Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D
Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India
“There are some authors who contend that meanings and values are “nothing but defense mechanisms, reaction formations and sublimations.” But as for myself, I would not be willing to live merely for the sake of my “defense mechanisms,” nor would I be ready to die merely for the sake of my “reaction formations.”
Viktor E. Frankl
In some areas of psychology (especially in psychodynamic theory), psychologists talk about “defense mechanisms,” or manners in which we behave or think in certain ways to better protect or “defend” ourselves. Defense mechanisms are one way of looking at how people distance themselves from a full awareness of unpleasant thoughts, feelings and behaviors.
Defense mechanisms are a part of our everyday life. You’ve got to admit that there’s something to be said for the idea that everyone engages in some form of self-deception at least some of the time. The question is—can you detect the form of deception that you, your friends, colleagues, and family are using at any given moment?
Defense mechanisms are simply ways of coping with difficult feelings – your mind’s way of dealing with stress. These little mental tricks (distortions of reality) help you meet your needs in socially acceptable ways.
People learn how to behave in a specific situation. However, when you encounter a new situation, it could not be possible to cope with that situation with the help of your previous experiences. However, we want to overcome any problem in one way or another, but we meet several obstacles in the process .
The changes that occur in the environment where individuals live are known as stress that they experience due to the desires and expectations requiring adaptation. Therefore, stress is the pressure and tension that individuals feel and could be regarded as a part of the daily life. Most of us think that stress results from such external factors as school, family, friends and illness (Dyson and Renk, 2006). However, these factors are not themselves stressful events. What makes them stressful is our interpretations and internal responses .It mean what determines stress is not just that external factor but its interaction with the individual.
Students have a number of sources of stress. These sources range from attempts to meet the academic expectations to financial problems, from adaptation to new environments to the problems experienced in establishing new friendships .There are a number of symptoms of stress physical, behavioral, emotional, spiritual and psychological .
Low level of stress could be considered positive as it provides the energy to activate the individual. However, when the level of stress is high, both productivity and the pleasure with life could decrease and problems in the relationships with the environment could occur.
Within the context above, the stress experienced by the students is important since it causes defection in memory and learning due to the energy spent by the brain in reaction to the stress. Therefore, awareness of the stressors for university students and of how frequently and which methods they use to cope with these stressors is important for students’ success and their welfare .
Remember, defense mechanisms are most often learned behaviors, most of which we learned during childhood. That’s a good thing, because it means that, as an adult, you can choose to learn some new behaviors and new defense mechanisms that may be more beneficial to you in your life.
Since people are supposed to act according to social norms, it requires them to regulate themselves. Besides, without defense mechanism, the whole world could be a mess. If people just followed their own instinctual drives without any brake, literally chaos will emerge. In order to live together with others, people should utilize defense mechanism. Defense mechanism helps to protect our whole society as well as ego from some displeasure.
Coping with Stress
Whatever its source is, stress requires harmony. Psychologists discriminate between two types of harmony: direct and defensive .Direct coping refers to any behavior demonstrated to change a disturbing situation. For example, when our needs or desires are hindered, we either try to remove the obstacle between our goal and ourselves or give up. Similarly, when we are threatened, we try to avoid the danger either by attacking or by escaping. Overcoming stress involves the behavior and thoughts of individuals to manage the results of stressful events (Folkman, 2010; Lundin, 1974; Saroson, 1972).
Defensive coping is known as ego-defense mechanisms or as subconscious efforts for adaptation. Ways for defensive coping are sub-conscious efforts to protect the self, to avoid any damage to ego or to decrease anxiety and tension .Defensive coping includes internal and mostly subconscious conflicts that occur when we can not emotionally tolerate either bringing an intensely threatening problem to the level of consciousness or dealing directly with that situation. Defensive coping, a kind of self-deception, refers to different ways of convincing yourself of the fact that you are not really threatened or that you do not really want something that you can not get.
