Defence Mechanisms
Defence mechanisms arise in order to protect the ego from too much anxiety.
They are all lies of one sort or another even if we are not using them consciously.
Without them anxiety can become a threat to mental health. Using various defence
mechanisms the ego blocks impulses or distorts them into more acceptable and less
threatening forms. We cannot live without defence mechanisms because there is too
much to cope with in life without them.
Defence mechanisms are used unconsciously and within reason. They are helpful,
healthy and they all appear in the behaviour of normal healthy people. If they are
overactive or persistent they can become damaging as they require a lot of mental effort
to sustain them and mask issues that really need to be resolved. In this case they
become a strategy for hiding from anxiety and blind us from true feelings and motives.
Freud, Klein and others identified many different defence mechanisms which are as
follows:
1. Repression. This is the most common defence mechanism and formed the basis of
many of Freud’s theories. Undesirable information about a person, a situation or an
event becomes locked away in the unconscious. Repression is a form of forgetting.
The advantage of repression is that we don’t have to deal with painful feelings and
memories. People can lose whole blocks of time in this way after a traumatic event.
Conscious efforts to recall events have no effect. This can apply to emotional
traumas and traumas caused by external events and are healthy. The disadvantage
of repression is that we are denying reality and this can give rise to behavioural
problems and or symptoms such as phobia. Repression is often used in combination
with other defence mechanisms.
2. Denial is closely related to repression but the person refuses to accept the reality of
the situation. It is a deeper and more primitive than repression. It is sometimes
acceptable as a very short defence but will be dangerous if the situation is not dealt
with properly. It can be used in forgetting that you have a serious physical
complaint e.g. anorexics don’t see themselves as thin. Denial can be there on its
own with one particular symptom or sign or can be part of other defence
mechanisms.
3. Regression. Regression is where the person reverts back to an earlier behaviour
or developmental stage they feel safe or comforting. We all have a tendency to do it
when we are ill or upset and it is common in children who need more attention.
4. Displacement arises from repression. If a person cannot release a basic feeling
like anger, it can build up. The feeling is directed towards another person, animal
or objects that have got nothing to do with the original situation, e.g. a man might
have a bad day at work, rather than confront the boss who gave him the bad day
goes home and kicks the dog. The original impulse is directed into a substitute
target and it is the substitute target that is often seen as safer. Love as well as
anger can be displaced, e.g. if you are unable to have a normal relationship with
another human being one might lavish affection on a pet, or sexual desire for a
particular person which is banned or not allowed in some way may find itself a
substitute such as an object fetish. Displacement can also appear passively, like the
person who complains and demands attention.
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5. Passive Aggression. Conveying an unspoken message that one has done
something unpleasant can be a passive variation of displacement.
6. Turning against the self is a special form of displacement. The substitute target is
the self in this case. This usually happens with negative feelings that we refuse to
acknowledge, such as hate, anger, contempt, aggression. It gives rise to feelings of
self hatred, depression or inferiority and its more extreme cases may lead to
physical self abuse.
7.
Projection. Projection is a combination of denial and displacement. The person is
unable to recognise the reality of their behaviour or feelings. The taboo urges or
faults are projected outwards onto another person. A member of the staff will cover
their deficiencies by accusing everyone else of being bossy. Projection may be
seen when a person complains about a particular trait they despise in others people
even though its there in themselves. Desires or faults are present in the person but
can be denied because they are identified with someone else. Related to projection
is altruistic surrender where a person tries to fulfil their needs vicariously, i.e.,
through other people, most common in women. The person may lead their life
putting others needs before their own. The opposite of turning against the self.
8.
Introjection. Involves absorbing someone else’s identity or personal
characteristics into your own to compensate for some emotional short fall. It is the
mechanism by which the super ego develops. It is seen in small children who tell
cuddly toys not to be afraid of the dark or teenagers mimicking pop idols and film
stars.
Identification with the aggressor is related to introjection in that it focuses on
negative feelings of feared traits. The Stockholm Syndrome is often quoted;
hostages once released become sympathetic towards their captors rather than
angry with what they have done.
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10. Rationalisation. Here a person finds an excuse for their behaviour that is more
acceptable to their ego than the real reason, e.g. the car driver might say “I took a
wrong turning to avoid a learner driver who was all over the road”. This covers up
the fact that the driver was not paying any attention. Rationalisation allows people
to get off the hook and allows avoidance of responsibility and or guilt.
11. Reaction formation. It is an attempt to cover up an impulse or a feeling by
displaying the exact opposite e.g. being terribly polite to someone who you really
want to be rude to. This is a common form of defence in teenagers who act
antagonistically to somebody they are really attracted to.
12. Undoing or Magical Undoing is linked to reaction formation. It is a way of using
special gestures or rituals to cancel out unpleasant thoughts or events after the
events have occurred, e.g. “The Wolf Man” had to breath out noisily every time he
encountered people he felt sorry for in order to avoid becoming like them.
13. Intellectualisation or isolation. The person strips emotion from a threatening
memory or impulse and gives the impression that the emotion, memory or situation
is of no consequence. This can happen during an emergency. After the event the
person will then have the time to become upset. It may follow a traumatic event
from earlier in life. This mechanism is essential for a professional to continue
functioning effectively, e.g. police at the scene of a murder.
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14. Sublimation. This mechanism should be seen as a positive defence. Sublimation
involves transforming unacceptable impulses such as fear and aggression into
socially acceptable forms. So a person who has deviant sexual desires might
channel them into writing a novel.
15. Splitting. Refers to the division of an object into “good and bad”. The child in his
mind splits his mother into two separate persons, a good mother or idealised
mother whom he loves and the bad frustrating mother whom he hates. By keeping
good and bed separate, ambivalent conflict about essentially the one person, is
avoided.
16 Projective identification. An important and complex subject which provokes
controversy. Projection is attributing our difficult and unacceptable feelings to
others, e.g. blaming others for our short comings. This allows us to disown
responsibility and have a sense of mastering over our feelings.
Identification refers to a process by which self representations are built up and
modified during development (not just copied by imitation). Klein conceived
projective identification in a specific way. bad parts of the infantile self are split off
from the rest of the self and projected onto the mother or her breast. As a result the
infant feels the mother has become the bad parts of himself. The projection is “into”.
What is projected is not so much a feeling or an attitude but itself or part of the self.
The target of the projections maybe unaware of his role, e.g., the paranoid person
projects malicious intentions on to politicians with whom he never comes into contact
with.
Projective identification is also a communication and can be viewed as an interaction
in that the recipient of the projection may be induced to feel or act in ways that
originate with the projector and feelings in the recipient can reflect aspects of the
patient’s inner world so projective identification becomes a process in which projector
and recipient interact with one another at an unconscious level. The recipient may
enact these feelings, e.g., becoming sleepy, bored, sad.
There is a positive form of identification underlying empathy where the mother
contains projective painful and hostile feelings, detoxes them and gives them back to
the infant in a benign form at an appropriate time.
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