overcompensation

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

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