Freud described the typical attitudes demonstrated by individuals to decrease or avoid anxiety. He called them defence mechanisms. According to Freud, human tends to decrease tension for the purpose of decreasing anxiety and uses defence mechanisms for this purpose. Therefore, defense mechanisms serve the function of protecting individuals from anxiety. These mechanisms could be psychologically healthy or unhealthy, yet in either case, the basic purpose is to decrease the tension
Freud defined three main types of anxiety: reality anxiety, neurotic anxiety and moral anxiety. Reality anxiety occurs due to the real situations likely to be encountered in the environment. For example, a dog attacks as a result of a certain situation.
Reality anxiety occurs due to the ego. In this type of anxiety, the most popular method for decreasing the tension is to leave the environment which could lead to damage.
Neurotic anxiety refers to subconscious fears that occur when especially subconscious sexual desires take control over ego. This type of anxiety results from the fear that might occur when subconscious desires are not met appropriately.
As for moral anxiety, it occurs as a result of the fear for violating the current moral or social values. Moral anxiety occurs in the form of feeling oneself guilty and embarrassed.
Uses of Defense Mechanisms
As mentioned above, in case of any type of stress, human mind reacts in two ways. The first one involves increasing the problem-solving efforts, which is called direct coping. The second involves putting the defence mechanisms into effect.
Freud’s concepts and defense mechanisms are tactics developed by ego to cope with the sub consciousness and superego.
All defense mechanisms have two common characteristics. As the first one, the individual is not aware of the fact that he or she uses these mechanisms. As for the second, these somehow damage, transform or ignore the reality. It would be beneficial here to remember that the function of defense mechanisms is to change the perceived reality for the purpose of decreasing the psychological tension experienced by the individual.
Defense mechanisms are not worth focusing on when they are used unimportant conflicts and unless they damage others. They comfort us as long as they decrease the tension and thus allow us to approach to important problems in better harmony. However, when they are overused, these defensive attempts which are regarded as a way of coping with problems become harmful. They can not solve the real problem but merely decrease our anxiety regarding the problem. If specific situations make us anxious, we may encounter them from time to time and may have to face one of them sooner or later.
In such a case, the level of anxiety increases, and the situation of anxiety-attack is inevitably experienced (Köknel, 1987; Morris, 2002). Efforts made to cope with stress are called “harmony”. Any factor that ruins the balance of harmony is perceived by the organism as a danger and leads to anxiety. As a result, the preventive and adaptive mechanisms of people are activated.
A History of the Concept of defense
Freud first introduced the term in “The neuro-psychoses of defense”(1894). In this paper, he wrote that in order to ward off unacceptable ideas or feelings that would cause “distressing affect,” a person unconsciously resorts to certain mental processes that oppose these ideas or feelings and render them less disturbing. These mental processes, which take place outside the person’s awareness, he called “defenses.” This was one of Freud’s earliest statements about conflict within the mind, wherein one part has wishes or feelings that another part finds objectionable, opposing their continued presence in consciousness. In opposing them, the part of the mind later known as the ego institutes defenses against the awareness of these unacceptable thoughts or feelings.
Previously, anxiety was considered to be the result of repression. Now, repression was seen to be initiated by anxiety rather than causing it. “Defense” now came to be a general form for describing the way the ego protected itself against the dangers or calamities that Freud had enumerated.
In 1936, Anna Freud published The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense. She elaborated upon, refined, and clarified the concept of defense, in relation not only to the theory of psychic conflict but also to the technique of psychoanalysis. She also noted that the unvarying use of a special method of defense, when confronted with a particular instinctual demand”
She was the one who constructed a list of these “special methods of defense,” which by now were called “defense mechanisms.” What she suggested in relation of defense mechanisms was many: repression, regression, reaction for motion, displacement, projection, isolation, undoing, denial, turning against the self, and reversal.
