Defense

Mechanisms

Organized by:
Anna Freud
Defense Mechanisms
 Sigmund Freud talked about them
but his daughter Anna organized
them.
 Freud talked about them, but never
systematically listed them
 His daughter, Anna Freud
organized them
 Personality: Components and
Interactions

SUPEREGO

Personality EGO REALITY

ID
Why do people use defense
mechanisms?
 A basic drive of people is the reduction of
tension.
 Anxiety is the major cause of tension
 People use defense mechanisms to deal
with anxieties or situations which makes us
anxious.
 Three types of anxiety:
1. Neurotic Anxiety
2. Moral Anxiety
3. Realistic Anxiety
Realistic Anxiety
 This is the most basic form of anxiety and is
typically based on fears of real and possible
events, such as being bitten by a dog or
falling from a ladder.
 The most common way of reducing tension
from Reality Anxiety is taking oneself away
from the situation, running away from the dog
or simply refusing to go up the ladder.
Neurotic Anxiety

 This is a form of anxiety which comes from an

unconscious fear that the basic impulses of
the id (the primitive part of our personality)
will take control of the person, leading to
eventual punishment (this is thus a form of
Moral Anxiety).
Moral Anxiety
 This form of anxiety comes from a fear of
violating values and moral codes, and
appears as feelings of guilt or shame.
Dealing with anxiety
 When anxiety occurs, the mind first responds
by an increase in problem-solving thinking,
seeking rational ways of escaping the
situation.
 If this is not fruitful (and maybe anyway), a
range of defense mechanisms may be
triggered. In Freud's language, these are
tactics which the Ego develops to help deal
with the Id and the Super Ego.
 The ideal way to deal with anxiety is for the
ego to govern the id, and allow satisfaction of
id impulses in ways that do no harm to long-
run self-interest or to other people.
 Defense mechanisms are a less satisfactory
way to deal with anxiety
 All Defense Mechanisms share two common
properties :
1. They often appear unconsciously.
2. They tend to distort, transform, or otherwise
falsify reality.
 In distorting reality, there is a change in
perception which allows for a lessening of
anxiety, with a corresponding reduction in
felt tension.
Dealing with anxiety
 Ideal is to deal with them rationally
 Defense mechanisms are not good nor are
they healthy in the long run.
 However, sometimes they are the best way
for the individual to deal with anxiety for the
time being. – to help cope with reality.
 REMEMBER: These are done
unconsciously. Thus, the person does not do
this intentionally or with conscious thought.
List of Defense Mechanisms
 Repression  Others
 Rationalization  Undoing
 Projection  Identification
 Reaction Formation  Intellectualization
 Denial
 Displacement
 Sublimation
 Regression
Repression
 Most powerful of the defense mechanisms.
 It is also the component of all other defense
mechanisms – repression + ______

 It is pushing (pressing down: re-press)

