The human psyche is equipped with mechanisms that help us instinctively protect our own Self. Their use helps make our experiences less traumatic, but at the same time reduces our chances of successfully interacting with reality. According to the author of the book “Psychology of the Self and Defense Mechanisms,” the daughter of Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, each of us uses about five such strategies every day. T&P explain why sublimation is not always associated with creativity, how projection causes us to criticize innocent people, and why self-aggression is associated with family problems.
Denial: without acknowledging the problem
Denial is one of the simplest defense mechanisms of the psyche. This is a complete rejection of unpleasant information, which allows you to effectively isolate yourself from it. A classic example here would be a situation where you drink several glasses of wine or beer every day for a long time, but at the same time remain confident that you can give up your habit at any time. Denial is characterized by an acute reaction to the presentation of the problem: if someone in this case hints to you that you have become dependent on alcohol, this person will most likely suffer from your attack of anger.
Denial is often the first reaction to the pain of loss and is the first “stage of grief” according to some experts (however, in this case it is also called the “stage of mistrust”). A person who suddenly loses his job will say: “It can’t be!” A witness to a car accident trying to help the victims may not immediately come to terms with the fact that one of them has stopped breathing. In this case, this mechanism does not protect anyone except the person who unconsciously uses it - however, in situations where cool judgment is needed, denying the danger or one's own shock can be very useful for everyone involved.
Types of psychological defenses: 14 immature and 2 higher
At the moment, there is no clear generally accepted list of psychological defense mechanisms; different psychotherapists and psychotherapeutic schools interpret them differently, but there are several basic ones, regarding which some consensus has been reached. Most of them are so-called primitive (immature), they are called so because they are formed very early, and are rarely recognized by a person; they all seem to hide, mask or distort a part of reality.
Using them, a person unconsciously refuses to face the truth, which means he always perceives the situation as distorted and does not act very adaptively. These protective mechanisms, of course, are very important for maintaining mental homeostasis, but they also interfere with changes, including when working with a psychologist.
First of all, thanks to them, we cannot change dramatically, no matter for good or bad. If a person changed dramatically, then he either went crazy, or the changes accumulated inside the personality for a very long time, and at one fine moment they manifested themselves.
1. Displacement
This type makes a person “forget” negative events associated with his actions or with other people, extremely negative feelings, possibly some losses, traumatic thoughts or memories. The psyche spends enormous, simply colossal resources on this mechanism, as a result of which all kinds of mental disorders can arise. This method is far from the safest and most reliable, since negative memories will still not disappear without a trace, but will be stored in the unconscious and emerge periodically, in the form of anxiety, bad dreams, and unpleasant sensations.
2. Projection
A mechanism in which a person transfers his not the best qualities to another. Most often, these are qualities that are not approved or accepted by society, as a result of which the person himself also does not accept them, and of course does not want to see them in himself.
We see a speck in someone else's eye, but we don't notice a log in our own.
3. Identification (Stockholm syndrome)
A person unconsciously copies the behavior and habits of his ideal. Or another picture, if there is a person nearby who is much stronger, more powerful or more authoritative, then at first the person tries to resist him, but when he realizes that this is useless, he takes the side of this despot. A woman who is periodically beaten by her husband constantly justifies him by saying that it is her fault, she has a bad and quarrelsome character and is always getting into trouble.
This mechanism helps a person adapt to a hopeless (objectively or subjectively) situation. It is psychologically easier to join a strong aggressor than to realize oneself as a pathetic victim, incapable of anything. After all, awareness of this fact should either lead to despair, which the psyche may not be able to withstand, or prompt action (rebellion, breakup of relationships, attempt to escape, etc.) for which an exhausted psyche may also not be ready.
4. Omnipotent Control
Complex mechanism. Unconsciously, a person is confident that he can control everything in this world, he bears all the responsibility for what is happening, and if something does not go according to plan, he will blame himself. This is the other side of helplessness. It is also laid down in early childhood as a response to anxiety due to the total inability to control anything, and due to the inability to separate one’s “I” from this world. “I’m hungry - my mother feeds me - I control my mother with the power of my own desire.”
In adults, it develops into the belief that you can control the universe with the power of thought, guess (create) your future, etc. For most adherents of desire marathons, as a rule, this protection works strongly.
5. Denial
Desire, desire to avoid unpleasant or negative information. Sad experience is denied, refusal to recognize bad news. This mechanism is formed in childhood and protects the psyche from trauma. Very often this is the first reaction to the pain of loss.
- A person tries to deny the death of a loved one and refuses to accept this event.
- A woman refuses to believe that her husband is cheating, even if all the facts are clear.