Another important aspect of the concept of defense which was introduced by Wilhelm was that an individual’s defensive operations become embedded in his or her personality or character and that these traits of character must be analyzed along with the content of the person’s associations, memories, feelings, and dreams. He stressed that they function like a “character armor,” which is very difficult to alter or to analyze.
Reich also pointed out that these same traits of character functioned as powerful resistances to change and to analytic treatment. More defensive operations were added or reconstructed by Melanie Klein and the British school of psychoanalysis. They were the defenses of splitting of the object and the impulses, splitting of the ego, idealization, denial of inner and outer reality, the stifling of emotions, projection, introjection, omnipotence, and projective identification.
Psychological Explanation of Defense Mechanism
As we are well aware of the fact that Sigmund Freud has been under severe criticisms because many of his theories were not scientifically verified. Nonetheless, still, his theories have been considered very unique and practical from certain perspectives as well.
In particular, his research on defense mechanism, which is today’s supplementary topic today, has made a marvellous milestone. Human mind consists of three elements, according to Sigmund Freud: Super Ego, Ego and Id. Once the balance between Super Ego, Ego and Id gives away, our minds are supposed to produce some defenses against causing factors. I will show how it arises in more details later on.
Superego, Ego and Id
First and foremost, what we need to understand is the concept of Super Ego, Ego and
Id that Sigmund Freud coined at first.
If you take a look at the diagram below, it will help you have some understanding of the concept very clearly. The basic postulate of psychoanalysis, the concept of a dynamic unconscious mind, discovered out of Freud’s observation that the physical symptoms of hysterical patients tended to disappear after apparently forgotten material was made conscious. He saw the unconscious as an area of great psychic activity, which affected personality and behavior but operated with material not subject to recall through normal mental processes. Freud postulated that there were a number of defense mechanisms including repression, reaction-formation, regression, displacement, and rationalization that protect the conscious mind from those aspects of reality it may find difficult to accept. The major defense mechanism is “repression”, which induced a “forgetfulness” for harsh realities. (For example, when you don’t want to meet someone, you conveniently may forget the appointment.)
Observing the relationship between psychoneurosis and repressed memories, Freud made conscious recognition of these forgotten experiences the foundation of psychoanalytic therapy. Hypnosis was the earliest method used to probe the unconscious, but because of its limited effectiveness, it was soon abandoned in favor of free association dream, which Freud interpreted as symbolic wish fulfillments, were considered a primary key to the unconscious, and their analysis was an important part of Freudian therapy.
To clarify the operation of the human psyche, Freud and his followers introduced a vast body of psychoanalytic theory. In considering the human personality as a whole, Freud divided it into three functional parts: id, ego, and superego. He saw the id as the deepest level of the unconscious, dominated by the pleasure principle, with its object the immediate gratification of instinctual drives.
The superego, originating in the child through an identification with parents, and in response to social pressures, functions as an internal censor to repress the urges of the id.
The ego is seen as a part of the id modified by contact with the external world. It is a mental agent mediating among three contending forces: the outside demands of social pressure or reality, libidinal demands for immediate satisfaction arising from the id, and the moral demands of the superego. Although considered only partly conscious, the ego constitutes the major part of what is commonly referred to as consciousness.
The function of the id center around the basic needs of humankind that compel gratification, in particular the pressures arising from the sexual and aggressive drives. These drives were considered to be always fused to some degrees. If the drives did not evoke displeasure, they could be gratified with the assistance of the ego either in reality or in fantasy. If the wishes evoked by the drives caused too much displeasure, they were warded off by certain functions of the ego in accordance with the pleasure principle: the tendency of the mind to seek pleasure and avoid displeasure.
Freud insisted that conflicts between these often-opposing components of the human mind render defense mechanism surface.
It was Anna Freud, but not Sigmund, who defined the defense mechanisms. Anna Freud defined in detail the defense mechanisms sketched out by her father in her book, “The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense.” Second, defense mechanisms aren’t just an unconscoius protective measure to prevent you from connecting with your ravenous instinctual desires.
