DEFENSE MECHANISM
• These are automatic and usually
unconscious processes or act by
the individuals to:
• Reduce or cope anxiety or fear
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Resolve emotional or mental conflict
Protect one's self-esteem
Protect one's sense of security
Becomes pathologic when overused.
1
DEFENSE MECHANISMS
COMPENSATION
• An attempt to overcome a real or
imagined short coming, inferiority,
inabilities and weaknesses.
• EX. A blind woman becomes
proficient in playing piano.
2
DEFENSE MECHANISMS
CONVERSION
• Emotional problems are converted to
physical symptoms.
• EX. A student unprepared for a report
suffered headache the day she is
supposed to deliver her report.
3
DEFENSE MECHANISMS
DENIAL
• Failure to acknowledge an intolerable
thought, feeling, experience or reality
• EX. A middle-aged man after being
admitted to the CCU because of an
AMI, insists that he is in the
• hospital for just a diagnostic work-up.
4
DEFENSE MECHANISMS
DISPLACEMENT
The redirection of feelings to a less
threatening object
• EX. An adolescent boy, after an
argument with his father, goes to the
room and kicked his room’s door.
5
DEFENSE MECHANISMS
DISSOCIATION
The unconscious separation of painful
feelings and emotions from an
unacceptable idea, situation, or object.
A pretty nurse tells how important to
review months before the board
exam…. But failed to remember her
past board failures. E.g. Rape, trauma
6
DEFENSE MECHANISMS
FANTASY
• Conscious distortion of unconscious
feelings or wishes
• A boy who is being bullied by his
friends wished he had the power of
Wolverine.
7
DEFENSE MECHANISMS
IDENTIFICATION
A conscious or unconscious attempt to
model oneself after a respected person.
“I want to be just like you… a very
good reviewer …… nurse
8
DEFENSE MECHANISMS
INTROJECTION
Unconsciously incorporating wishes,
values, attitudes of others as if they were
your own.
While her mother is gone, a young girl
disciplines her brother just like her
mother would.
9
DEFENSE MECHANISMS
PROJECTION
Blaming someone else for one’s
difficulties or placing one’s unethical
desires on someone else.
EX. A student who failed a subject
blames his failure on poor teaching.
10
DEFENSE MECHANISMS
REACTION FORMATION
A conscious behavior that is the exact
opposite of an unconscious feeling.
EX. An older brother who dislikes his
younger brother sends him gifts for
every holiday.
11
DEFENSE MECHANISMS
RATIONALIZATION
• An individual finds a justifiable cause
and acceptable reasons just to be saved
from an embarrassing and anxiety
producing thoughts or situations.
• EX. A basketball player claims that he
missed the shot and lost the game
because of the distractions made by the
audience.
12
DEFENSE MECHANISMS
REGRESSION
Return to earlier and more comfortable
developmental level.
EX. An examinee went directly to her room
and sleeps in fetal position and thumb sucks
after knowing she failed the board exam.
13
DEFENSE MECHANISMS
REPRESSION
Unconscious and involuntary forgetting of
painful ideas, events and conflicts.
EX. A nursing student who failed the
recent board exam, can’t remember any
of the questions asked.
14
DEFENSE MECHANISMS
SUPPRESSION
Voluntary exclusion from awareness,
anxiety-producing feelings, ideas and
situations.
EX. A nursing student states, “I cannot
talk about my recent board, please
change the topic.”
15
DEFENSE MECHANISMS
SUBSTITUTION
• Replacing the desired unattainable goal
with one that is attainable.
• Ex. A woman who failed the nursing
board exam 3 times, worked as a
nursing aide just to be in the hospital.
16
DEFENSE MECHANISMS
SUBLIMATION
Channeling instinctual drives into
acceptable activities.
A former hitman, talks about the
importance of life, democracy, justice,
and following laws of the land.”
17
DEFENSE MECHANISMS
SYMBOLIZATION
• Less threatening object is used to
represent another.
• EX. A woman, missing her husband
finds comfort in hugging her son who
looks like his father.
18
DEFENSE MECHANISMS
UNDOING
• An attempt to erase an act, thought,
feeling, guilt or desire
• Ex. A man gives her wife a bunch of
roses after their argument last night
19