Denial of obvious reality and truth. It is very useful and works like anesthesia when a person hears shocking information, allowing the psyche to gradually adapt to sudden changes, but it is scary when this mechanism does not turn off, and, for example, a woman who has lost her children, years later continues to believe that they are alive.
What is the difference between Denial and Repression? With repression, the situation was realized and lived, but later the psyche seemed to erase it from memory, while with Denial, a person, in principle, avoids realizing the truth. He does not want to talk about the injury, discuss, listen, he may physically close his ears and walk away, falls into a stupor, tries to live - and in advanced cases - lives as if nothing had happened.
A film that well illustrates this defense is “Live” by Vasily Sigarev
6. Insulation
A person experiences any complex feelings about any situation, he does not want to experience them, he is uncomfortable, uncomfortable, hurt, and then he isolates these feelings, no matter how he experiences them, he is aware of them, but does not feel them.
- A woman who has experienced violence talks about it calmly without emotions or hysterics.
- A pregnant woman whose husband has died puts off hysterics for later and calmly goes about the funeral.
7. Reactive formation
A protective mechanism of our psyche, in which it transforms a negative feeling into a positive one or vice versa. We quite often experience differently directed feelings towards the same object, and if, for some reason, we cannot express the entire range of feelings, the psyche shifts all attention to one of the poles.
- For example, brothers are forbidden to fight and swear: “You are family, you must love each other,” and then one or both of them from time to time, in order to somehow show the accumulated negativity, hug each other so much that their ribs crack . Or they playfully slap you on the head, which starts a fight.
- Or a fifth-grader boy begins to notice that he is experiencing some complex set of feelings for his classmate Olya, suspecting that he has fallen in love, he immediately draws attention to what disgusting pigtails and a disgusting nose she has, and pulls her by them (and her nose , and for her pigtails) and teases, because if you don’t urgently shift all your attention to Olya’s negative sides, your classmates, of course, will laugh. At the same time, he partially realizes his positive feelings through constant tactile contact and violent feedback from Olya and her girlfriends.
8. Idealization
Idealizing a person, presenting him as an omnipotent protector, shining with perfection. The main and serious disadvantage of this method is the devaluation of the same person if his further idealization is simply impossible.
When meeting a girl, she idealizes, most often unconsciously, her boyfriend, considering him the best and attributing to him the most wonderful qualities. However, after a while it turns out that he is not so wonderful, and our immature girl goes to the other extreme - primitive depreciation. Then you have to go look for the next one in order to elevate him as well.
9. Introjection
This type of protection can make life easier by freeing you from responsibility, analyzing situations and solving problems. A person unconditionally accepts the position of other people, trusts the authoritative opinion of others, copies ways of behavior, without thinking at all whether all this is suitable for him and whether it corresponds to his point of view and values; in general, he does not have his own point of view.
This mechanism is absolutely
is necessary for the survival of the baby, all children, without exception, take on faith everything that their parents tell them, because those critical kids who, when a parent shouted: “Run,” first of all sat down and began to think: “Is it worth it?” were eaten by a saber-toothed tiger a long time ago, and did not pass on their genes.
But, all this works well for the time being, and as one grows up, critical thinking must develop, and a person must process information and pass it through the prism of acquired knowledge and lived experience before appropriating it.
10. Acting out
A rather complex mechanism, during which a person tries to “play out” a situation that frightens him, changing the role from a passive-sacrificial one to an active-initiating one.
That is, he unconsciously reproduces or provokes a traumatic situation, trying this time to take an active role. If you conduct a survey among women of easy virtue, it turns out that many have experienced violence, and now, having chosen a risky profession, they seem to be in control of this situation.
Repeated accidents, “walking on a rake”, recurring illnesses (we are not talking about ARVI) - this is often the work of this mechanism.
Trauma always requires resolution and is resolved in one way or another. If it is not realized, it will look for a way out outside in the most bizarre way, including reproducing the original situation, the psyche will strive to return to the starting point in order to close the issue.
11. Rationalization
A person tries to explain his failures or bad actions with some rational reason. For example, if you did something bad, or thought something nasty, or didn’t manage to do something, it’s difficult to accept this nasty trait in yourself and admit that yes, that’s how I am, I can be bad and think bad things. trying to somehow rationalize, to put a reasonable basis under his unseemly thoughts or actions.
A striking example is Krylov’s fable “The Fox and the Grapes,” however, almost all of Krylov’s fables are about this.