Manners/ Types of Defense Mechanisms
Psychologists have categorized defense mechanisms based upon how primitive they are. The more primitive a defense mechanism, the less effective it works for a person over the long-term. However, more primitive defense mechanisms are usually very effective short-term, and hence are favored by many people and children especially (when such primitive defense mechanisms are first learned). Adults who don’t learn better ways of coping with stress or traumatic events in their lives will often resort to such primitive defense mechanisms as well.
A comprehensive list of defense mechanisms was prepared by Anna Freud, the daughter of Sigmond Freud
Primitive Defense Mechanisms:
Denial:
Refusing to believe something that you find too upsetting. You can consider this the “generic” defense mechanism because it underlies many of the others. When you use denial, you simply refuse to accept the truth or reality of a fact or experience
Denial is the refusal to accept reality or fact, acting as if a painful event, thought or feeling did not exist. It is considered one of the most primitive of the defense mechanisms because it is characteristic of early childhood development. Many people use denial in their everyday lives to avoid dealing with painful feelings or areas of their life they don’t wish to admit.
Denial is a positive attitude in some cases, while it is not in others. For example, students who deny their need for studying and go to the cinema for a couple of times instead of studying will fail their exams.. As another example, a student receiving a low mark from an exam attributes this low mark to an assessment-related mistake made by the teacher.
The functioning of denial mechanism gradually faces increasing difficulty when the ego matures and understands the reality better, and the individual spends more energy for denial.
Denial may also be used by victims of trauma or disasters and may even be a beneficial initial protective response. In the long run, however, denial can prevent you from incorporating unpleasant information about yourself and your life and have potentially destructive consequences.
Regression
This complex behavior pattern or psychic phenomenon is a fundamental characteristics of mental life. When the term is used to designate a defensive process, it can refer to drive, ego, or super ego functioning. In the first of these, it refers to a return to the wishes and aims of the earlier oral and anal phases, in an effort to avoid the anxieties of the phallic phase. Thus, a woman might express intense longings to sit in her male friend’s lap and be taken care of, while her unconscious wishes for intercourse with him and a baby are repressed. An example of the regression of ego functioning for the purpose of defense would be a five-year-old boy who reverts to sucking his thumb and wanting a bottle when his sister is born.
From repression to regression—one little “g” makes all the difference. In regression, you revert back to a childlike emotional state in which your unconscious fears, anxieties, and general “angst” reappear. In Freud’s theory of “psychosexual” development, people develop through stages such as the oral, anal, and phallic so that by the time they’re five or six, the basic structures of personality are laid down
People under severe stress could demonstrate childish attitudes in a process called regression. Regression is the reversion to an earlier stage of development in the face of unacceptable thoughts or impulses. It is reverting to earlier (younger) ways of coping with problems. Example: you are overwhelmed with all the studying you have to do for finals, and you throw your pencil across the room in a little tantrum. For an example an adolescent who is overwhelmed with fear, anger and growing sexual impulses might become clingy and start exhibiting earlier childhood behaviors he has long since overcome. . However, every once in a while, a person either reverts back to a childlike state of development. particularly under conditions of stress. That road rage you see when drivers are stuck in traffic is a great example of regression. People may also show regression when they return to a child-like state of dependency. Retreating under the blankets when you’ve had a bad day is one possible instance. The problem with regression is that you may regret letting your childish self show in a self-destructive way. Driving badly or refusing to talk to people who’ve made you feel bad, mad, or sad can eventually get you in worse trouble than what you had when you began Or you are overwhelmed with all the studying you have to do for finals, and you throw your pencil across the room in a little tantrum
Although regression is not developed or appropriate, it could sometimes be used as a strategy for controlling as well. An adult having a crying jag when his/her views and thoughts are defeated could expect others to understand him/her as his/her parents did when s/he was a child.
