Psychology of Defense Mechanisms

 


Introduction to the Psychology of Defense Mechanisms

A - Z List of Defense Mechanisms


By Geoffrey W. Sutton, PhD 2023

 Contemporary thinking frames defense mechanisms as mental strategies for coping with stressful experiences. 

Positive coping refers to adaptive responses that allow individuals to manage or resolve challenges effectively. In contrast, negative coping encompasses maladaptive strategies that may cause harm or impair functioning. Some defensive responses are so dysfunctional that they interfere with major areas of a person’s life. Defense mechanisms can shape how individuals experience the self (as subject), others (as object), thoughts or ideas (cognitions), or emotional states (Vaillant, 2000).

In many forms of psychotherapy, clinicians assess the presence and maturity of a patient's defense mechanisms to determine how best to support them in processing underlying anxieties or conflicts.

Studying defense mechanisms poses challenges due to a century of evolving terminology and theoretical variation. In recent decades, however, psychology and psychiatry researchers have aimed to clarify definable features of a core set of defenses, supported by empirical study.

This post presents one such classification. Readers may encounter other lists derived from different theoretical traditions. A more definitive approach emphasizes defenses supported by operational definitions and empirical evidence, such as those found in the Defense Mechanisms Rating Scales–SR-30 (Di Giuseppe et al., 2020) and the Q-Sort methodology (Di Giuseppe et al., 2014).

Historical Note

The concept of psychological defense mechanisms originated in the writings of Sigmund Freud and Anna Freud. Defense mechanisms were understood as unconscious patterns of cognition, emotion, or behavior that individuals use to protect themselves from distressing levels of anxiety or internal conflict—often with limited awareness.

In Freudian psychoanalysis, the ego defends itself unconsciously against anxiety and the conflicts arising from instinctual drives, moral constraints, and reality. Although early descriptions varied and used inconsistent terminology, Sigmund Freud referenced a variety of defensive operations throughout his work. Anna Freud later clarified these concepts in her seminal text The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense (1936, as cited in Clark, 1998), emphasizing developmental differences in defenses based on how strongly they distort reality.


This post is intended for educational purposes only. Readers seeking diagnosis or treatment should consult a licensed mental health professional.


An A – Z List of

Psychological Defense Mechanisms


Follow the links to learn more details about these defense mechanisms.

 

Acting out

Acting out refers to a socially unacceptable or even harmful behavioral reaction to distress rather than a more peaceful processing of the painful thoughts and feelings associated with an event like divorce, natural disaster, or an accident.

Affiliation

Affiliation is a generally adaptive defensive strategy of finding support from others to cope with distress.

 

Altruism

Altruism is a generally adaptive strategy for meeting one’s own needs by fulfilling the needs of others.

Anticipation

Anticipation is a generally adaptive strategy to deal with expected distress or conflict in the future by planning a reaction.

 

Avoidance

Avoidance is a strategy to protect oneself from real or perceived painful experiences associated with particular people or places.

 

Conversion

Conversion is a defense against dealing with distress, which results in impaired physical functioning or physical symptoms that are not explained by known biological causes.

Compartmentalization

Compartmentalization is a strategy to segment our lives in order to limit the distressing effects in one area of life.

Compensation

Compensation is a strategy of dealing with negative feelings of inadequacy by investing energy elsewhere.

 

Denial

Denial is the refusal to accept the facts about a highly distressing event.

Devaluation

Devaluation is an excessively negative appraisal of oneself or another person when faced with stressors or conflicts.

 

Displacement

Displacement is the transferring of a perceived conflict with one source to a different source.

Dissociation

Dissociation is an extreme distancing of oneself from a troubling context.

 

Distraction

Distraction is a strategy of avoiding distress by engaging in other activities such as shopping, talking with friends, or scrolling on social media sights.

 

Fantasy (Autistic or Schizoid)

Fantasy is the excessive and unproductive use of daydreaming to deal with stressors and conflicts instead of attempting to solve a problem, take constructive action to deal with a conflict or source of distress, or interacting with others to deal with conflicts or distress.

Help-rejecting complaining

Help-rejecting complaining is a term that replaces an older term known as hypochondriasis.

 

Humor

Humor can be an adaptive defense against distress.

Idealization

Idealization is the process of coping with stressors or conflicts by attributing exaggerated positive qualities to oneself or someone else.

 

Identification

Identification is the process of taking upon oneself the attributes of another person based on an association fantasy.

 

Intellectualization

Intellectualization is a cognitive defense strategy of avoiding distressing feelings by analyzing events as if there were no emotions involved.

