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Reality principle
Reality principle In psychoanalytic theory, the concept that the pleasure principle, which represents the claims of instinctual wishes, is normally modified by the demands and requirements of the external world. In fact, the reality principle may still work on behalf of the pleasure principle but reflects compromises and allows for the postponement of gratification to a more appropriate time. The reality principle usually becomes more prominent in the course of development but may be weak in certain psychiatric illnesses and undergo strengthening during treatment. reality testing The ability to evaluate the external world objectively and to differentiate adequately between it and the internal world. Falsification of reality, as with massive denial or projection, indicates a severe disturbance of ego functioning and/or of the perceptual and memory processes upon which it is partly based.
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Development
The process of growth and differentiation.
Psychiatric
Pertaining to the medical specialty that deals with mental disorder.
Differentiate
The process cells undergo as they mature into normal cells. Differentiated cells have distinctive characteristics, perform specific functions, and are less likely to divide. See dedifferentiate, undifferentiated.
Denial
A defense mechanism where certain information is not accessed by the conscious mind. Denial is related to repression, a similar defense mechanism, but denial is more pronounced or intense. Denial involves some impairment of reality. Denial would be operating (as an example) if a cardiac patient who has been warned about the potential fatal outcome of engaging in heavy work, decides to start building a wall of heavy stones.
Projection
A defense mechanism, operating unconsciously, in which what is emotionally unacceptable in the self is unconsciously rejected and attributed (projected) to others.
Memory
In the immune system, memory denotes an active state of immunity to a specific antigen, such that a second encounter with that antigen leads to a larger and more rapid response.
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Rod
Photoreceptor for dim light conditions. Achromatic, lower acuity and temporal resolution than cones, outnumber cones 20 to 1. Rod system is convergent (many rods target one bipolar cell). See also Cone.
Reniform
Shaped like a kidney.
Resilient
Having the ability to return to an original shape after having been compressed or deformed.
Rationalization
A defense mechanism, operating unconsciously, in which an individual attempts to justify or make consciously tolerable by plausible means, feelings or behavior that otherwise would be intolerable. Not to be confused with conscious evasion or dissimulation. See also projection.
Reaction formation
A defense mechanism, operating unconsciously, in which a person adopts affects, ideas, and behaviors that are the opposites of impulses harbored either consciously or unconsciously. For example, excessive moral zeal may be a reaction to strong but repressed asocial impulses.
Reality principle
Reciprocal inhibition
In behavior therapy, the hypothesis that if anxiety-provoking stimuli occur simultaneously with the inhibition of anxiety (e.g., relaxation), the bond between those stimuli and the anxiety will be weakened.
Regression
Partial or symbolic return to earlier patterns of reacting or thinking. Manifested in a wide variety of circumstances such as normal sleep, play, physical illness, and in many mental disorders.
Reinforcement
The strengthening of a response by reward or avoidance of punishment. This process is central in operant conditioning.
Repetition compulsion
In psychoanalytic theory, the impulse to reenact earlier emotional experiences. Considered by Freud to be more fundamental than the pleasure principle. Defined by Jones in the following way: "The blind impulse to repeat earlier experiences and situations quite irrespective of any advantage that doing so might bring from a pleasure-pain point of view."
Repression
A defense mechanism, operating unconsciously, that banishes unacceptable ideas, fantasies, affects, or impulses from consciousness or that keeps out of consciousness what has never been conscious. Although not subject to voluntary recall, the repressed material may emerge in disguised form. Often confused with the conscious mechanism of suppression. resistance One's conscious or unconscious psychological defense against bringing repressed (unconscious) thoughts into conscious awareness.
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