Fantasy-formation- Day Dreaming
Sweet imagination, or fantasy formation, is a way of relaxation for a person who tries to overcome the conflicts via imagination. In fantasy formation, people do not regard the events as they but imagine them as what they want them to be. People not only give up thinking about the real situation that could lead them to anxiety or frustration but also satisfy the frustrated motives at least for a certain period of time.
Fantasy formation is seen especially among adults. Studies conducted demonstrate that almost all university students allocate a majority of their time to imagination rather than studying their lessons. To a certain extent, imagination is a harmless way of avoiding realities temporarily. However, constructive activities are quite rare.
Acting Out
Acting Out is performing an extreme behavior in order to express thoughts or feelings the person feels incapable of otherwise expressing. Instead of saying, “I’m angry with you,” a person who acts out may instead throw a book at the person, or punch a hole through a wall. When a person acts out, it can act as a pressure release, and often helps the individual feel calmer and peaceful once again. For instance, a child’s temper tantrum is a form of acting out when he or she doesn’t get his or her way with a parent. Self-injury may also be a form of acting-out, expressing in physical pain what one cannot stand to feel emotionally.
Dissociation
Dissociation is when a person loses track of time and/or person, and instead finds another representation of their self in order to continue in the moment. A person who dissociates often loses track of time or themselves and their usual thought processes and memories. People who have a history of any kind of childhood abuse often suffer from some form of dissociation. In extreme cases, dissociation can lead to a person believing they have multiple selves (“multiple personality disorder”). People who use dissociation often have a disconnected view of themselves in their world. Time and their own self-image may not flow continuously, as it does for most people. In this manner, a person who dissociates can “disconnect” from the real world for a time, and live in a different world that is not cluttered with thoughts, feelings or memories that are unbearable.
Projection
The first four defense mechanisms were relatively easy to understand. Projection is more challenging. First, you have to start with the assumption that to recognize a particular quality in yourself would cause you psychic pain. Let’s say you’re worried that you’re not really very smart. You make a dumb mistake that no one says anything about at all, and accuse others of saying that you’re dumb, inferior, or just plain stupid. The point is that no one said anything that in reality could be construed as critical. You are “projecting” your insecurities onto others and in the process, alienating them
Projection is the misattribution of a person’s undesired thoughts, feelings or impulses onto another person who does not have those thoughts, feelings or impulses. Projection is used especially when the thoughts are considered unacceptable for the person to express, or they feel completely ill at ease with having them. Projection is often the result of a lack of insight and acknowledgement of one’s own motivations and feelings.
In this process an unacceptable feeling, impulse, or idea is attributed to another person or thing. The person who is projecting has no awareness that the impulse or idea is his own. While projection is a ubiquitous and at times normal mental process, it is frequently predominant in sicker individuals, so is often accompanied by a diminution in reality testing. It is the major defense their own hateful thoughts and attribute their thoughts to a person or a group that they feel will harm them. However, all kinds of impulses can be projected, such as love, greed, envy, and sexual desire.
Suppose you love someone, but think that your parents have always told you to behave well to others and to get along with them. These recommendations of your parents have penetrated into your superego. When you discover that you do not actually like that person, this will cause you to feel guilty and anxious in moral aspect. The reflection mechanism will take the control and, without leading to any anxiety, create the thought of “this person does not like me”. In this way, we place the source of the conflict away from us.
If the problem can not be denied or repressed completely, we ruin the nature of the problem to solve it more easily. An example that could be given for this situation is reflection, in which individuals pass their repressed motives, thoughts and feelings to others. We pass our own emotions to others that we have not been able to acknowledge. Projection is Putting an unpleasant thought onto somebody else.
