Defense mechanism

Definition

Defense mechanisms are unconscious mechanisms aimed at reducing anxiety that arises from three different scenarios:

• When the id impulses are in conflict with each other;
• When the id impulses conflict with superego values and beliefs;
• When an external threat is posed to the ego.

For example, when the id impulses (e.g. desire to have sex with a stranger) conflict with the superego (e.g. belief in societal conventions of not having sex with unknown persons), then feelings of anxiety come to the surface. To reduce these negative feelings, defense mechanisms are employed.

The concept of these biological "id" impulses comes from Sigmund Freud’s structural model. Id impulses are based on the "pleasure principle": instant gratification of one’s own desires and needs. Sigmund Freud believed that id represents the instinctual impulses in ourselves, which are aggression, and sexual. The sex drive is our drive to live, to thrive, and to grow. The aggression drive is our drive for safety and the protection of our lives. Those two impulsive drives are the motivating factors of our actions.

In the ego, there are two processes operating. First, there is the unconscious primary process, where thoughts are not organized in a coherent way, feelings can shift, contradictions are not in conflict or are just not perceived that way, and condensations arise. There is no logic and no time-line. In opposition to this, there is the conscious secondary process, to which strong boundaries are set, and in which thoughts must be organized in a coherent way. More cognitions arise here.

For the individual to function in society, the impulses from the id cannot be focused on satisfaction, they must respect the reality of the world and the superego. The superego represents the learned (in the process of growing up) and internalized set of values and ethics, which gives the individual the sense of what is right and what is wrong to think, feel, and do.

When anxiety becomes too overwhelming it is then the place of the ego to employ defense mechanisms to protect the individual. Feelings of guilt, embarrassment, and shame often accompany feelings of anxiety. Anna Freud described in her book Ego and mechanisms of defense (1936) the concept of signal anxiety, stating that it is "not directly a conflicted instinctual tension but a signal occurring in the ego of an anticipated instinctual tension." The signaling function of anxiety is thus seen as a crucial one and biologically adapted to warn the organism of danger or a threat to its equilibrium. Anxiety is felt as an increase in bodily or mental tension and the signal that the organism receives in this way allows it the possibility of taking defensive action towards the perceived danger. Defense mechanisms work by distorting the id impulses into acceptable forms, or by unconscious blockage of these impulses.

Main Defense Mechanisms

Sigmund Freud was the first person to develop the concept of defense mechanisms, however it was his daughter, Anna Freud, who clarified and conceptualized them. She described ten different defense mechanisms: denial, displacement, intellectualization, projection, rationalization, reaction formation, regression, repression, sublimation, and suppression. Later researchers have added some more defense mechanisms to the list: compensation (first described by Alfred Adler), dissocation, fantasy, identification, undoing, and withdrawal.

Denial

Denial is an ego defense mechanism that operates unconsciously to resolve emotional conflict, and to reduce anxiety by refusing to perceive the more unpleasant aspects of external reality.

Denial is the psychological defense mechanism in which a person faced with a fact that is uncomfortable or painful to accept rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true, despite what may be overwhelming evidence. The subject may deny the reality of the unpleasant fact altogether (simple denial), admit the fact but deny its seriousness (minimization), or admit both the fact and seriousness but deny responsibility (transference). The concept of denial is particularly important to the study of addiction.

The theory of denial was first researched seriously by Anna Freud. She classified denial as a mechanism of the immature mind, because it conflicts with the ability to learn from and cope with reality. Where denial occurs in mature minds, it is most often associated with death and dying. Research in this area has significantly expanded the scope and utility of the concept. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross used denial as the first of five stages in the psychology of a dying patient, and the idea has been extended to include the reactions of survivors to news of a death. Thus, when parents are informed of the death of a child, their first reaction is often of the form, "No! You must have the wrong house, you can't mean our child!"

Unlike some other defense mechanisms postulated by psychoanalytic theory (for instance, repression), the general existence of denial is fairly easy to verify, even for non-specialists. On the other hand, denial is one of the most controversial defense mechanisms, since it can be easily used to create unfalsifiable theories: anything the subject says or does that appears to disprove the interpreter's theory is explained, not as evidence that the interpreter's theory is wrong, but as evidence of the subject's being "in denial."

The concept of denial is important in "twelve-step" programs, where the abandonment or reversal of denial forms the basis of the first, fourth, fifth, eighth and tenth steps. The ability to deny or minimize is an essential part of what enables an addict to continue his or her behavior in the face of evidence that, to an outsider, appears overwhelming. This is cited as one of the reasons that compulsion is seldom effective in treating addiction—the habit of denial remains.

