Instincts/Anxiety and Defense Mechanisms

Instincts
• An inborn psychological representation of an inner somatic source of excitation.
• According to Freud, psychological processes are filled by psychic energy generated by
instincts or drives.
When some part of body needs sustenance (as when the need for food, water or sexual
consummation arises) instinct becomes activated . produces a state of psychological
tension experienced as unpleasant (the basic objective of all human behavior is to
achieve pleasure and avoid pain) action is taken to realize pleasure . satisfies the
underlying instinctual need.

Instincts – propelling forces of personality.

Eros Thanatos
(Life Instinct) (Death Instinct)
Life Instinct
• Basic and fundamental
• Acting around individual’s survival and propagation of species.
• They have an effect on the life of the individual – by motivating them to seek food and
water; and the life of species – by motivating them to have sex.
Libido: Psychic energy by which the life instincts perform their work. It drives an individual
towards pleasurable behavior and thoughts.
• Freud gave importance to the life instinct and sex – sex is the primary motivation in
individuals. Freud uses the term Eros (life instinct) to refer to sex instincts.
Death Instinct
• All such instincts that are associated with death and destruction.
• Freud postulated that the goal of all life is death, and that people have an unconscious
wish to die.
 • Freud also believed that aggression is as compelling to human values as sex. Aggression
is the wish to die turned against objects other than self. It compels an individual to
destroy, conquer and kill.
( The concept of death instincts was proposed towards the later part of Freud’s life as a result of
his personal experiences (growing old, developing cancer, the First World War, death of one of
his daughters). These led to death becoming a major part of his theory. Concept was not very
well accepted among his followers).

Two fundamental human instincts – sexual (life instinct) and aggressive (Death extinct).
• Present at the time of birth.
• Combine together in different amounts. They may fuse together, neutralize each other or
replace one another.
• Therefore; an erotic act could be partly aggressive and any aggressive act could have
erotic components.
Characteristics of Instincts
➢ Source: Mental energy does not exist independently. It is derived from the biological
processes in the body. In the beginning mental energy is directed towards biological
needs. As personality develops, this energy is redirected into other processes such as
interpersonal relationships and work.
➢ Pressure: Force or motivational quality that an instinct has. It relates to the strength of
the instinctual drive – pressure is high when the drive is not satisfied and decreases when
the need is met. E.g. A hungry baby experiences a high pressure of the hunger drive.
➢ Aim: To produce pleasure by reducing tension immediately and preserving the ideal
steady-state of the organism.
➢ Object: The thing or person that is needed to satisfy the instinct.
Anxiety
Freud proposed that anxiety is a feeling of fear and dread, and it is difficult to point to the
obvious source that induces it.
Conflicting demands on ego . It becomes threatened . feeling of anxiety serves
as signal to ego that its survival is at jeopardy.
Prototype of Anxiety is the birth trauma.
Three types of Anxiety
• Reality or Objective Anxiety
Basic type of anxiety that involves real fears from the external world e.g. Fear of fires,
earthquakes, volcanoes, wild animals, disasters etc.
In addition to these immediate threats, ego’s past memories may help it to respond with
anxiety to a danger signal.
Helps to protect or guide the individual from external dangers.
• Neurotic Anxiety
Result of the concerns of yielding to the powerful impulses of the id and is caused by a
conflict between instinctual gratification and reality.
The fear is not of the instincts but of what may happen as a result of gratification of the
instincts.
• Moral Anxiety
Caused by acts or wishes that go against one’s standards of right and wrong.
Moral anxiety is primarily a fear of one’s own conscience and is a function of how well
developed the superego is.

Defense Mechanisms
Ego must reduce the conflicts between the demands of id, which always require satisfaction,
and the taboos of society that are inclined to limit such satisfaction. The ego uses certain
strategies to defend itself against these conflicts of everyday life. These strategies are called
defense mechanisms.
• Allow negative feelings to be lessened.
• Maintain stability and sanity of the individual
• Help cope with stress.
• They can also be harmful if they become an individual’s chief mode of responding to
problems. Excessive use of these mechanisms leads to psychological disorders.

Two characteristics of defense mechanisms:

• Deny, falsify, and distort reality
• Operate unconsciously so that the person is unaware of them.
 1. Denial
Refusing to perceive the more unpleasant aspects of external reality.
Example:
A child who comes to know that her parents are getting divorced deny that it is happening.
2. Repression
Preventing ideas, feelings, or memory from reaching consciousness.
According to Freud, repression is the most basic and widely used defense mechanism.
3. Rationalization
Deny one’s true motives by creating a false yet plausible excuse that is more logical and socially
acceptable.
Inventing an acceptable reason for behavior that is less acceptable.
Example:
When an individual cheats in the exams, he knows he has done something unacceptable and if
found would be punished. To reduce his guilt, he rationalizes by saying ‘everyone does it’
4. Projection
Attribution of one’s own thoughts, feelings, or motives to others.
Example:
A person might hate someone, but as his superego tells him that such hatred is unacceptable, he
solves this problem by believing that other person hates him.
5. Displacement
An impulse perceived as dangerous is displaces through redirection towards different object.
Generally, the motive of displacement is aggression, which cannot be displayed on the source of
anger.
Example
A person who is rebuked by his boss cannot show his anger on the boss for the fear of losing job.
Instead he displaces his anger on subordinates in office, or on his spouse or children at home.
6. Regression
When encountered with traumatic experience, a person may retreat to an earlier stage of
development and use methods that are childish, as the experiences at the present stage are too
traumatic to be faced.
Example:
Child going to school for the first time may have toilet accidents, indulge in clinging behavior,
revert to baby talk to reduce anxiety.
7. Reaction Formation
Behaving in a way that is exactly opposite to one’s true feelings or impulses.
Involves expressing the opposite of the impulse that is disturbing.
Example
A Young boy who bullies a girl because, on a subconscious level, he is attracted to her.
8. Sublimation
Highest level of ego defense.
Redirects impulses to socially valued forms of activity or goals.
Sublimation represents ideal normal behavior and differs from other defense mechanisms in that
it cannot be used in excess.
Example
The aggressive man becomes a boxer or a soldier.
9. Intellectualization
Involves reasoning and thinking of events in cold, hard, rational terms – retreating into an
unemotional and detached stance that reduces the intensity of the anxiety.
Example:
A wife who learns her husband is dying tries to learn all she can about the disease, prognosis, and
treatment options. Doing this, she can help repress the feelings of loss or anger which can
accompany the death of a loved one.

Why Defense Mechanism

• When ego cannot satisfy the demands of the id.
• To protect self from painful and intolerable thoughts and feelings.
• To allow the expression of unconscious thoughts and feelings to be expressed in
disguised forms so that no harm is caused.