Overcompensation

2 definitions found

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  overcompensation
       n 1: (psychiatry) an attempt to overcome a real or imagined
            defect or unwanted trait by overly exaggerating its
            opposite
       2: excessive compensation



From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  32 Moby Thesaurus words for "overcompensation":
     alienation, autism, autistic thinking, avoidance mechanism,
     blame-shifting, compensation, decompensation, defense mechanism,
     dereism, dereistic thinking, displacement, dissociation,
     emotional insulation, escape, escape into fantasy,
     escape mechanism, escapism, fantasizing, fantasy, flight,
     isolation, negativism, projection, psychotaxis, rationalization,
     resistance, sociological adjustive reactions, sublimation,
     substitution, wish-fulfillment fantasy, wishful thinking,
     withdrawal