DEFENSE

MECHANISMS
 What Is A Defense
Mechanism?
• Defense Mechanism is a coping technique that reduces anxiety arising
from unacceptable or potentially harmful impulses.
• Theses are psychological strategies brought into play by the
unconscious mind to manipulate, deny or distort reality in order to
depend against feeling of anxiety and unacceptable impulses to
maintain one’s schemas.
• These mental operations that, as a rule remove some component(s)
of unpleasurable affects from conscious awareness – the thought, the
sensation, or both.
• Defenses are conceptualized as one of the aspects of ego’s functions.
Purpose of Defense
Mechanisms.
 CLASSIFICATION
MATURE IMMATURE NARCISSISTIC NEUROTIC
SUBLIMATION ACTING OUT DENIAL DISPLACEMENT
ANTICIPATION BLOCKING DISTORTION DISSOCIATION
HUMOR HYPOCHONDRIASIS PROJECTIVE REPRESSION
IDENTIFICATION
ALTRUISM IDENTIFICATION PROJECTION INHIBITION
ASCETISICM PASSIVE SPLITTING INHIBITION
AGGRESSION
SUPPRESION INTROJECTION PRIMITIVE EXTERNALIZATION
IDEALIZATION
PROJECTION ISOLATION
REGRESSION RATIONALIZATION
SCHIZOID FANTASY REACTION
FORMATION
SOMATIZATION INTELLECTUALIZATION
Types of Defense
Mechanisms
 DENIAL
Denial is the refusal to accept reality or fact, acting as if a painful
event, thought or feeling did not exist.
• It is considered one of the most primitive of the defense
mechanisms because it is characteristic of early childhood
development.
• Example:
• Diabetic eating chocolate
• Spending money freely when broke
 PROJECTION
• Projection is the misattribution of a person’s undesired thoughts,
feelings or impulses onto another person who does not have those
thoughts, feelings or impulses.

• Projection is often the result of a lack of insight and

acknowledgement of one’s own motivations and
feelings.
• Example: man who has thought about same gender
sexual relation ship, but never had one, beats a man
who is gay
• A secretary who is very envious of a co worker says” all
girls in the office are jealous of my position
ACTING OUT
• Performing an extreme behavior in order to express thoughts or
feelings the person feels incapable of otherwise expressing.

• The child wants the teachers attention and teases other children in
his class to get the teacher to give him attention

• Adolescent destroys school property in a state of anger about his

unfair treatment at the school.
 IDENTIFICATION
 Mental representation of an external object onto self.
 Important in the development of the normal psyche of an individual.
 One friend observes another exerting strong willpower over diet and
exercise, then models this behavior.

• A girl dresses like her friends, as much because she likes

the garb as any conscious desire to be like them.

• A person in a meeting adopts similar body language to

their manager, and tend to take the same viewpoint
 INTROJECTION
 The introjection of a loved object involves the internalization of
characteristics of the object with the goal of ensuring closeness to
and constant presence of the object.
• I have to give a presentation but feel scared. I put on
the hat of Abraham Lincoln and imagine I am
confidently giving an important address to the nation.

• A child is threatened at school. They take on the

strong-defender attributes that they perceive in their
father and push away the bully.
 PASSIVE AGGRESSION
 The 'aggressive' part of passive aggression is that while the person
agrees to do something (they are often unable to say no) they resist
in more subtle ways, creating problems while appearing to
collaborate.

• A sales person convinces the man to buy the product. The customer
agrees that this is just what they want, but when it comes to signing
the order, they find reasons why they cannot buy today.

• A manager asks people to makes changes in a project. They agree but

do not actually do what they agreed to do
REGRESSION
 Regression is the reversion to an earlier stage of development in
the face of unacceptable thoughts or impulses.
• Example : an adolescent who is overwhelmed with
fear, anger and growing sexual impulses might
become clingy and start exhibiting earlier childhood
behaviors he has long since overcome, such as
bedwetting.

• An adult may regress when under a great deal of

stress, refusing to leave their bed and engage in
normal, everyday activities.
SOMATIZATION

 The defensive conversion of psychic derivatives into bodily

symptoms; tendency to react with somatic rather than psychic
manifestations.

• A policeman, who has to be very restricted in his

professional behavior, develops hypertension.

• A worried actor develops a twitch

 HYPOCHONDRIASIS
 Transformation of reproach towards others arising out of
bereavement, loneliness, or unacceptable aggressive impulses, into
self reproach in the form of somatic complaints of pain, illness and
so forth.

• The child is overburdened with responsibilities from her mother and

develops chronic stomach pain that surfaces each time the
responsibility comes up

• Client wants the attention of her husband so she develops epileptic

seizures every time she suspects he is interested in other women
 DISSOCIATION
 Dissociation is when a person loses track of time and/or person, and
instead finds another representation of their self in order to continue
in the moment.

