A person constantly faces a conflict between his inner world and the surrounding reality. The human psyche is designed in such a way that it protects itself from the negative consequences of this collision. Thanks to certain mechanisms, anxiety is weakened, frustration, tension and anxiety are reduced.
Psychological protection is automatically triggered when exposed to negative factors, leveling the psycho-emotional background. It regulates a person’s reactions, helps to adapt to the situation, and normalizes the state of the individual. Scientists believe that defense mechanisms that bring the psyche into a stable state can be involved not only at the unconscious level.
Methods of psychological defense are not used one at a time, but act in combination. The fight against internal and external conflicts occurs through the work of imagination, memory, emotions, thinking, perception and attention. The techniques described below can be used to reduce emotional stress.
Projection
It manifests itself in the fact that a person projects his own negative traits onto the people around him. For example, an individual may explain his own aggression as a fair reaction to the aggressive behavior of others. Something like: as you are with me, so am I with you.
Most often, projection acts as a defensive reaction against awareness of one’s own problems. It covers negative character traits. There is also another type of psychological defense.
In some cases, a person transfers positive emotions and achievements to others, thereby subconsciously asserting himself at the expense of others. For example, when a student achieves success in some matter where his teacher never shone, the latter is secretly proud of his own merit. After all, it was he who was able to instill in the pupil the necessary skills.
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.
Rationalization
This psychological defense is based on a pseudo-rational approach. A person uses logical and understandable conclusions to explain his own failure. That part of the situation that is negatively valued in the internal system of values is unconsciously removed from consciousness. A person does not perceive the connection between cause and effect and replaces it with a false judgment.
An example of rationalization is the fable about the fox and the grapes. The animal was unable to eat the berry. The fox convinced herself that she could not taste the grapes because they were not ripe, and not because they were growing at an unattainable height.
Emotions and their inherent defense mechanisms
As we know, the above protective mechanisms fit into Plutchik’s psycho-evolutionary model of emotions. Moreover, each of the defenses is “responsible” for coping with a specific emotion. Let's take a closer look at this side of the theory.
The relationship between emotions and defense mechanisms forms a system:
- Joy is the translation of this reaction into another, often its opposite, suppression of pleasant sensations from an object and situation (reactive formation). For example, this could be a ban on pleasant experiences or pleasure, or disgust. Overestimation of the stimulus “Everything about this is disgusting.”
- Sadness (from the loss of a significant object or self-esteem) - compensation, for example in the form of fantasies or expansive behavior. Interpretations and rethinking “But I... Still I... Someday I...”
- Anger is a replacement. It can take the form of redirected aggression, self-aggression, and destructive behavior. Interpretation: “That’s who is to blame for everything.”
- Fear – suppression, avoidance. The stimulus is overestimated in “This is unfamiliar to me.”
- Anticipation/expectation - intellectualization, that is, rationalization, the desire for control through logical explanations, analysis and introspection - “Everything is explainable.”
- Surprise - regression, that is, a return to an earlier psychological state, infantilism. Interpretation: “You must help me.”
- Disgust is a projection, the transfer of one’s own unacceptable properties or inferiority onto others. Expressed in particular criticality, demandingness, and hostility. Revaluation of the stimulus “All people are vicious.”
- Acceptance is denial, ignoring certain facts that conflict with one’s own values, ideals, perceptions, peace of mind, which allows one to continue to accept others.
To summarize, we can say that the Life Style Index (LSI) system, introduced in 1979, is a working tool for diagnosing the psychosocial characteristics of a person and his typical psychodefense mechanisms. This model, created by Plutchik, Kellerman and Conte, identifies 8 main psychological defenses. They correspond to Plutchik's 8 basic emotions and are developed to best experience a dominant or strong emotion. An individual may have any number of defense mechanisms, which are unique ways of adapting to the situation.
Reactive education
It is based on the substitution of feelings and emotions for the exact opposite. For example, fear of showing sympathy creates strong antipathy, and hatred of parents creates boundless love and care. A person changes his feelings to polar ones unconsciously, often due to fear of not being understood or as a result of other reasons.
