Defense mechanisms arise when you experience strong emotions that are difficult to deal with. They are designed to "protect" against threats and situations in which we cannot find ourselves. Read what defense mechanisms are and find out how they affect us. See also their examples.

Contents:

  1. Defense mechanisms: what are they?
  2. Defense mechanisms: how do they affect our lives?
  3. Defense mechanisms: 10 examples
    • Displacement
    • Denied
    • Rationalization
    • Repression (denial)
    • Sublimation
    • Projection
    • Regression
    • Intellectualization
    • Fake reaction
    • Fixation

Defense mechanismsaccompany many people. How do they work and what types can we divide them into?

Defense mechanisms: what are they?

Defense mechanisms are behaviors used by people to avoid "departing" from events, situations, and thoughts that threaten them. We create a certain distance, a barrier that separates us from unpleasant feelings, e.g. from guilt, fear or shame.

We can of course use the defense mechanisms consciously, but for the most part they are unconscious, all in order to distort the threatening reality in our favor.

Defense mechanisms are there to protect our mind from feelings and thoughts that are too hard, too heavy for the conscious mind.

For example, the defense mechanism, which is refusal, is manifested in people who have a serious problem with alcohol, by not perceiving the problem of addiction to this drug.

And a classic example of displacement is a man who unloads his anger related to stress at work on other people, household members - his wife, husband and even a child. We use forgetting, denial, rationalization, repression, rejection or anticipation quite often.

Defense mechanisms: how do they affect our lives?

Using defense mechanisms is neither positive nor negative for our body. Of course, some of them may be unhe althy, but others have an adaptive function and allow you to lead a "normal" life.

Each psychoanalyst will emphasize that the use of these reactionsmental he alth is the proper, natural function of the personality. However, the biggest problems arise when some abuse arises in order to avoid coping with problems, when we are trying to forcefully suppress strong emotions, and when such mental reactions begin to destructively affect our daily functioning.

Defense mechanisms: 10 examples

Displacement

What is displacement? Let's start with the previous example: you had a hard day at work, unfortunately you cannot express your anger directly to your boss who treated you harshly. So you are a ticking bomb of negative feelings, and when you come home you unload them on your wife, husband, children and even your dog.

Although you use a protective mechanism of displacement, it is not positive for your surroundings, and displaced aggression very often results in a deterioration of relations with our environment. How does this mental reaction work?

Under the influence of strong emotions, you direct your frustration towards the person (animal or object) with whom you feel less threatened. Because it is much easier to deal with your wife (and vent your anger about "whatever") than with your boss or a career problem that is beyond you. This allows you to satisfy the impulse of reaction, to remain "safe" within yourself, without serious consequences.

Displacement is the redirection of thoughts and emotions directed at a specific person (or object) but transferred from the emotions triggered by the impulse to contact another person. Of course, we transfer our emotions to people who are less "dangerous" to us.

We use this defense mechanism very often, unfortunately, especially when we cannot safely express our emotions to people to whom they should be addressed.

Refusal

Denial is one of the most commonly used defense mechanisms. It consists in denying, not allowing one's awareness of certain facts; is a complete rejection of certain information.

We do not accept reality, so we block certain events in the mind, thus avoiding experiencing difficult emotions. We don't want to admit to ourselves about problems, inconvenient events and situations.

Let me remind you of the above example, which is an alcohol abuser who refuses to admit to himself that he has a huge problem with it.

Truth is sometimes too inconvenient, so we deny its existence. However, sometimes a person will accept a certain situation without taking responsibility for it, but only find people or events that need to take the blame for that situation.state. It is one of the most primitive mechanisms as it dates back to childhood.

Rationalization

Rationalization is about explaining an undesirable behavior or feeling logically and avoiding the real motives for action.

When faced with failure, some of us have our own set of facts that help them explain certain situations. This ensures the comfort of the choice made, the situation made. An example would be blaming an instructor who failed to pass the driving test on an instructor who did not teach us certain skills exactly.

Rationalization perfectly protects our self-esteem, allows us to maintain good self-esteem, because we can always push the blame for failure onto someone else or to external factors of a given situation.

Repression (denial)

Repression is a defense mechanism designed to protect against tragic, very difficult memories. The assumption of repression is relatively "simple" because it occurs when you try hard to forget what you have experienced, you hide what is painful, by implicitly forgetting it for a very long time.

But unfortunately memories cannot be completely erased from memory and sometimes they come back to us in adulthood. For example, a person who has experienced emotional or physical abuse as a child, and then has dislodged those memories, may have difficulty establishing proper relationships with a partner or environment as an adult.

Sublimation

Finally, a positive example of a defense mechanism. Sublimation is the redirection of certain strong emotions to another object or action that is safe for us and, most importantly, uplifting.