Understanding and avoiding denial is also important in the treatment of various diseases. The American Heart Association cites denial as a principal reason that treatment of a heart attack is delayed. Because the symptoms are so varied, and often have other potential explanations, the opportunity exists for the patient to deny the emergency, often with fatal consequences. It is common for patients to delay mammograms or other tests because of a fear of cancer, even though this is clearly maladaptive. It is the responsibility of the care team, and of the nursing staff in particular, to train at-risk patients to avoid such behavior.

Displacement

Displacement is an unconscious defense mechanism, whereby the mind redirects emotion from a "dangerous" object to a "safe" object. In psychoanalytic theory, displacement is a defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses to a more acceptable or less threatening target that can serve as an emotional substitute. The most classic example is a worker, angry at his boss, obviously unable to direct his anger and hostility to his intended target, comes home and yells at his wife. She, now also angry and upset, displaces her anger on the child, who then further displaces it on their pet dog. Most often, we take out our frustrations on the people we love.

Another, far more destructive form of displacement, is what Anna Freud called "turning-against-self." This happens when the anger and/or other negative emotions (such as hatred) are redirected towards oneself, instead of another object. This dynamic is commonly associated with depression and suicide.

Intellectualization

Intellectualization is a defense mechanism in which reasoning is used to block confrontation with an unconscious conflict and its associated emotional stress. This involves concentrating on the intellectual components of the situation so as to distance oneself from the anxiety-provoking emotions associated with such situations. Thus, it effectively removes one's self, emotionally, from a stressful event.

Intellectualization helps to protect us against anxiety by separation from the painful or stressful events, hiding the emotions it provokes behind big words, almost a scientific focus on the facts. This is accomplished by thinking about the event in cold, rational terms, clinically analyzing it.

For example, a wife whose husband is dying may try to learn everything about his disease, its prognosis, and treatment options. She may talk about it in scientific terms, analyzing and describing the medical facts about his condition. Doing so may help her not to feel all the pain, anger, and onslaught of other emotions provoked by the imminent death of her beloved.

Projection

Projection can be defined as attributing to others one’s own unacceptable or unwanted thoughts and/or emotions. Projection reduces anxiety in the way that it allows the expression of the impulse or desire, without letting the ego recognize it.

This defense mechanism "projects" one's own undesirable thoughts, motivations, desires, feelings—basically parts of oneself—onto someone else (usually another person, but psychological projection onto animals and inanimate objects also occurs).

To understand the process, imagine an individual (Alice, for example) who feels dislike for another person (let's say Bob), but whose unconscious mind will not allow her to become aware of this negative emotion. Instead of admitting to herself that she feels dislike for Bob, she projects her dislike onto Bob, so that her conscious thought is not "I don't like Bob," but rather "Bob doesn't like me." In this way one can see that projection is related to denial, the only defense mechanism that is considered more primitive than projection. Alice has denied a part of herself that is desperate to come to the surface. She cannot flatly deny that she dislikes Bob, so instead she projects the dislike, thinking that it is Bob who dislikes her.

This concept was anticipated by Friedrich Nietzsche:

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. Beyond Good and Evil

When addressing psychological trauma, this defense mechanism is sometimes "counter projection," including an obsession to continue and remain in a recurring trauma-causing situation and the compulsive obsession with the perceived perpetrator of the trauma or its projection. In this context, Carl Jung wrote that "All projections provoke counter-projection when the object is unconscious of the quality projected upon it by the subject."

Rationalization

In psychology, rationalization is the process of constructing a logical justification for a decision that was originally arrived at through a different mental process. This process can range from fully conscious (e.g. to present an external defense against ridicule from others) to mostly subconscious (e.g. to create a block against internal feelings of guilt). Simply put, rationalization is making excuses for one's mistakes, and by doing so avoiding self-condemnation or condemnation by others. There are two types of rationalization.

One is "sour grapes", a term from Aesop's fable about the fox who said that the grapes too high to reach were sour anyway. For example, a person after failing to get into a law school may justify himself by saying: "I would have hated being a lawyer anyway." More productive type of the rationalization is the "silver lining," an assumption that everything happens for the best, so one should try to find the blessing in disguise. "So, I didn't get to the law school, but now I can really focus on finding my true vocation."

