DEFENSE MECHANISMS

Defense Mechanisms• Defense Mechanisms

are unconscious strategies our minds use to protect itself from anxiety by denying and distorting reality in some way.

• Just as our physical body has the immune system to protect itself from foreign substances, the mind also protects its self from harmful, threatening thoughts and impulses.

• Defense Mechanisms- unconscious ways our minds protect itself from anxiety by changing reality.

•We all use Defense Mechanisms. They enable us to deal with stressful situations in our daily lives. However, failure to realize their existence, and overuse of them can lead to problems with our ability to face reality.

Defenses may hide any of a variety of thoughts or feelings:• Anger• Fear• Sadness• Depression• Greed• Competitiveness

• Passion• Dependency• Selfishness• Grandiosity• Helplessness• Love

Divided into 2 main category:

Successful1.Repression2.Rationalization3.Compensation4.Substitution5.Sublimation 6.Intellectualization

Unsuccessful1.Suppression2.Reaction formation3.Displacement4.Denial5.Isolation6.Projection7.Regression8.Conversion9.Fixation 10.Fantasy

REPRESSIONRepression is well-known defense mechanism.

Repression acts to keep information out of conscious awareness. However, these memories don't just disappear; they continue to influence our behavior.

For example, a person who has repressed memories of abuse suffered as a child may later have difficulty forming relationships.

RATIONALIZATIONWhen something happens that we find difficult to

accept, then we will make “excuse” why it has happened, by give a different reason instead of actual one.

Example: You don’t get a job that you really wanted. You

rationalize the failure by saying that the only reason the other person got the job was because they knew someone who works there in management.

COMPENSATION• It involves trying to make up for feelings of

inadequacy or frustration in one area by excelling or overindulging in another.

Example: An adolescent takes up jogging because he failed to make the swimming team.

SUBSTITUTION

Substitution The replacement of a highly valued, unacceptable, or unavailable object by a less valuable, acceptable, or available objectExample-

A student nurse in a associate degree program who feels unable to master the clinical competencies elects to become a respiratory technician.

SUBLIMATION

The re-channeling of consciously intolerable or socially unacceptable impulses or behaviors into activities that are personally or socially acceptable.

Example-A person who has aggressive feelings may not be

able to express these in society but can become a boxer or soldier.

INTELLECTUALIZATIONIntellectualization works to reduce anxiety by

thinking about events in a cold, clinical way. This defense mechanism allows us to avoid thinking about the stressful, emotional aspect of the situation and instead focus only on the intellectual component.

For example-A person who has just been diagnosed with a

terminal illness might focus on learning everything about the disease in order to avoid distress and remain distant from the reality of the situation.

Unsuccessful Defense

Mechanisms

SUPPRESSION

Consciously ignoring troubling thoughts or feelings so that more pressing matters can be dealt with.

Example:-

A college student comes home from school and finds many bills that need paid in the mail. The student consciously ignores the bills until after she has studied for the next day’s exam.

REACTION FORMATION

• Reaction formation reduces anxiety by taking up the opposite feeling, impulse or behavior.

• An example of reactions formation would be treating someone you strongly dislike in an excessively friendly manner in order to hide your true feelings.

• Why do people behave this way? According to Freud, they are using reaction formation to hide their true feelings by behaving in the exact opposite manner.

DISPLACEMENT• Displacement involves taking out our frustration,

feelings and impulses on people or objects that are less threatening. Displaced as a common example of this defense mechanism. Rather than express our anger in ways that could lead to negative consequences (like arguing with our teacher), we instead express our anger toward a person or object that poses no threat (spouse, parents, children, pets).

• If you have ever had a bad day at school and gone home and taken your frustration out on your family or friends, you have experienced the ego defense mechanism of Displacement.

DENIAL• Denial is probably one of the best known, most

primitive defense mechanism.• Denial is the refusal to admit that something has

occurred or is currently occurring. Drug addicts or alcoholics often deny that they have a problem, while victims of traumatic events may deny that the event ever occurred. • Denial functions to protect the ego from things that

the individual cannot cope with• A father witnesses his child being killed in a car

accident, but repeatedly says, “That wasn’t my son. No, no, it couldn’t have been my son.

ISOLATION

Separation of memory from emotion can remember and talk about the trauma but feels no emotion.

Example:-

The person talks about the incident as if it is someone else's story.

PROJECTION• Projection is a defense mechanism that involves

taking our own unacceptable qualities or feelings and blaming them on other people. • It is an at attempt to deal with our own

shortcomings, by seeing them in others and denying them in ourselves.• the nurse who is poor in clinical practice may claim

that all of the health care team members are giving poor patient care.

REGRESSION

• To “regress” means to behave in a less mature way.

•An adult behaving like child is regression.

•When faced with pressure of examination someone start to cry is an example of regression.

CONVERSION

• Conversion is a defense mechanism by which an emotional conflict is expressed as a physical symptom for which there is no demonstrable organic basis.

Example-

A women invited for party which present an upsetting situation to her may develop GI symptoms and may excuse herself from the party. Usually when the party time is over, her symptoms resolve themselves.

FANTASYIt is a kind of withdrawal when faced with real

life problems of life. Person retire to make belief world, where everything is possible, where we are victors.

Fantasy may offer temporary relief from pressure, but excessive day dreaming may lead to loss of contact with realities.