Or a person heard about how a little girl was kidnapped and killed; again, it is unthinkable for a person to accept that this happens in our world, that illogical, terrible, terrible things happen to someone who does not deserve it, and he begins to rationalize. “Who lets a child go alone”, “Who lets pedophiles out of prison” and in general, perhaps this mother received punishment for past sins.
Rationalization helps a person come to terms with a frustrating situation. We are accustomed to the fact that in most cases there is a cause and effect, and when we cannot immediately find this connection, or it is objectively absent, we invent it ourselves, sometimes even by drawing an owl onto the globe.
This is where the roots of all conspiracy theories lie.
12. Regression
In difficult and stressful situations, a person tries to protect himself and hide, sometimes using the most primitive methods. In such cases, the reactions are similar to the behavior of a small child who cries, screams, makes trouble, refusing to accept logic. This type includes methods such as the habit of constantly biting your nails, overdoing it with tobacco and alcohol, or, for example, biting your lips.
13. Turn against yourself
Quite a scary defense and it looks scary. A person is unable to cope with tension and, due to the inability to pour stress outward, turns aggression inward.
Self-blame, self-deprecation, self-harm, drunkenness, drug addiction, gluttony, risky sexual behavior, in extreme cases, suicide - all these are manifestations of auto-aggression (turning against oneself)
Normally, a person avoids aggression directed at himself, either from strangers or from himself, since this contradicts his basic, basic attitude - to live. But, if for some reason the negative impulse coming from the object cannot be returned to it, and a stressful situation cannot be avoided, a person can redirect the negative inward.
Children from disadvantaged families who run away, start using alcohol and drugs early, and behave defiantly - this is a clear example of “turning against oneself.” A child cannot direct aggression at the adult who is caring for him - this is either directly prohibited, and this is followed by punishment, or it is instilled in him by upbringing.
In Nikita Mikhalkov’s film “12”, there is a wonderful monologue by Garmash, which perfectly illustrates how this happens.
14. Displacement (Replacement)
One of the psychological defenses that works if it is impossible to send negative messages to the recipient. A person replaces the object with another, not with himself, as in auto-aggression, but with someone on whom he can “take his anger out.” We can see examples literally at every step; this is even somehow perceived as normal by society.
- The boss yelled at the husband, he took his anger out on his wife, she spanked her son, and he beat his little sister or pulled the cat’s tail.
- Grandma has a small pension and she is rude to everyone on the minibus, etc.
Projection: take it out
Projection allows us to transfer our destructive or unacceptable thoughts, desires, traits, opinions and motives onto other people. The goal is to protect yourself from yourself or delay solving the problem. For example, a person may think that their partner is critical of their earnings, when in fact there is nothing of the kind on their part. If such a person overcomes his projection and realizes the situation, he will see that the criticism comes from himself, and that it is based on, say, the negative opinion of his parents who insisted on his failure.
A negative consequence of projection may be the desire to “fix” an object that supposedly serves as a carrier of unpleasant traits, or to get rid of it altogether. Moreover, such an external “carrier” sometimes has nothing in common with what is projected onto it. At the same time, the mechanism of projection underlies empathy - our ability to share their feelings with others, delve deeply into what is not happening to us, and achieve mutual understanding with others.
Examples of manifestations of psychological defenses
Now we will give examples of various psychological defenses, and you will try to guess which ones. If you have any questions or misunderstandings, write in the comments to the article, we will try to answer everything.
- The person did not repay the debt on time, the creditor is outraged and makes claims in a polite manner. The debtor responds with an angry tirade, slams the door and stops answering the phone. What protection works in this case?
- The grown son recalls in a conversation with his mother how she once spanked him with a kitchen towel because he spilled tea. The mother is outraged. “It wasn’t like you’re making it up!” What mechanism protects the mother from unpleasant memories?
- A student fails an important exam and is in danger of expulsion. In a conversation with friends, he casually says that, in fact, he himself had long been thinking about leaving a university and enrolling in another or even starting a startup, Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard and his life turned out well - successfully. What works here?
- A mother often sees that her teenage son has constricted pupils, he behaves strangely, sometimes kind and affectionate, sometimes irritable and angry, he has lost a lot of weight, things have begun to disappear from the house, but she explains everything logically to herself and finds a good reason for everything . He brushes off hints from his relatives that it’s time to see a narcologist. How to explain this behavior?
- A man’s personal life is not going well, his wife left him, he signs up for a gym and Spanish language courses. What does he do with negative emotions? What is this process called?