uncomfortable thoughts into the
subconscious
Repression
 Can be an idea or memory: Can be an
impulse or wish (Pleasurable desire) –
pushing this down.
 Example – Can’t remember death of a loved
one, or being raped, or a car accident.
We push these away in the hope that they will
fade away or that we
NOTE: These are unconsciously done without
any intention of forgetting. If there is thought
in trying to forget – then it becomes
suppression
Repression example
 Can’t remember a painful event – death of a loved
one, being raped.
 A child who is abused by a parent later has no
recollection of the events, but has trouble forming
relationships.
 A woman who found childbirth particularly painful
continues to have children (and each time the level of
pain is surprising).
 An optimist remembers the past with a rosy glow and
constantly repeats mistakes.
 A man has a phobia of spiders but cannot remember
the first time he was afraid of them.
 A person greets another with 'pleased to beat you'
(the repressed idea of violence toward the other
person creeping through).
Displacement
 The second most basic defense mechanism.
 It is the transfer of psychic energy from a
repressed object-cathexis to a more
acceptable one.
 Normally, this is the shifting of an object of
desire which is considered as “bad” to
something that is good…
 Like a person who has a fighting cock gets
obsessed with stroking it, when he realizes
that it is different bird that he wants to stroke.
Examples
 The boss gets angry and shouts at me. I go home
and shout at my wife. She then shouts at our son.
With nobody left to displace anger onto, he goes and
kicks the dog.
 A man wins the lottery. He turns to the person next to
him and gives the person a big kiss.
 A boy is afraid of horses. It turns out to be a
displaced fear of his father.
 I want to speak at a meeting but cannot get a word in
edgeways. Instead, I start scribbling furiously.
 A religious person who is sexually frustrated focuses
their attention on food, becoming a gourmet.
 A woman, rejected by her boyfriend, goes out with
another man 'on the rebound'.
Denial
 Like repression, but is keeping oneself unaware of
parts of the external world.
 claiming/believing that what is true to be actually
false.
 Denial is simply refusing to acknowledge that an
event has occurred. The person affected simply acts
as if nothing has happened, behaving in ways that
others may see as bizarre.
 In its full form, it is totally subconscious, and sufferers
may be as mystified by the behavior of people around
them as those people are by the behavior of the
sufferers. It may also have a significant conscious
element, where the sufferer is simply 'turning a blind
eye' to an uncomfortable situation.
Denial Examples
 A man hears that his wife has been killed, and yet
refuses to believe it, still setting the table for her and
keeping her clothes and other accoutrements in the
bedroom.
 A person having an affair does not think about
pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases.
 People take credit for their successes and find 'good
reason' for their failures, blaming the situation, other
people, etc.
 Alcoholics vigorously deny that they have a problem.
 Optimists deny that things may go wrong. Pessimists
deny they may succeed.
Projection
 attributing uncomfortable feelings of your own
to others instead of yourself.
 Used when we cannot accept our own
shortcomings and undesirable feelings, so we
project this on to others
 Much like a film projector projecting the
image on to a screen, or something else.
 Ego senses something not acceptable in
himself but convinces himself that it is
someone else.
Projection examples
 I do not like another person. But I have a
value that says I should like everyone. So I
project onto them that they do not like me.
This allows me to avoid them and also to
handle my own feelings of dislike.
 An unfaithful husband suspects his wife of
infidelity.
 A woman who is attracted to a fellow worker
accuses the person of sexual advances.
Reaction Formation
 overacting in the opposite way to the fear.
 Inhibiting an anxiety-provoking feeling by
exaggerating its opposite, and/or conscious denial of
the feeling combined with a disgust with the feeling.
 Reaction Formation occurs when a person feels an
urge to do or say something and then actually does
or says something that is effectively the opposite of
what they really want. It also appears as a defense
against a feared social punishment. If I fear that I will
be criticized for something, I very visibly act in a way
that shows I am personally a long way from the
feared position.
 A common pattern in Reaction Formation is
where the person uses ‘excessive behavior’,
for example using exaggerated friendliness
when the person is actually feeling unfriendly.
Reaction Formation Examples
 A person who is angry with a colleague
actually ends up being particularly courteous
and friendly towards them.
 A man who is gay has a number of
conspicuous heterosexual affairs and openly
criticizes gays.
 A mother who has a child she does not want
becomes very protective of the child.
 An alcoholic extols the virtues of abstinence.
More examples
 Men who are overly masculine – machismo –
hatred for homosexuality (homophobia) is
explained as reaction formation
 Homosexuality (love of men) changed to
hostility (hate men)
 A girl wanting to be the best friend of her
boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend
Rationalization
 creating false but credible justifications.
 Producing seemingly logical reasons for an
impulse or thought that would otherwise
produce anxiety.
 When something happens that we find
difficult to accept, then we will make up a
logical reason why it has happened.
 The target of rationalization is usually
something that we have done, such as being
unkind to another person. It may also be used
when something happens independent of us
which causes us discomfort, such as when a
friend is unkind to us.
 We rationalize to ourselves. We also find it
very important to rationalize to other people,
even those we do not know.
Rationalization Examples
 A person evades paying taxes and then rationalizes it
by talking about how the government wastes money
(and how it is better for people to keep what they
can).
 A man buys an expensive car and then tells people
his old car was very unreliable, very unsafe, etc.
 A person fails to get good enough results to get into a
chosen university and then says that they didn't want
to go there anyway.
 A parent punishes a child and says that it is for the
child's 'own good'.
 I trip and fall over in the street. I tell a passer-by that I
have recently been ill.
Regression
 going back to acting as a child.
 Regression involves taking the position of a child in
some problematic situation, rather than acting in a
more adult way. This is usually in response to
stressful situations, with greater levels of stress
potentially leading to more overt regressive acts.
 Regressive behavior can be simple and harmless,
such as a person who is sucking a pen (as a
Freudian regression to oral fixation), or may be more
dysfunctional, such as crying or using petulant
arguments.
Regression Examples
 A wife refuses to drive a car even though it causes
the family much disorganization. A result of her
refusal is that her husband has to take her
everywhere.
 A person who suffers a mental breakdown assumes
a fetal position, rocking and crying.
 A child suddenly starts to wet the bed after years of
not doing so (this is a typical response to the arrival
of a new sibling).
 A college student carefully takes their teddy-bear with
them (and goes to sleep cuddling it).
Sublimation
 redirecting 'wrong' urges into socially acceptable
actions.
 When we are faced with the dissonance of
uncomfortable thoughts, we create psychic energy.
This has to go somewhere. Sublimation channels this
energy away from destructive acts and into
something that is socially acceptable and/or
creatively effective.
 Many sports and games are sublimations of
aggressive urges, as we sublimate the desire to fight
into the ritualistic activities of formal competition.
Sublimation Examples
 I am angry. I go out and chop wood. I end up with a
useful pile of firewood. I am also fitter and nobody is
harmed.
 A person who has an obsessive need for control and
order becomes a successful business entrepreneur.
 A person with strong sexual urges becomes an artist.
 A man who has extra-marital desires takes up
household repairs when his wife is out of town.
 A surgeon turns aggressive energies and deep
desires to cut people into life-saving acts.
Sublimation
 Sublimation is probably the most useful and
constructive of the defense mechanisms
as it takes the energy of something that is
potentially harmful and turns it to doing
something good and useful.
 Sublimation channels this energy away from
destructive acts and into something that is
socially acceptable and/or creatively effective.
 Many sports and games are sublimations of
aggressive urges, as we sublimate the desire
to fight into the ritualistic activities of formal
competition.
Sublimation Examples
 I am angry. I go out and chop wood. I end up with a
useful pile of firewood. I am also fitter and nobody is
harmed.
 A person who has an obsessive need for control and
order becomes a successful business entrepreneur.
 A person with strong sexual urges becomes an artist.
 A man who has extra-marital desires takes up
household repairs when his wife is out of town.
 A surgeon turns aggressive energies and deep
desires to cut people into life-saving acts.
 A boy goes running because he had a fight with his
girlfriend to channel his urge to hit her.
Final Points on Defense Mechanisms
1. They are unconscious – we do not know that
we are using them!
2. Repression and displacement is used in
most defense mechanisms.
3. Everyone uses them!
4. The best way among the defense
mechanisms is sublimation.
5. Better than sublimation is to know your
anxieties, accept your urges, impulses, bad
thoughts and deal with realistically.