What are defense mechanisms? These are psychological methods which people use to cope with difficult emotions and feelings such as stress and anxiety from difficult events and thoughts. These methods are used to prevent them into getting into more harm.
Defense mechanisms can be unconscious behaviors in some cases. Guard walls put up over years of difficult situations. However, it is important to identify these mechanisms and work around it. Letting yourself heal is the only way to move forward.
What Are Defense Mechanisms?
As mentioned above, defense mechanisms are behavioral patterns people use in alienating themselves from events they find unpleasant. This isn’t exclusive to just outward events but also their own thoughts as well as actions.
Where does it stem from? It comes from a psychoanalytic theory that attributes personalities and their interactions between three components. These components are identity, ego and superego. Now what these components do is they help people stay at bay and know what to go towards and stay away from. These could be avoiding the feeling of guilt, sadness and shame.
It’s like having a very bad breakup, from a friend or a romantic partner. Your guard comes up when you meet someone new and the need to never put yourself in a vulnerable position like that surface. These could lead to a plethora of defense mechanisms.
The theory of defense mechanisms was first proposed by Sigmund Freud. It further explains that defense mechanisms aren’t always conscious. In most cases, people indulge in it without actually realizing it.
This is no surprise as sometimes a large part of our psychological development is greatly unconscious. This article would break down the type of defense mechanisms and why people use them.
Types of Defense Mechanisms
The types of defense mechanisms are usually classified into mature and primitive defenses. Primitive defenses have more stages compared to mature dense mechanism.
Mature defenses usually entail a much lighter manifestation. People who fall into this category are less harmful to themselves and those around them.
It is when we accept reality as it is even when we don’t like them. We don’t shut the world out and understand that strange and uncomfortable feelings would come but dealing with them is better than running away from them.
Primitive defenses, however, have different development stages. These include regress, denial, and projection.
Defense mechanisms are sometimes classified into either primitive defenses or mature defenses. Primitive defense mechanisms are the first to occur developmentally and includes denial, repression, displacement, projection, rationalization, reaction formation, sublimations, and compartmentalization.
Unlike the primitive defense mechanism that happens naturally, mature defenses tend to require conscious effort, practice, intentions etc. in order to work. It is never really easy but with enough of these factors, it becomes a lot less hard.
Here are the types of defense mechanisms and what they entail.
1. Denial
Denial is known as the most common form of defense mechanism. This is what happens when individuals refuse to accept reality as it is. There’s a part of them that holds on strongly to their delusion. This could be because of fear of accepting the truth. People in denial tend to block external events from their minds and thoughts.
This is done to prevent to formation of an emotional reaction. How they handle painful events and situations is by simply denying it exists and shutting it out of their minds. No matter how obvious it is to people around them.
2. Repression
Have you ever been in a situation where you’re stormed with a lot of painful memories, intrusive thoughts, and irrational images? These tend to update you so much it makes it hard to think. People who have their defenses up tend to hide those memories instead of addressing them.
They repress the memories and thoughts but one thing you should know is that it never really disappears. It starts affecting the quality of your life little by little. Affecting your interactions and relationships with people even without realizing it.
3. Intellectualization
If you find yourself always having to use reason and logic in order to make more sense of uncomfortable feelings and situations, then you might be using this defense mechanism. This is usually some to avoid the burdens of emotions. Why someone broke your heart is more acceptable when you know it’s because of their attachment style and how they were brought up.
Why you have no friends is more acceptable when you align your social awkwardness and inability to hold conversations for so long. You just the means to every end and the end to every means because it makes you feel better.
4. Projection
Projection is the act of taking all your unwanted emotions about yourself or the attributes of people who hurt you and projecting it onto someone else because you want it to be true. Not because you want to be hurt, but because for some reason that makes a lot more sense to you.
A good example is when you have been cheated on in the past and now your new partner seems too good to be true so they might be cheating too and it’ll make more sense to you. Also it could be gaslighting. Expecting your partner to be engaged in something you already are that makes you feel guilty. Maybe if they were guilty too, you would feel less guilty. So you project.
5. Regression
Regression is when an individual who is coping with a stressful or anxiety inducing situation adopts the idea of going back in time to their developmental stage. This usually happens psychologically. An example is a child who is being abused or faced with certain trauma can begin sucking their thumbs or bed wetting again.
Adults can also regress by eating a lot of comfort food they liked as children, suddenly buying a lot of stuffed animals, begin smoking, avoid daily interactions etc.
6. Displacement
Displacement is projecting your strong emotions to individuals you feel less threatening and could have a lesser consequence than projecting it on the actual reason you are angry or having a bad day. Here’s an example for you.
Let’s say you had a bad day are work or school. Your professor or your boss made you angry but you can’t exactly express yourself to them without consequences. So what you do is get angry at your child or your friends or your spouse. You express such strong emotions to people who had no part in creating them anyway.
7. Reaction formation
Individuals who use this form of defense mechanisms tend to identify their feelings but instead of acting accordingly, they opt for the opposite of how they feel. Here’s how it works. When they are feeling very angry and frustrated by the world or people around them, they become more positive.
Their defense mechanism is choosing to be more overly positive than not. Although they may seem fine on the outside, they necessarily do not feel that way on the outside.
8. Sublimation
This falls more under mature defense mechanisms as people who feel strong emotions tend to unleash it in a safer and appropriate manner. This could include signing up for sporting activities instead of lashing out at your boss or your coworkers.
When they begin to feel frustrated about a particular thing, they find a healthy way, which usually involves a lot of cardio, to channel it to.
9. Dissociation
Dissociation is what happens when you disconnect yourself from your feelings, emotions, memories, thoughts and other forms of identity. This is usually an aftermath of traumatic events for people, especially those who’ve been abused.
Dissociation can include out of body experiences, feeling numb and emotionless, frequently zoning out, and rarely in touch with your surroundings. People who use this form of defense tend to develop dissociative identity disorder. It is usually done unconsciously.
10. Compartmentalization
This involves putting different parts of your life in independent sectors. That way they don’t collide or mix. At work you talk about only work and not your personal life. At home you talk about personal stuff and not your job.
Compartmentalization helps you focus on one thing at a time and reduces the anxiety that comes with having to deal with too much at once.
Why Do People Adopt Defense Mechanisms?
What are the reason people adopting a defensive mechanism? It is important to note that most of these happen unconsciously and this is to control the emotions you let out and in. It can be used to avoid invasive and uncomfortable thoughts, feeling and actions. Anything that can put you in a vulnerable position where you might have been before.
It can also be because of fear. When people get heartbroken, are raised in abusive households or are abused as adults, all these can be their way to protect themselves. People with mental health conditions such as depression or anxiety can use these defense mechanisms to manage their condition.
How To Manage Unhealthy Defense Mechanism?
Although defense mechanisms can seem like help, they never work long term and can be viewed as a form of self deception and sabotage. Especially when it starts being at an unconscious level and you never know how it might go.
A more mature defense mechanism can go a long way and that is being intentional about healing and moving forward. Ways you can do this include learning healthy strategies, be accountable of your defenses by asking your friends and family.
Other ways include seeking help from a therapist to help you identify these defenses and walk you through how to cope with yourself and those around you.
