Defense mechanisms are psychoanalytic or Freudian constructs. They were created to help explain individual responses to anxiety. They have been borrowed from their original context to help explain individual coping styles. Defense mechanisms are unconscious, meaning that we are not consciously aware of their operation. They are also individualized, meaning that different people use different sets of them. Finally, they are normal, meaning that everybody uses them. However, defense mechanisms do become of clinical interest when they are exaggerated. This last topic will be examined later.Defense mechanisms, in their original context, are unconscious methods of dealing with anxiety. More generally, they can be seen as dealing with stress, or a cause of anxiety. Below is a list of some common defense mechanisms with a short description of each.
Compensation
A perceived deficit is compensated for by skill or success in another area. For example, a perceived lack of height is compensated for skill in business, the arts, or other areas.
Denial
A reality that causes anxiety is simply not perceived. For example, a mother may unconsciously refuse to see her son's true character because it is too anxiety-arousing. The use of denial may lead to abrupt intrusion of reality into one's life. The mother above, for example, may receive the news that her son has been arrested for armed robbery.
Displacement
Displacement is the redirection of energy from a dangerous or forbidden object to a more socially acceptable one. For example, attraction to a married person may be displaced to some other activity. A classic instance is playing a musical instrument instead.
Fantasy
Fantasy is the conjuring of an imagined scenario to replace a real one. Imagining one's sexual partner as being someone else is a fairly common example.
Intellectualization
Intellectualization is treating an emotionally charged situation in a muted or non emotional fashion. For example, someone who accepts the news of a marital breakup passively and with stoicism may be using intellectualization.
Projection
Projection is blaming others or other things for one's problems or failures. For example, someone might say, "The devil made me do it", or blame others for being the cause of a problem.
Rationalization
Rationalization is realizing that one's motives are not always pure or publicly acceptable and substituting appropriate motives. For example, failing to study because one was "exhausted" rather than "lazy" is an example. Being lazy is not seen as a socially acceptable motivation.
Reaction formation
Reaction formation is showing the exact opposite of one's true motivation or intentions. (Unconsciously, remember.) So, saying "I hate you." may indicate love instead. Or, believing that you love to teach may be necessary after you have spent years preparing and then found out that the only job you could obtain was in a horrible school with violent students. The choice is to admit your wasted time and energy preparing for such a job, or to believe that you enjoy it.
Repression
Repression is central to psychoanalysis. It requires that highly anxiety-arousing items be stored deep in the unconscious, where they will not affect conscious activities. Repressed items, however, may manifest themselves in dreams or in slips of the tongue. A repressed item is not usually available for recall. Instead, it may appear later, unexpectedly. For example, I once attempted to recall all of the Fourth of July days I had spent over a ten-year period, but one was unaccessible to me. A few weeks later, while in the shower, it hit me. I had been involved in a major family dispute that particular day, and had apparently repressed it.
Regression
Regression occurs when the coping behaviors of an earlier developmental stage reappear. For example, crying or throwing a tantrum may be used to cope with a stressful event. Typically, we view such behaviors as inappropriate for adults, and further, as holdovers from an earlier time (childhood) when such behaviors were more acceptable.
Sublimation
Sublimation is when motives are either sexual or violent, reflecting the psychoanalytic instincts of libido and thanatos (both will be discussed later), and are redirected into non-instinctual paths. For example, aggressive motivations may be redirected into the more acceptable framework of games.
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