Rationalization is a post-hoc (after the fact) defense mechanism. It's connected to the self-serving bias: failure is ascribed to outside factors, whereas success comes from oneself.

Reaction formation

In psychoanalytic theory, reaction formation is a defense mechanism in which anxiety-producing or unacceptable emotions are replaced by their direct opposites. For example, one who is strongly attracted to pornography, but has moral or religious obligations to avoid it, might become its staunch critic.

Anna Freud called this defense mechanism "believing the opposite," denial and reversal of an emotion. When we have an emotion or a reaction that is too threatening or too anxiety-provoking, we turn it into the opposite. That way, there is no threat from that emotion, or even awareness of the emotion. Love turns into hate, and hate turns into love.

This reversed feeling, resulting from reaction formation, may be excessive. Problems may start especially when (like with denial and repression) a person starts to do this automatically, losing sight of his or her real feelings: "Hell has no fury like a woman scorned."

Ken Wilber (in his book Integral Psychology), considered reaction formation a neurotic defense. Arising from issues of self-concept, it is amenable to uncovering and interpretive therapies.

Regression

Regression involves the reversion to an earlier stage of development in the face of unacceptable impulses. When we are faced with anxiety, we tend to retreat, as if in a "psychological time machine" to the point in time, when we last felt secure and safe—our childhood. Under stress, or in an anxiety-provoking situation, people very often can become more childish and primitive. Even an adult may want to curl up in bed in a fetal position.

Regression is an attempt to recapture some childhood satisfaction by relating to the world in a way that was formerly effective (even though no longer so), and giving up mature problem solving methods of dealing with challenges. It is as if the person is trying to "please the world" in the way he or she tried to please his or her parents in childhood. What people do to achieve that are not planned, rational actions, rather they are old childhood habits that return automatically.

Repression/Suppression

Repression and suppression are very similar defense mechanisms. They both involve a process of pulling thoughts into the unconscious, and preventing painful or dangerous thoughts from entering consciousness. The difference is that repression is an unconscious force, suppression is a conscious process, a conscious choice not to think about something.

Repression is can often be detrimental. Suppression, however, is entirely conscious and thus can be managed. Because repression is unconscious, it manifests itself through a symptom ,or series of symptoms, sometimes called the "return of the repressed." A repressed sexual desire, for example, might re-surface in the form of a nervous cough or a slip of the tongue. In this way, although the subject is not conscious of the desire and so cannot speak it out loud, the subject's body can still articulate the forbidden desire through the symptom.

It has often been claimed that traumatic events are "repressed," yet it appears that it is more likely that the occurrence of these events is remembered in a distorted manner. One problem from an objective research point of view is that a "memory" is usually defined as what someone says or does, that can measured and recorded, since we have no way to verify the existence and/or accuracy of a memory except by the correspondence of what someone clearly expresses with some other representation of past events (written records, photographs; reports of others, etc).

Normal repression in psychoanalytic theory considered to have two stages, which are progressively involved in the creation of the individual's sense of "self" and "other," of "good" and "bad," and of the aspects of personality called "ego" and "superego."

In the Primary Repression phase, the infant learns that some aspects of reality are pleasant, and others are unpleasant, and that some are controllable, and others not. In order to define the "self," the infant must repress the natural assumption that all things are equal. Primary repression, then, is the process of determining what is self, what is other, what is good, and what is bad. Once done, the child can now distinguish between desires, fears, self, and mother/other.

Secondary Repression begins once the child realizes that acting on some desires may bring anxiety. For example, the child who desires the mother's breast may be denied and feel threatened with punishment, perhaps by the father. This anxiety leads to repression of the desire for the mother's breast. The threat of punishment related to this form of anxiety, when internalized becomes the "superego," which intercedes against the desires of the "ego" without the need for any identifiable external threat.

Abnormal repression, or complex, neurotic behavior involving repression and the superego, occur when repression develops, or continues to develop due to the internalized feelings of anxiety, in ways leading to behavior that is illogical, self-destructive, or anti-social. A psychotherapist may try to reduce this behavior by revealing and re-introducing the repressed aspects of the patient's mental process to his conscious awareness, and then teaching the patient how to reduce any anxieties felt in relation to these feelings and impulses.

Suppression generally has more positive results than does repression. First of all, it deals with unpleasant but not totally despicable actions or thoughts. It actually may be even useful and rational to focus on one thing at a time, suppressing other problems until that one is solved. Counting to ten when angry prior to taking action is not only an example of suppression, it is also a technique very useful in everyday life.