Introjection

Introjection is a way of dealing with conflicts and stressors by accepting the messages of others as true of oneself. In the language of defense mechanisms, these messages are introjects.

 

Isolation of Affects

Isolation of Affects is a defense against distressful emotions by attending only to the cognitive rather than the emotional aspects of a distressing experience.

 

Omnipotence

Omnipotence defends against stressors and conflicts by acting superior to others in terms of power, status, or ability.

 

Passive aggression

Passive-aggressive strategies appear to help people avoid the perceived effect of an outright conflict that might ensue if they were to be blunt or forthright in expressing their hostility or true feelings.

 

 

Projection

Projection is attributing a negative quality about oneself to someone else. A person who is unhappy with their appearance is highly critical of the appearance of others.

Projective Identification

Projective Identification misattributes unacceptable feelings or impulses to someone else. People who deploy projective identification confuse their actual role as causal agent of the projected content.

 

Rationalization

Rationalization is the use of reasoning to justify behavior considered unacceptable according to one’s personal moral code or the norms of their group

 

Reaction Formation

Reaction Formation is a strategy of replacing a response to anxiety producing thoughts and feelings with their opposite.

 

 

Repression

Repression is an unconscious blocking of distressing memories from awareness.

 

Regression

Regression is a strategy of dealing with a distressful experience by reacting similarly to the way they responded during childhood.

Self-assertion

Self-assertion is a generally adaptive strategy of expressing emotional conflicts rather than keeping quiet.

 

Self-observation

Self-observation is a generally adaptive strategy for managing internal conflicts or coping with external sources of distress by assessing the effectiveness of their behaviour and making modifications to better adapt to a situation.

 

Splitting

Splitting refers to splitting one’s self-image or that of others into all good or all bad images, which avoid a realistic appraisal of positive and negative images

 

 

Sublimation

Sublimation is a generally adaptive strategy of managing potentially harmful urges into safe and acceptable activities.

 

Suppression

Suppression is an active process of avoiding distressful memories, thoughts, and feelings. Suppression is a generally adaptive strategy of regulating one’s thoughts and feelings

 

Undoing

Undoing is a strategy of performing some act to take care of one feelings of guilt.

 For the defense mechanisms attributed to Sigmund Freud, see The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence by his daughter Anna Freud first published in 1936.

The Freudian list is as follows:

Denial

 Displacement Identification

 Projection Rationalization

 Reaction Formation

 Regression

 Repression

 Sublimation





 Resources

Defense Mechanisms Rating Scales

            Form Self-Report 30

            Q-Sort

 

REFERENCE BOOKS

Clark, A. J. (1998). Defense mechanisms in the counseling process in groups. SAGE Publications, Inc., https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781452204901       AMAZON

Cramer, P. (2006). Protecting the self. Guilford.  AMAZON

Freud, A. (1992). The ego and the mechanisms of defence. Routledge.  AMAZON


Select References

Cramer, P. (2002). The study of defense mechanisms: Gender implications. In The psychodynamics of gender and gender role. (pp. 81–127). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/10450-003

Cooper, S. H. (1992). The empirical study of defensive processes: A review. In Interface of psychoanalysis and psychology. (pp. 327–346). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/10118-014

Di Giuseppe, M., Perry, J. C., Lucchesi, M., Michelini, M., Vitiello, S., Piantanida, A., Fabiani, M., Maffei, S., & Conversano, C. (2020). Preliminary validity and reliability of the novel self-report based on the Defense Mechanisms Rating Scales (DMRS-SR-30). Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11, 870. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00870

 

Di Giuseppe, M., Perry, J. C., Petraglia, J., Janzen, J., & Lingiardi, V.(2014). Development of a Q-Sort version of the Defense Mechanism Rating Scales (DMRS-Q) for clinical use. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 70(5), 452–465. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.22089

 

Vaillant, G. E. (2000). Defense mechanisms. In Encyclopedia of psychology, Vol. 2. (pp. 454–457). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1037/10517-166

Vaillant,G. E. (2011). Involuntary coping mechanisms: A psychodynamic perspective. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 13, 366–370.

 

Geoffrey W. Sutton, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Psychology. He retired from a clinical practice and was credentialed in clinical neuropsychology and psychopharmacology. His website is  www.suttong.com

 

See Geoffrey Sutton’s books on   AMAZON       or  GOOGLE STORE

Follow on    FACEBOOK   Geoff W. Sutton    

   TWITTER  @Geoff.W.Sutton    

You can read many published articles at no charge:

  Academia   Geoff W Sutton     ResearchGate   Geoffrey W Sutton 

 Dr. Sutton’s posts are for educational purposes only. See a licensed mental health provider for diagnoses, treatment, and consultation.


Comments