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.
crowding out
The process of suppressing and repressing into the unconscious mind those experiences, thoughts and desires that bring feelings of guilt and shame, cause stress, pain or suffering.
This manifests itself in forgetting unpleasant responsibilities, certain memories, or incidents. However, these repressed events and feelings do not disappear. They appear to a person in the form of dreams, slips of the tongue or jokes. To contain these breakthroughs, the psyche spends a lot of energy, which leads to depletion of resources and the emergence of neuroses and psychosomatic disorders.
Freud believed this mechanism to be the primary defense against anxiety, which can serve as the basis for the formation of other types of defenses.
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.
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.
Identification with the aggressor
When a person is afraid of someone, subconsciously he may strive to be like his offender - the aggressor.
One clear example is Stockholm syndrome and its effect on humans. In 1974, Patricia Hearst was kidnapped - the victim ended up in the hands of an American terrorist group. After suffering physical and psychological violence, Patricia became a member of the gang and even committed a robbery with them, and voluntarily. Of course, in court she was acquitted, as they recognized that Patricia suffered from Stockholm syndrome.
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.
Functions of protective mechanisms
- They help minimize the consequences of intrapersonal conflict. That is, when a contradictory struggle arises between norms of behavior and desires. For example, the most banal thing is when you need to protect yourself and win, but the law and the Bible say “thou shalt not kill.”
- Minimize the experience of negative feelings and help cope with them.
- They relieve tension so that the psyche remains intact. If there is excessive anxiety or if the person is not mature, these mechanisms may not cope. In this case, neurosis occurs, sometimes depression and destruction, personality degradation. You can read about degradation here.
- Sometimes they unnecessarily distort reality, as a result of which a person behaves inappropriately, not constructively and sometimes unsafely.
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.
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.
Psychological defenses according to Freud
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The term “defense mechanism” was first introduced by the well-known father of psychoanalysis, S. Freud. Psychological defenses include functioning such as weakening:
- tension;
- anxiety;
- frustration;
- anxiety, anxiety
which are a consequence of the contradiction between the demands of the external environment and the impulses of the unconscious.
In short, the role of psychological defense is to regulate the behavior of the individual: to increase adaptability and stabilize the psyche. As a result, the individual’s condition is normalized.
According to Freud, psychological defenses include:
- crowding out
- Substitution
- Regression
- Negation
- Sublimation
- Rationalization
- Projection
- Reactive formation, in fact, which we will consider in more detail.
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.
Removal
This is the same defense mechanism, the action of which you can simply call “blowing off steam.” Displacement redirects your emotions caused by strong excitement, failure, resentment towards someone, etc. to a person (or object) who serves as a substitute for the real culprit of your bad mood.
Let's say, after an unpleasant conversation with a work colleague or boss, to whom you cannot express your dissatisfaction, you take out all the negativity at home - you can quarrel with a member of your family, girlfriend or friends.
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.