The problem with repression is that whatever we are trying to push away into the subconscious is not lost. The subconscious tends to empower it, and the more one tres to repress something, the more powerful and attractive it becomes. Finally, the repressed desire starts to manifest itself in actions, often in ways not noticeable to the person repressing it, but noticeable to others.

Sublimation

Sublimation is the refocusing of psychic energy (which Sigmund Freud believed was limited) away from negative outlets to more positive outlets. In Freud's theory, erotic energy, or libido, is only allowed limited expression due to repression, and much of the remainder of a given group's erotic energy is used to develop its culture and civilization. Sublimation, therefore, is the process of transforming libido into "social useful" achievements, as drives which cannot find an outlet are re-channeled, often into art.

Freud considered this defense mechanism the most productive, and psychoanalysts have continued to refer to sublimation as the only truly successful defense mechanism.

Sublimation is related to displacement, the healthier redirection of an impulse. Many great charities were started by people who lost someone to a disease or whose loved ones suffered from a disability.

Anna Freud's own life appears to be an example of sublimation. Anna stayed with her father all her life, never marrying, but she worked hard to advance his theory. In Freudian terms, she remained trapped in her Oedipus complex, but she sublimated this unconscious sexual desire for her father into identifying with one thing he loved—his teachings.

Compensation

Alfred Adler observed, that much of human life is devoted to compensating for whatever we think are our weaknesses. Sometimes we try to improve on whatever we are weak in, the most famous example being Demosthenes becoming a great speaker. Sometimes we recognize our weakness in one area, but try to excel in another. Some examples of it can de seen on college campuses: an average students becoming outstanding athletes in varsity sports, externally not very attractive students becoming great scholars. These are healthy way to handle anxiety of feeling inferior or inadequate. There are , however, some unhealthy ways to compensate: a person feeling unloved may seek love through promiscuity, substituting quality with quantity.

Dissociation

Dissociation usually stems from a really strong trauma, intense pain or a major identity crisis. It may manifest itself as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, memory losses,Multiple Personality Disorder, Dissosiative Amnesia, as well as more common phenomena, such as flashbacks, "spacing out", quickly forgetting something embarrassing. But the memories are not just lost in the subconsciuos (as in repression) but splintered and distorted. It is as if under intense stress the ability of our consciousness to include all our thoughts, emotions, somatic sensations etc fails, ans some parts of what happened get forgotten.So, a person may remember what happened, but forget how it felt. Or, a person may feel depersonalized, like a robot: "I know, what is happening, but doesn't seem like me."

There is also an "everyday life level" of the dissociation: our assumptions about things and people. We tend to discard some parts of reality that contradict a belief that we hold as true. This is called black /white thinking or right/wrong thinking. Once we select a point of view as "right", every other view point or opinion becomes "wrong", even though it may not be so, or even if it doesn't completely contradict our view point. Basically, we lose track, or discount some parts of reality in order to hold on to a particular idea or a belief system, that we know and feel as true.

Fantasy

Fantasy (daydreams, TV soaps, literature, Internet) is a way to escape our real problems. When we imagine ourselves successfull, we may actually feel successful, especially so, when reality is opposite of success. Actually, it may often be good for us: fantasy acts as a rehearsal of our future success, like highschoolers writhing their Nobel Prize or Oscar acceptance speeches. Thinking about an upcoming vacation or a reward for the work, when it gets too stressful, is a healthy use of fantasy.Sometimes, fantasies may provide a way to vent our feelings. Many self-help methods are based on fantasy:covert rehearsal, covert sensitization/desensitization, empathy etc.

But, as fantasy may be part of solution , it may become part of the problem: imagening the worst consequences may lead to fear, relieving a bad situation may lead to anger and depression.Another way fantasy can become pathological defense is when you just imagine your problems solved instead of actually solving them. When you actually start to live in the world of fantasy you created, instead of facing the real world and real challeges, it becomes pathological.

Identification

Identification (sometimes also called introjection) is identifying with someone else, taking on their personality characteristcs, in order to solve some emotional difficulty and avoid anxiety. That was original Freud's solution to Oedipus and Electra complexes: identify with same sex parent, try to become like him/her.

Identification at work is best observable in the teenagers' peer pressuere. When you identify with a group (dress like them, listen to the same music etc)youranxiety gets reduced through feeling included.

