The role of psychological defence in emergence of deviations in personality development

It is analyzed how deviations emerge within the personality development of children, which takes place as the result of psychologically traumatizing situations, particularly of sustainable negative estimations from meaningful adults. Usually, negative estimations from adults cause negative emotional experiences for a child, that motivates him/her to behavioral adjustment in a way defined by educators’ requirements. However, such process of social norms learning is just an approximate framework, which takes into account neither individual features of a child nor social situations of personality development of each child. Moreover, negative parents’ estimation of some child’s acts quite often tends to extend on his/her whole personality, thus predetermining frustration of two vitally important social necessities at once: need of positive parents’ estimation and need of self-esteem, positive self-appraisal. It is found out as a result of the research, what effect psychological defense mechanisms have on deviations within the child’s personality development. It is proven that sustainable negative estimations of a child’s behavior (and furthermore his/her whole personality) constitute a psychologically traumatizing situation. In the midst of this negative emotional experiencing, arising because of unsuccessful attempts to master key social norms, a child begins to perceive this situation of difficulty as a situation of impossibility. At this very moment not only situation itself is being re-evaluated but values too. Because of psychological defense mechnanisms, a child devaluates the necessity to internalize social norms and rules. The study was conducted during 2008-2017; research sample was formed on the basis of experience of advisory work with deviant behavior teenagers and their parents. Following research methods were applied: experimental conversation, Rosenzweig’s frustration test, method of tasks choice with varying degrees of complexity. The research sample was represented by 176 teenagers and 204 adults (their parents). Results showed that psychological defense can cause negative effects that lead to the formation of negative personality traits