Reaction Formation
Most people have difficultyunderstanding reaction formation, but it’s really quite straightforward. Reaction Formation is the converting of unwanted or dangerous thoughts, feelings or impulses into their opposites
This term of developing reaction refers to the behavioral form of denial that people express by exaggerating their thoughts and emotions which are totally opposite to their own feelings. Exaggeration is a clue for this behavior. A woman praising her opponent excessively might conceal her jealousy of that person’s achievement.
This is a mechanism whereby an attitude is repressed and kept unconscious and its replaced in consciousness or behavior by its opposite. For example, hateful thoughts and feelings are repressed, and the individual is aware only of loving ones. Many reaction formations get to be so rigid and global that they become an intrinsic part of a person’s character. Such major reaction formations are sometimes considered to be discrete defense mechanisms themselves.
Developing a reaction could be a way of convincing oneself that his/her motives are sincere. A father with opposite feelings regarding becoming a parent could devote most of his time to his children in an effort to prove himself that he is quite a good father.
Less Primitive, More Mature Defense Mechanisms
Repression:
One step above denial in the generic classification scheme, repression involves simply forgetting something bad. Denial and repression are the most basic mechanisms. In denial, we delete the situations that we fail to cope with, while in repression, we delete our internal reactions or our thoughts that we can not acknowledge. These psychological strategies constitute the bases of coping in other defensive forms. You might also use repression when you “forget” to do something unpleasant. Repression, like denial, can be temporarily beneficial, particularly if you’ve forgotten something bad that happened to you, but as with denial, if you don’t come to grips with the experience it may come back to haunt you.
This is the commonest and most prominent defensive operation used in mental life, and it frequently operates in conjunction with other defenses. It occupies a singular place in the history of psychoanalysis concepts. It refers to the barring from consciousness of ideas, feelings, thoughts, fantasies, and memories. Ideas, fantasies, and memories associated with the instinctual drives are constantly pressing for discharge and entry into consciousness, where they can lead to action and gratification. The defense of repression keeps these thoughts in the unconscious part of the mind. But various repressed ideas, fantasies, and memories may overcome what is keeping them repressed and become conscious in dreams, slips of the tongue, daydreams, and symptoms.
Repression is the mechanism which is most common for wiping our painful feelings and memories and which removes distressing thoughts from the mind in a way not to remember them again. According to many psychologists, repression is an indicator of a person’s struggle against internal reactions that conflict with feelings of repression. For example, as children, most of us are taught that violence and offensiveness are wrong attitudes.
This conflict between our emotions and values could lead to stress and a way of coping with this stress in a defensive manner means suppressing our emotions – in other words, it means deleting any awareness of underlying anger and hostility completely. Repression, inappropriate subconscious motives do not turn into behavior; disturbing thoughts come to the level of consciousness; and memories regarding what we did wrong in the past do not revive. What to repress depends mainly on cultural expectations and on the superego of the individual.
Repression is the unconscious blocking of unacceptable thoughts, feelings and impulses. It is pushing very upsetting memories deep down, away from conscious thought. The key to repression is that people do it unconsciously, so they often have very little control over it. “Repressed memories” are memories that have been unconsciously blocked from access or view. But because memory is very malleable and ever-changing .
Although repression can occur at any time during life, it regularly arises concerning memories in childhood. The repression of memories from this period is known as infantile amnesia. In adult life, repression is particularly apparent in amnesia, fugue states, and in patients who tend to have symptoms and character traits associated with hysteria.
Displacement
Displacement is the redirecting of thoughts feelings and impulses directed at one person or object, but taken out upon another person or object. People often use displacement when they cannot express their feelings in a safe manner to the person they are directed at. The classic example is the man who gets angry at his boss, but can’t express his anger to his boss for fear of being fired. He instead comes home and kicks the dog or starts an argument with his wife. The man is redirecting his anger from his boss to his dog or wife. Naturally, this is a pretty ineffective defense mechanism, because while the anger finds a route for expression, it’s misapplication to other harmless people or objects will cause additional problems for most people.
