feeling. At times the conscious attitudes which develop are highly exaggerated, excessive, extreme, and tolerant. A man suffers from alcoholism and has entered rehabilitation. What he really wants is to drink, but he expresses that he hates alcohol. 4.) Undoing the individual makes use of cleansing rituals to be able to divert the painful feeling after doing something that makes him/her feel guilty. A woman yells at her husband. Later, she makes his favorite dinner for him. 5. )Rationalization is a kind of compromise reaction that disguises the real motives to another one. Rationalization is putting something into a different light or offering a different explanation for ones perceptions or behaviors in the face of a changing reality. A student earns a failing grade on a paper and says to her classmates, I only got this grade because the teacher doesnt like me. The student believes this to be true. Forms of Rationalization: a. Argument by Sour Grapes Sour grapes is one example of behavior-induced attitude change, but it can also work in the opposite direction, improving our attitude towards things we feel we can have. derived from one of the fables attributed to Aesop, The Fox and the Grapes. The fable says that the fox sees some delicious grapes in an orchard but cant reach them. After several attempts to get at the grapes, he gives up, saying they were probably sour anyway. b. Argument by Sweet Lemon "When life hands you lemons, make lemo nade." It means making the best of a bad situation, even if it involves denial, mixing lemons with cup loads of sugar until they actually taste sweet. It is essentially the equal opposite of sour grapes. A person who has been rejected by a love interest convinces herself that he rejected her because he did not share in her ideal of happiness,(sour grapes) and, what's more, that the rejection is a blessing in disguise in that it has freed her to find a more suitable partner. (sweet lemons)