Auto-aggression: blaming yourself
Auto-aggression, or turning against oneself, is a very destructive defense mechanism. It is often characteristic of children experiencing difficult moments in their relationships with their parents. A person may have a hard time accepting that their parent is being dismissive or aggressive towards them, and instead assume that they are the bad ones. Self-blame, self-deprecation, self-harm, self-destruction through drugs or alcohol, and overindulgence in the dangerous aspects of extreme sports are all results of this mechanism.
Auto-aggression occurs most often when our survival or well-being depends on the external object that caused its appearance. But despite the many negative consequences of this process, from an emotional point of view it can be better tolerated than aggression directed at the original target: a parent, guardian or other important figure.
Self-restraint
When a person realizes that his achievements are inferior to the achievements of other people, he resorts to the described mechanism and stops his activities - he limits himself. Thus, self-restraint is an escape from difficulties towards frustration.
Anna Freud gives the following example of self-restraint:
She and the little boy were drawing together. The boy was doing this with enthusiasm, but then he looked at how Anna was drawing and put the pencils aside.
Losing is unpleasant. And to avoid losing, people refuse to compete at all.
Sublimation: the basis of pop culture
Sublimation is one of the most widely used defense mechanisms of the psyche. In this case, the energy of unwanted, traumatic or negative experiences is redirected to achieve socially approved constructive goals. It is often used by people of creative professions, including famous ones. Songs about unrequited love or books about dark periods of life often become the fruits of sublimation. This is what makes them understandable—and ultimately popular.
However, sublimation can be not only literary or “pictorial”. Sadistic desires can be sublimated during surgical practice, and unwanted (for example, from a religious point of view) sexual attraction into the creation of brilliant works of architecture (as was the case with Antonio Gaudi, who led an extremely ascetic lifestyle). Sublimation can also be part of the psychotherapeutic process, when the client expresses his internal conflicts through creativity: he creates texts, paintings, scripts and other works that help bring the personality into balance.
Regression: returning to childhood
The regression mechanism allows you to adapt to a traumatic situation of conflict, anxiety or pressure by returning to behavioral practices familiar from childhood: screaming, crying, whims, emotional requests, etc. This happens because we, as a rule, learn early that they guarantee support and safety. Demonstration of defenselessness, pain, and inferiority very often brings psychological “dividends” - after all, people, like other living beings, at the neurophysiological level tend to protect the weak and small - that is, offspring, and not only their own.
Regression allows us to throw off the burden of responsibility for what is happening: after all, in childhood, our parents are responsible for a lot of things instead of us. This protective mechanism can be called very effective and quite problem-free. Difficulties arise when he works for too long. Abuse of regression leads to the appearance of psychosomatic diseases, hypochondria, lack of a successful life strategy, and destruction of relationships with other people.
crowding out
Repression is the process of eliminating unfavorable feelings, thoughts, desires, etc. from consciousness. That is, a person seems to get rid of what brings him pain, a feeling of shame or guilt.
Repression explains many cases of forgetting something. For example, you need to go to a meeting with a very unpleasant person. Just the thought of it causes you real suffering. To get rid of this oppressive feeling, your psyche represses the thought of the meeting, as a result of which you forget about it for a while.
Rationalization: explanations for everything
Rationalization is the ability to carefully select suitable reasonable reasons for the occurrence of a negative situation. The goal here is self-conviction that we are not to blame, that we are good enough or significant enough and that the problem is not ours. A person who is rejected at an interview may convince himself and others that he didn't want the job or that the company was too "boring" - when in reality he experienced extreme regret. “I didn’t really want to,” is a classic phrase for rationalization.
Passive behavior can be rationalized by caution, aggressive behavior by self-defense, and indifferent behavior by the desire to give others more independence. The main result of the work of this mechanism is the imaginary restoration of balance between the desired and real state of affairs and the degree of self-esteem. However, rationalization often does not completely remove the negative effects of a traumatic situation, so that it continues to cause pain for a long time.
Intellectualization: theoretical feelings
Intellectualization allows us to neutralize anger, grief, or pain by redirecting our attention to a completely unrelated area. A person who has recently been abandoned by his wife can devote all his free time to studying the history of Ancient Rome - and this will allow him to “not think so much” about the loss. This psychological defense mechanism is based on the desire to abstract from feelings and intellectualize them, turning them into theoretical concepts.
The behavior of the intellectualizing person is often perceived as adult and mature, and this makes this form of defense socially attractive. It also has another advantage: intellectualization allows you to reduce dependence on your own emotions and “cleanse” your behavior of them. However, long-term use of this mechanism is fraught with the destruction of emotional ties with the outside world, a decrease in the ability to understand each other and discuss feelings with other people.
