Defense Mechanisms

Was there ever a time wherein you can’t remember a certain event no matter how much you tried? How about a time wherein you’re mad but instead of letting it out to the person you’re mad at, you take it out at the things around you? How about liking someone but then you continuously try to deny it even when it’s true?

Now you might think that occurrences such as what is mentioned above happen normally. But have you ever thought of asking yourself why these things happen? If you’re wondering, you might have these experiences because of the so-called defense mechanisms.

What is are defense mechanisms? Defense mechanisms are psychological strategies that are universally used by individuals to cope with the stress that reality brings and to maintain one’s self-image. Sigmund Freud was the first person to elaborate this idea and his daughter, Anna was the one who further organized and refined the concept.

If you’re wondering who Sigmund Freud is, he is a psychoanalyst born in Moravia but was raised in Vienna, Austria. He studied the unconscious of an individual by means of associating it with his life experiences. Anna Freud is a psychoanalyst herself as she followed her father’s footsteps.

Now how does an individual trigger his/her defense mechanisms? According, to Sigmund Freud, defense mechanisms happens in the unconscious state of mind. It is created by the ego to avoid dealing directly with sexual and aggressive impulsive and to defend itself against the anxiety that accompanies them.

The ego is one of the provinces of the mind. It is responsible for directing and controlling the instincts. It works under the reality principle that tells us how to realistically satisfy our needs. The two other provinces of mind that accompanies it is the id and the superego. The ego is the mediator between the id and superego which seeks compromises to satisfy both.

There are lots of defense mechanisms that may be categorized to 4 levels but Freud identified only 8 principal defense mechanisms that the ego used to protect itself. These are: repression, reaction formation, displacement, fixation, regression, projection, introjection and sublimation.

Repression is the most basic defense mechanism. When the ego is threatened by undesirable id impulses, it protects itself by forcing those impulses into the unconscious. The emotion is conscious but the idea behind it is unknown or absent. For example, memory lapse and an unexplainable naivety.

Reaction Formation is the type of mechanism wherein the behavior that an individual shows is the complete opposite of what that individual is really feeling. An example of this can be seen in a young woman who really resents and hate her mother. But because she knows that society demands affection to be shown to the mother and that resentment and hate is causing her too much anxiety, she then tries to concentrate more in giving affections to her mother. However, that affection is not genuine.

Displacement is a defense mechanism that redirects aggressive impulses to a safer outlet. The intense emotion is redirected toward someone or something less offensive or threatening. For example, a woman is angry at her roommate. She may displace her anger to her friends, her co-workers or even her pet.

Fixation happens when the prospect of taking the next step becomes too anxiety provoking thus, the ego resort to the strategy of staying at the present, more comfortable psychological stage.

Regression is the temporary reversion of the ego to an earlier stage of development rather than handling unacceptable impulses in a more adult way. This is usually visible and more common in children but also frequents teenagers and adults.

Projection is the process of attributing one's own unacknowledged unacceptable/unwanted thoughts and emotions to another. An example would be a man who have strong feelings towards this woman but instead of saying ‘I love her’, he says ‘I hate her.’ This happens when impulses becomes too powerful, thus the reversing the feeling and projecting them to the original object of affection.

Introjection is a defense mechanism whereby people incorporate positive qualities of another person into their own ego. An example would be a teenager adapting to the lifestyle of his/her idol. It could be a moviestar, artist, singer, etc. By adapting that person’s particular lifestyle, the teenager feels a sense of self-worth and keeps feeling of inferiority to a minimum.

The last but not the least is the Sublimation. It is the transformation of negative emotions or instincts into positive actions, behavior, or emotion. According to Freud, amongst the defense mechanisms, this is the safest and healthiest to use. It is because it benefits both the individual and the society.

In a whole, defense mechanisms are created by the ego to protect itself from anxiety-provoking situations. They are universal and mostly everyone engage into it in some degree. But although it is universally used, when carried to an extreme it may result to compulsive, repetitive and neurotic behavior. Normally, however defense mechanisms are beneficial to the individual and harmless to the society.