• A religious person preaches kindness to all, yet is

cruelly strict to children, without realizing that there is
a conflict between the two.
• During a school shooting, a student looks to be “zoned
out.” After the shooting, the student has no
recollection of the event.
• PTSD and Dissociative disorder patients may use this
type of defense.
 REPRESSION
 . Repression is the unconscious blocking of unacceptable thoughts,
feelings and impulses
 The key to repression is that people do it unconsciously, so they
often have very little control over it.
 “Repressed memories” are memories that have been unconsciously
blocked from access or view.

• A child who is abused by a parent later has no recollection of

the events, but has trouble forming relationships.

• A woman who found childbirth particularly painful continues to

have children (and each time the level of pain is surprising).
INTELLECTUALIZATION
 Intellectualization is the overemphasis on thinking when
confronted with an unacceptable impulse, situation or behavior
without employing any emotions whatsoever to help mediate
and place the thoughts into an emotional, human context.

• A patient diagnosed with terminal cancer answers the question,

“How are you feeling?” by describing what she has had to eat, the
amount of weight she has lost, and how many injections of
medication she has had

• A person who is in heavily debt builds a complex spreadsheet of

how long it would take to repay using different payment options
and interest rates.
 RATIONALIZATION
• Rationalization is putting something into a different light or
offering a different explanation for one’s perceptions or behaviors
in the face of a changing reality.

• Blaming the teacher for giving a close deadline as the reason for
many errors in the assignment.

• I hit her because she is so stupid she deserves it , client speaking

about his wife.
 REACTION FORMATION
• Reaction Formation is the converting of unwanted or
dangerous thoughts, feelings or impulses into their
opposites.

• A mother who has a child she does not want becomes

very protective of the child.

• An alcoholic downplays the virtues of abstinence from

drinking.
 ALTRUISM
• The vicarious but constructive and instinctually
gratifying service to others, even to the detriment of
the self.

• A member of a self-help group improves her self

esteem by helping other members deal with their
problems
• After your wife dies, you keep yourself busy by
volunteering at your mosque.
ANTICIPATION
• The realistic anticipation of or planning for future inner
discomfort: implies overly concerned planning, worrying, and
anticipation of dire and dreadful possible outcomes.

• Patient going in for routine surgery writes a will and informs

family members about important family matters, thinking he will
die.

• Client anticipates a looming divorce after every argument with

her husband and quickly packs her bags and goes to her parent’s
home
 SUBLIMATION
• Redirecting unacceptable, instinctual drives into
personally and socially acceptable channels

• I am angry. I go out and chop wood. I end up with a

useful pile of firewood. I am also fitter and nobody is
harmed.

• A person with strong sexual urges becomes an artist

 COMPENSATION
• Compensation is a process of psychologically
counterbalancing perceived weaknesses by
emphasizing strength in other arenas.

• People who feel inferior because they are short may

train hard to be very strong.

• People who are not intellectually gifted may turn their

attention to social skills
 HUMOR

• Focusing on funny aspects of a painful situation.

• A teacher makes an error on the test and says to the

class, “Gosh, you all are smarter than me! I can’t even
make a test,” and laughs about it with the students

• A person's treatment for cancer makes him lose his hair

so he makes jokes about being bald
SUPPRESSION
• The effort to hide and control unacceptable
thoughts or feelings

• I want to kick my colleague at the office. Instead, I

smile at them and try to feel sorry for their troubles.

• I feel jealous of my sister’s good looks instead I try to

compliment her clothes.
NEUROSIS
• Displacement
• Symbolization
• Repression
• Transference
• Identification with a fantasy
OCD
• Reaction formation
• Undoing
• Isolation of affect
• Externalization
• Compartmentalization
• Intellectualization
• Rationalization
DEPRESSION & HIGH
SUICIDAL RISK
• Turning on to self
• Passivity
• Minimization
• Withdrawal
• Identification with the aggressor or victim
• Identification with a lost object
• Identification with the introject
• Reaction formation
HISTRIONIC PERSONALITY
• Socialization
• Dramatization
• Impulsivity
• Exaggeration
• Generalization
• Identification with own fantasy
• Passive to active
PSYCHOTIC DISORDERS
• Denial ( all subtypes)
• Splitting
• Deamination
• Hallucination
• Dedifferentiation
• Reconstruction of reality
• Hyper abstraction
 Level Defense Mechanism
Level 1 – Action Acting out, Passive Aggression,
Help Rejecting , Complaining
Level 2 - Major Image Splitting of Self /Projective
Distortion (Borderline) Identification
Level 3 - Disavowal Denial , Projection,
Rationalization, Autistic
Fantasy
Level 4 – Minor Image Idealization of the self / Other
Distortion (Narcissistic) Devaluation of the self , Other,
Omnipotence.
Level 5 - Neurotic Reaction Formation,
Displacement, Dissociation,
Repression
Level 6 – Obsessional Undoing , Isolation of Affect,
Intellectualization
Level 7 - Adaptive Self Assertion, Self
Observation , Affiliation,
Altruism , Sublimation
Suppression, Anticipation,
Humor
Thank You!