American Beauty Psychological Analysis

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Dario Giansante American Beauty 1. Defence mechanisms are unconscious psychological defences used by the ego to help maintain a good self-image and to reduce anxiety. They are principally used when the id and super-ego conflict and make the ego unstable, this means that defence mechanisms are used by the ego but are highly influenced by the id and super ego. The main purpose of these defence mechanisms is to reduce anxiety and to cope with other difficult emotional situations. 2. Fantasy: Lester repeatedly fantasized about his daughter’s friend seeing parts of her body covered in roses. This is classified under fantasy because he imagined everything that happened. Having a fantasy helps escape from reality to help avoid having to deal with a real pressing issue Denial: In the movie we see that Ricky’s dad knows that he’s getting money from something other than his work, but as long as Ricky kept a job, his dad didn’t bother him about it, even though he knew something was up. In this situation, his father was in denial. Denying that a problem even exists helps ignore that there’s a problem which helps maintain the delusion of a ‘perfect’ life. Reaction Forming: When Ricky’s dad talks poorly about homosexual people and degrades them when he is a homosexual so he resorts to homophobia and displays this extreme homophobia is displayed again when he mistakes his son for being a male prostitute. When someone is extremely guilty or shameful about something they feel such as homosexuality, they may try to conceal their real feelings by masking them with hate towards whatever it is they feel, when referring to homosexuality, somebody may turn to homophobia to lead others astray. Displacement: When the mother was angry about the way Lester treats her and about the way her marriage is turning out so she slaps her daughter when she simply made a snappy remark.
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