Mechanisms of formation of psychological defenses
Defense mechanisms begin to form in early childhood, under the influence of society, primarily the family. The formation of boundaries, prohibitions, social norms, rules of behavior (accepted specifically in a given society) makes it possible for a child to adapt to society, this is also the source of internal conflict, and when it arises, depending on upbringing and parental example of behavior, protective mechanisms begin to work.
Freud illustrated the work of psychological defense, specifically one of the most powerful - repression:
During a lecture, one of the students interferes with the professor - he makes noise, shouts, laughs loudly (this is a kind of traumatic situation). The lecturer asks to remove the screamer (repression). But he doesn’t leave and continues to knock on the door.
Further, there are two ways to resolve the conflict:
- Make an agreement - let him back in, but on condition not to interfere. This is how psychoanalysis works. Information is realized by a person with the help of an analyst and returns to consciousness, processed and lived, and ceases to traumatize.
- Or the “student” will always try to break into the classroom. The traumatic situation will constantly break into consciousness in the form of dreams, obsessive thoughts, symptoms of illness, incomprehensible fears and phobias.
Repression is the basic defensive reaction of the psyche, the ancestor of all other defense mechanisms.
Reactive education: fighting instead of hugging
Reactive education is a kind of behavioral magic. This defense strategy allows you to turn negative into positive - and vice versa. We often encounter its effects, harmless and not so. Boys pull the braids of girls they like; people of the older generation speak condemningly about the promiscuity of youths and seek to humiliate them, whereas in reality they are attracted to revealing clothing and provocative style. Reactive formation often reveals its inadequacy to the situation and periodic “breakthroughs” of true feelings through the mask.
Homophobia, anti-Semitism and other forms of rejection of social and national groups are also sometimes a consequence of reactive education. In this case, with the help of a defense mechanism, one’s own attraction or one’s own connection with a national group, which for some reason is considered unacceptable, is neutralized. This use of a defense mechanism harms other people, but it does not eliminate the internal conflict in the person who uses it or increase his level of awareness.
What is psychological defense according to S. Freud
The first to describe this mechanism was Sigmund Freud. He identified several types of psychological defense, its properties and functions, and paid great attention to the problem of internal conflict between unconscious desires and conscious control. Due to the inability to fulfill the desires of the subconscious, a feeling of dissatisfaction very often increases, as a result of which a mental disorder or illness may appear.
Defense mechanisms that are unconsciously activated after a drama or difficult situation, of course, will not help solve the root of the problem, but they can provide temporary relief and relieve tension.
His daughter Anna Freud, as well as numerous students and followers, studied in detail and continued to develop the theory of unconscious defense mechanisms.
The purpose of psychological defense is to weaken or relieve mental tension, resolve intrapersonal conflict that arose due to contradictions between the impulse of the unconscious and the demands of the external environment.
Substitution: Transference of Anger
Substitution allows you to transfer unwanted feelings (especially anger and irritation) from one object to another for the purpose of self-defense. A person who was yelled at by his boss may not answer him, but he will yell at his child at home in the evening. He needs to vent the anger that has arisen, but doing this in communication with his boss is dangerous, but the child is unlikely to be able to give a worthy rebuff.
A random object can also become the object of replacement. In this case, the result of this defense mechanism is, for example, rudeness in transport or rudeness in the workplace. An unfinished drawing torn in anger is also a form of substitution, however, much more harmless.
Fantasies: Brave New World
Fantasies allow you to temporarily improve your emotional state through the work of your imagination. Daydreaming, reading, computer games, and even watching porn give us the opportunity to move from a difficult situation to a place where we feel more comfortable. From the point of view of psychoanalysis, the emergence of fantasies is due to the desire for fulfillment, satisfaction and fulfillment of desires that cannot yet be satisfied in the real world.
Fantasies absorb suffering and help calm the personality. Nevertheless, the psyche is not always able to fully recognize where reality ends and the imaginary world begins. In the era of information technology development, a person can enter into a relationship with a media image, dreaming about his favorite actress or interacting with his favorite computer game character. The destruction of such relationships due to unsuccessful contact with the real content of the image or unpleasant situations will be experienced as a real loss and will bring emotional pain. Fantasies can also distract a person from the real world. At the same time, they often become fertile soil for creativity and form the basis of successful works, bringing positive results in reality.
Compensation (overcompensation)
With this type of defense, a person compensates for dissatisfaction with something in another area.
For example, a physically weak boy develops intellectually and asserts himself through victories at the Olympiads. Or a person who cannot improve his personal life compensates for this with luxury goods and money.
Overcompensation is the excessive development of what causes worries. For example, a shy person becomes hypersocial. An insecure girl behaves provocatively and dresses revealingly.