Undoing

This defense mechanism is based on the notion of the possibility to make amends, to correct the mistakes made. In essence it's having decency to feel guilty and trying to do something to undo the harm you may have inflicted. It is as if you are trying to reverse or undo your feeling by doing something opposite. The simplest example of this defense mechanism at work is an apology.

Freud used undoing to describe some obsessive-compulsive acts,e.g. a youth feeling masturbation guilt thought that to undo his sin of sexual thoughts and feelings he had to recite the alphabet backwards every time he had one.

Withdrawal

Withdrawal means removing oneself from anything and everything, that reminds of painful or stressful thoughts and emotions. On the TV or in a book you can see something reminding you of a painful event, so you avoid them. Talking to friends or colleagues may make them to ask uncomfortable questions, so you stop your social life. Withdrawal may be one the most severe defense mechanisms because it can lead to feelings of alienation and loneliness, which create more anxiety and pain. Combined with fantasy, withdrawal can paralyze your life.

Maladaptive Use

Defense mechanisms are helpful and, if used in a proper manner, are healthy. However, if misused, the defense mechanisms may also be unhealthy. The maladaptive use of defense mechanisms can occur in a variety of cases, e.g. when they become automatic and prevent individuals from realizing their true feelings and thoughts. Also, a maladaptive use of defense mechanisms is when they are being employed in a continuous way that disrupts reality-testing. Denial and paranoid projection are considered to be psychotic in its nature, as their repeated use can cause people to lose touch with the real world and their surroundings and consequently isolate themselves from it and dwell in a ‘created’ world of their own design. For example, addicts are known to misuse such defense mechanisms as denial. Defense mechanisms can also be harmful if:

• There are too few defenses which can be employed in coping with threats;
• There is too much superego activity, which causes the use of too many defenses.

Conclusion

There are two main ways for a human to cope with stress:1) avoiding, repressing, denying, looking away, escaping from the situation, letting someone else take the blame; 2)approaching, learning more, taking charge. The first group may include the "usual suspects": denial, repression/suppression, withdrawal,projection. The second group may include rationalization, sublimation, identification, compensation, undoing. Although, approaching and taking charge of the situation may still be done in unhealthy ways. The first way reduces stress, the second increases our chances to cope. The first way is better when the situation is beyond our control, the second way works better when we can do something about the problem. We all use both ways depending on the situation, but we also tend to have a "favorite" way.Each of them has its own disadvantages:more stress and worry for the "approachers" and lack of awareness for the "avoiders".

Freud saw defense mechanisms as necessary, but he considered most of them negative, positive being only one - sublimation.Many researchers continued this view, declaring that most of the defense mechanisms are lies and the only thing they do, especially if used continually, is to create more problems. The main problem with defense mechanisms is that if they are used for the long time, they may become automatic and separate us from our true feelings and reality itself(which is particularly dangerous). But starting from the late 1980's more distinction has been made between sometimes healthy or adaptive uses of defense mechanisms and maladaptive ones. As we have seen in the sections above, sublimation, suppression, undoing, identification can be used in a healthy way to help us with problem-solving (see corresponding sections). Others can help us to adopt to the situation (but not being very healthy in the long run): intellectualization, repression, displacement, dissociation (see corresponding sections).

Defense mechanisms are neither good, nor bad, it all depends on how and/or how long they are being used. Ultimately, defense mechanisms are something we all need and use to protect ourselves from pain. But we all sooner or later come to the point when we have to face it and stop relying on defense mechanisms. And if we refuse to do so, we cross the very slim line between healthy and unhealthy.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Fonagy, P. and Target, M. (2003). Psychoanalytic Theories: Perspectives from Developmental Psychopathology. London: Whurr Publishers.
• Freud, A. (1967). The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense. New York: International Universities Press.
• Columbia Encyclopedia (2003).
• "When your patient uses denial", Journal of Practical Nursing, 48, 10-14.
• http://mentalhelp.net/psyhelp/chap5/chap5k.htm
• http://www.psychpage.com
• http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/annafreud.html
• http://www.rpi.edu/

Online papers

• Garrett, F. (2002). Addiction and Its Mechanisms of Defense.
• Heffner, C.L. (2001). Psychology 101.
• Niolon, R. (1999). PsychPage: Defenses.
• Stanescu, C. and Morosanu, P. (2005). Neuroticism, Ego Defense Mechanisms and Valoric Types: a Correlative Study.
• Tucker-Ladd, C.E. (1996-2000). Psychological Self-Help.
• Wagner, K., van (2006). Psychology About.

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