In Displacement ideas and feelings that a person may have toward an important object or thing are repressed and then experienced in relation to another animate or inanimate object which represents the former. This is also commonly found to be present in the manifest content of dreams. Repressed motives and emotions refer to directing them from the actual objects to other objects that will replace the actual objects.
In displacement you transfer your original feelings that would get you in trouble (usually anger) away from the person who is the target of your rage to a more hapless and harmless victim. Here’s the classic example: You’ve had a very unpleasant interaction with your teacher, but you can’t show your anger toward him or her. Instead, you come home and, so to speak, “kick the cat” (or dog). That’s not very nice imagery, but you get the picture. Any time you shift your true feelings from their original, anxiety-provoking, source to one you perceive as less likely to cause you harm, you’re quite possibly using displacement. Unfortunately, displacement may protect you from being fired or failing a class, but it won’t protect your hand if you decide to displace your anger from the true target to a window or wall.
Intellectualisation
This is a process which psychologically binds the instinctual drives in intellectual activities, especially as a measure of control. It is exemplified by typical adolescent preoccupations with philosophy and religion to ward off the tumultuous sexual and aggressive feelings of that period.
In intellectualisation, a latent form of denial, we analyze our problems as an abstract level and cope with these problems as if they were of all people. In this way, we keep ourselves away from our emotions related to problems. Keeping very aloof and logical about painful topics.
You might also neutralize your feelings of anxiety, anger, or insecurity in a way that is less likely to lead to embarrassing moments than some of the above defense mechanisms. In intellectualization, you think away an emotion or reaction that you don’t enjoy feeling.
Intellectualization is the overemphasis on thinking when confronted with an unacceptable impulse, situation or behavior without employing any emotions whatsoever to help mediate and place the thoughts into an emotional, human context. Rather than deal with the painful associated emotions, a person might employ intellectualization to distance themselves from the impulse, event or behavior.
Rationalization.
Rationalization is putting something into a different light or offering a different explanation for one’s perceptions or behaviors in the face of a changing reality.
A more logical, reasoned explanation for behavior, thoughts, or feelings is given by a person in order to conceal unconscious meanings or motives that would arouse anxiety or guilt in that person. The person who is rationalizing is usually unaware of these repressed meanings or motives.
When you rationalize something, you try to explain it away. As a defense mechanism, rationalization is somewhat like intellectualization, but it involves dealing with a piece of bad behavior on your part rather than converting a painful or negative emotion into a more neutral set of thoughts. People often use rationalization to shore up their insecurities or remorse after doing something they regret such as an “oops” moment. It’s easier to blame someone else than to take the heat yourself, particularly if you would otherwise feel shame or embarrassment. For example, let’s say you lose your temper in front of people you want to like and respect you. Now, to help make yourself feel better, you mentally attribute your outburst to a situation outside your control, and twist things so that you can blame someone else for provoking you.
Isolation
This mechanism, which is the one most used by obsessive-compulsive personalities, consists of the separation of ideas from the emotions that usually accompany them. For example, a person may have the thought that his father will die, yet he experiences no emotion along with the thought; or a patient may tell his analyst that he has angry thoughts about him, but he does not feel angry. If isolation is severe, it can result in a general blunting of emotion. Sometimes a person’s thoughts seem unbidden, alien, or unconnected; hence anxiety and guilt are diminished even though the thoughts are conscious.
Mature Defense Mechanisms
Mature defense mechanisms are often the most constructive and helpful to most adults, but may require practice and effort to put into daily use. While primitive defense mechanisms do little to try and resolve underlying issues or problems, mature defenses are more focused on helping a person be a more constructive component of their environment. People with more mature defenses tend to be more at peace with themselves and those around them.