This type of psychological defense can be calculated by the intensity of the emotions shown. Let's say, if anger towards a person obscures the eyes and does not manifest itself in other cases, then this is a clear signal. Just like endless love for your boss can be a consequence of intense negative emotions.
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.
Regression
This protective mechanism returns the adult individual to childhood. At an unconscious level, each person has a script for the child’s behavior written down. When things are bad or something doesn’t go according to plan, you can slip into crying, hysteria, and whims. Then others will come to the rescue and solve all the problems.
A similar scenario worked with parents in childhood, so many adults, with the help of regression, try to regain that psychological comfort and remove the burden of responsibility. Often such behavior can be observed during illness. Constant use of this type of psychological defense can lead to psychosomatic illnesses and difficulties in relationships with society.
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.
crowding out
All types of psychological defense help cope with negative feelings, but repression works even with the most powerful impulses. This method is characterized by removing a traumatic event from consciousness. However, it still remains in memory at an unconscious level and influences the individual’s behavior.
The human psyche actively supports repression, spending a large amount of resources. An unresolved internal conflict breaks to the surface in a dream, with reservations. Repression is quite dangerous, as it can lead to serious neurosis.
Split
Splitting refers to the transition to black and white thinking, thinking in terms of “good” or “bad” and devoid of any uncertainties.
Actually, this protective mechanism is aimed at getting rid of uncertainties. Our experience is contradictory, and it is difficult for us to bring it into a unified whole.
Often they resort to splitting in order to characterize themselves as a good person. The formulation “I have both good and bad qualities, so I can’t definitely be called either bad or good” suits few people. But if we reduce everything to two possible options, we have the right to call ourselves good.
Cleavage is also used to characterize social groups. Representatives of the same social group differ from each other, but it is more convenient for us to endow them all with the same set of qualities.
Substitution
In some situations, a person experiences strong negative emotions, but cannot throw them out for fear of consequences. In this case, the individual replaces the object for venting his feelings with something safer for himself. Most often we are talking about anger, and it can manifest itself in rudeness, rudeness, irritation, etc.
For example, at work, a boss yelled at a subordinate. He understands that entering into conflict is dangerous for his own well-being. Arriving home, he takes out his anger on the child, who is not able to give a worthy rebuff.
Identification with the aggressor
What is the operating principle of this mechanism? To stop being afraid of someone, a person becomes just like that someone.
Let's look at it with an example. The child is systematically beaten by his father. Screams, assault, threats - all this is frightening. To stop being afraid, the child himself becomes aggressive. It is possible that next time the father will be beaten.
Another example. Identification with the aggressor is an essential element of Stockholm syndrome. In order not to go crazy under conditions of forced communication with the tyrant, the hostage begins to identify himself with him. This helps to accept the aggressor, which reduces fear. And it also seems to the hostage that the criminal will not touch “his own.”
Resistance
There are various personality defense mechanisms, and some of them interfere with self-improvement. The person does not want to accept that there is a problem and does not listen to the recommendations of specialists. When working with a psychologist, the client, with expressed resistance, insists that he is being provided with unqualified services, thereby justifying his own inaction.
If you have discovered one of the above types of psychological defense in your behavior, it’s time to understand the reasons for its occurrence. Considering that our subconscious is good at hiding unpleasant and annoying moments, we may have to make a lot of effort to remember them. Of course, you can turn to specialists for help. But, given the variety of ways to solve the problem, it is quite possible to do this yourself.
Sublimation
This is the redirection of destructive energy (sexual attraction, negative or positive, but unexpressed emotions) into creativity.
Sports, music, drawing, writing poetry - all this and any other creativity is an example of sublimation. This is the most harmless and useful defense mechanism.
It is believed that one cannot completely get rid of defense mechanisms. Periodically they will still turn on, and sometimes several at once. However, if they are included in the work too often, then they need to be replaced with conscious coping strategies. Otherwise, the person will be a hostage to neurosis.