For example, in order to free ourselves from strong negative emotions, we head towards sport: we enroll in martial arts or ballroom dancing classes. It is up to us how we channel our frustration. Freud believed that sublimation allows us to function in a calm and balanced way in society and that it is a sign of our maturity - it is impossible to disagree with it.

Projection

A defense mechanism consisting in assigning other people their own, most often negative thoughts and feelings (or views, behaviors).

We design fears, fears and aggressions in others, assigning them bad qualities or behavior, and in fact, these are our emotions.

Of course, the projection is accompanied by the discharge of frustration and distortion of reality. In Latin, projection literally means "to throw ahead".

A trivial example maybeto be a conversation between two friends, where the first person is calm and speaks in a normal voice, and the second person is nervous, talking with an increasingly raised voice.

At one point, the other person shouts to the first one, "But what are you so nervous about?" - of course, there is a process of projecting nervousness and shifting this emotion to the other side.

Regression

Regression is a return to an earlier stage of development, which is associated with running away from difficult emotions. Sometimes stressful events are so complicated to overcome that there is a return to the behavior patterns used in the earlier stage of development.

For example, school children or teenagers who cannot cope with a certain situation start sucking their thumbs or wetting themselves at night. Of course, adults also experience regression and may, for example, start to sleep with a childhood cuddly toy, be irritable and tearful.

Intellectualization

Intellectualization is a defense mechanism that cuts off emotions in difficult situations in favor of cool, very factual thinking and action.

In extremely stressful situations, there is a desire to minimize the feeling of emotions such as fear, sadness, despair and switch to a cold, clinical perception of facts.

In this way a given person protects himself against feeling what is unpleasant and frightening. For example, someone who finds out that they have cancer turns off their emotions and instead of showing their sadness or fear, they start to focus on all possible treatments.

Of course, a strong promedic approach is important to us in such a situation, but we should allow ourselves to experience emotions related to the disease - the emotional aspect is a very important component of our functioning.

Fake reaction

A sham reaction is - as the name suggests - the expression of emotions or behaviors that are directly opposite to those actually experienced.

In a mock reaction, we displace real feelings, distort reality; in order to hide true feelings, which are often fear, frustration or jealousy.

Often this behavior is exaggerated, exaggerated. We treat someone we do not like too friendly, for example we congratulate our colleague at work very much on the achieved success, and we offer another coffee to the boss we don't like.

Fixation

Fixation is about clinging to behaviors learned by yourself that prevent other thoughts or actions from speaking.

We behave routinely, mechanical, andall this to protect yourself from possible frustration and fear of the unknown.

By using this defense mechanism, we feel relieved for a short time, we reduce the tension because we block the threat. An example is the fact of smoking, which is treated as a detailed oral fixation.

Another example of defense mechanisms can be altruism, i.e. satisfying one's needs by helping other people or avoiding, i.e. refusing to cope with difficult situations.

Psychologists have classified many psychological reactions, and some of them have become a permanent part of our everyday life. It should be remembered that some of them have a positive aspect and others a negative aspect.

The positive ones protect us from stress, release the tension, while the negative ones inhibit our actions and are actually self-deception.

If you notice any symptoms of negative effects of defense mechanisms, consult a psychologist, you can always try to transform unhe althy mechanisms into more balanced ones and use them to deal with stressful situations and anxiety.

Defense mechanisms: Zygmunt and Anna Freud

The term "defense mechanisms" was first used in 1894 by Sigmund Freud in his article "Defense Neuropsychosis". He investigated five basic defense mechanisms.

Subsequently, this theory evolved thanks to his daughter Anna Freud, who diagnosed thirteen different mechanisms, and over time, successive psychologists developed a wide variety of other psychological responses.

Where did such works come from? Freud noticed that when a person is unable to cope with certain limitations, and also when he cannot meet his expectations, he experiences an unpleasant internal state, a kind of fear.

This fear is a signal for our ego (Freud's Theory of Psychoanalysis) to activate the appropriate defense signal of the organism, which will allow to reduce internal tension.

And this is how the concept of ego defense mechanisms was born, where dozens of mental reactions were diagnosed. Most of them are used unconsciously, which basically means that it is not up to you to decide what and when to do.

Also read

Black thoughts, or how to stop torturing yourself

Anxiety disorders make life difficult

Anxiety: causes. Why are you constantly anxious?

About the authorKatarzyna Płuska-SkoczylasSpecialist in social communication and human resources management, author of the website "Miękko about competences" www.katarzynapluska.pl and creator of manyexpert publications: articles, e-books, online social and professional skills courses; education manager, inactive sales department specialist. Graduate of MA studies in "Social Communication and Self-governance" (Adam Mickiewicz University) and postgraduate studies in "Human Resource Management" (Lodz University of Technology). Creator of the publication "Employee evaluation system", publishing house "Problems of human resource management in the organization of the 21st century" - collective work edited by Józef Penc (Łódź 2007). A type of industrious extrovert; soft skills lover - soft skills and human resources.

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Category:

Psychology