Sublimation
Sublimation is simply the channelling of unacceptable impulses, thoughts and emotions into more acceptable ones. Refocusing such unacceptable or harmful impulses into productive use helps a person channel energy that otherwise would be lost or used in a manner that might cause the Although the term was originally used to designate a defense mechanisms, sublimation is now considered to be a normal aspect of ego functioning and ego maturation. As a defense, it refers to the transformation of an activity gratifying an infantile drive derivative into a more socially acceptable and creative activity person more anxiety.
Sublimation can also be done with humor or fantasy. Humor, when used as a defense mechanism, is the channelling of unacceptable impulses or thoughts into a light-hearted story or joke. Humor reduces the intensity of a situation, and places a cushion of laughter between the person and the impulses. Fantasy, when used as a defense mechanism, is the channelling of unacceptable or unattainable desires into imagination. For example, imagining one’s ultimate career goals can be helpful when one experiences temporary setbacks in academic achievement. Both can help a person look at a situation in a different way, or focus on aspects of the situation not previously explored.
We’ve just seen that people can use their emotions to fire up a cognitively-oriented response. Intellectualization tends to occur over the short run, but sublimation develops over a long period of time, perhaps even throughout the course of a person’s career.. More realistically, sublimation occurs when people transform their conflicted emotions into productive outlets. They do say that psychologists are inherently nosy (not true!!), but it’s possible that people who go into human services fields to help others are trying to “pay forward” to compensate for difficulties they experienced in their early lives.
Compensation
Compensation is a process of psychologically counterbalancing perceived weaknesses by emphasizing strength in other arenas. By emphasizing and focusing on one’s strengths, a person is recognizing they cannot be strong at all things and in all areas in their lives. For instance, when a person says, “I may not know how to cook, but I can sure do the dishes!,” they’re trying to compensate for their lack of cooking skills by emphasizing their cleaning skills instead. When done appropriately and not in an attempt to over-compensate, compensation is defense mechanism that helps reinforce a person’s self-esteem and self-image.
Assertiveness
Assertiveness is the emphasis of a person’s needs or thoughts in a manner that is respectful, direct and firm. Communication styles exist on a continuum, ranging from passive to aggressive, with assertiveness falling neatly inbetween. People who are passive and communicate in a passive manner tend to be good listeners, but rarely speak up for themselves or their own needs in a relationship. People who are aggressive and communicate in an aggressive manner tend to be good leaders, but often at the expense of being able to listen empathetically to others and their ideas and needs. People who are assertive strike a balance where they speak up for themselves, express their opinions or needs in a respectful yet firm manner, and listen when they are being spoken to. Becoming more assertive is one of the most desired communication skills and helpful defense mechanisms most people want to learn, and would benefit in doing so.
Identification
The opposite of reflection is identification. We save ourselves from unwanted qualifications that we have repressed by passing them to others via reflection. We take the qualifications of a person via identification and share the achievements of that person in the same way. In this way, we avoid feeling ourselves inefficient.
In other words, we adopt and then demonstrate the attitudes of a person whom we admire. A father who has not been able to achieve his goals in his profession shares the professional achievements of his son emotionally.
Identification uses the fantasy of being like another person or adopts behavior and character traits derived from another person. For example, a little boy who feels painfully small and weak may copy his father’s behavior in order to feel big and strong. In a particular form of identification known as “identification with the aggressor,” a person attempts to avoid a passive, frightened state by becoming like the person who frightened him. For instance, a boy may angrily scold his younger brother in exactly the same way in which his father has just scolded him.
In short, defense mechanisms are one of our commonest ways to cope with unpleasant emotions. Although Freud and many of his followers believed that we use them to combat sexual or aggressive feelings, defense mechanisms apply to a wide range of reactions from anxiety to insecurity.
As pointed out by Coleman and colleagues (1987), “defence is necessary to soothe failure, to decrease tension and anxiety, to fix the emotional damage, and to maintain our feelings of being valuable and efficient.” Any defence mechanism can be regarded as inadaptability only when it hinders the individual’s ability to become functional or leads to new problems rather than solving the current ones.
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