We give a definition to the concept of "psychological defense mechanisms", analyze the functions and types of defense mechanisms. We answer the questions: "When and why do defense mechanisms turn on?", "Are the defense mechanisms of the psyche dangerous?"
The mechanisms of psychological protection of a person are internal fuses that protect the psyche from fire. When the internal tension becomes so strong that a person is about to "fly off like a cuckoo", the personality defense mechanism is activated. It protects a person from pain, injury, negative emotions and feelings.
Functions of psychological defense mechanisms
Psychological defense mechanisms (MPS) help maintain internal balance, reduce stress and anxiety during difficult periods of life, with intrapersonal conflict. For example, when a person strongly wants something, but cannot get it, then he convinces himself that he did not really want to. This is how the defense mechanism of rationalization works.
An example of another defense mechanism: a person shames himself for some desires, and therefore soon convinces himself that it is not his, but someone's desires. This is how projection works.
And if a person really does not want to fulfill someone's request, since it does not fit into his system of values or does not correspond to his desires and beliefs, then he forgets about it all the time. This is an example of crowding out.
Let's analyze the types in more detail.
Types of psychological defense mechanisms
Psychology knows about 50 types of psychological defenses of the individual. Let's briefly outline the most popular ones:
- Sublimation is the redirection of any unconscious energy into a productive and socially acceptable channel. For example, a person directs an unsatisfied sexual desire into creativity.
- Denial - ignoring undesirable phenomena. “If I don’t see the problem, then it’s not there.”
- Repression (suppression, repression) - "forgetting" a traumatic event. For example, a person has no memories of an alcoholic and tyrant father. Repression is complete and partial.
- Substitution - redirecting energy from an inaccessible object to an accessible one. For example, a wife suffers beatings from her husband, cannot fight him back and breaks down on the child (shifts aggression directed at her husband onto him).
- Rationalization is the search for a logical explanation for what causes negative emotions and feelings. For example, a cheating man explains his behavior as follows: "Polygamy is inherent in all men." P. S. the argument must sound convincing to this person and look rational in his eyes. In the understanding of other people, the argument may look like a myth, fiction.
- Projection is the transfer of your unwanted qualities (emotions, feelings, experiences, desires, intentions, motives, etc.) to other people. For example, a person capable of betrayal and inclined to seek personal benefit in everything, accuses others of deceit, selfishness and commercialism.
- Introjection (identification) is the appropriation of other people's qualities. For example, a child who is unable to accept the idea that his mother is bad and does not love him convinces himself that he is bad (which is why his mother punishes him).
- Somatization is a departure from problems and negativity into illness. For example, before an important and painful meeting with a relative, a person falls ill (due to which he cannot go to the meeting).
- Reactive education is the replacement of an actual desire (a shameful feeling, a frightening motive, etc.) with the completely opposite one. For example, a man who falls in love with a friend's wife convinces himself that she is not just indifferent to him, but disgusting. He replaces love with hatred, disgust.
- Regression is a rollback to the previous stage of development, withdrawal into children's reactions. For example, a child who did an excellent job with a potty suddenly (after the mother's illness) forgot how to do it.
- Intellectualization - withdrawal into abstract, scientific reasoning, emotional detachment and coldness. For example, a person suffering from loneliness often philosophizes: “All people are lonely to some extent. Communication is an illusion. Relationships are trying to escape from yourself. One way or another, sooner or later we are all left alone."
- Isolation (splitting) - cutting off a part of the personality. For example, a person throws off on his alter ego any actions he does not like: alcohol abuse, outbursts of rage, or something else.
- Fixation - fixation on a certain feeling, subject or object, goal, etc. For example, a person is used to responding to any criticism with aggression (physical, verbal).
- Compensation is the masking of complexes through the development of other qualities or the achievement of outstanding abilities in other areas. For example, a person with an inferiority and uselessness complex tries to assert himself and relieve his pain by winning the race for material things. For example, people with a low level of income take out the latest model phones on credit, and then "pander" to them.
- Self-restraint - avoiding those situations that are associated with trauma. For example, a person with a rejection trauma who is afraid of being abandoned again abandons intimate relationships.
- Reacting - Replaying traumatic events (including through songs, movies, or the like) to relieve tension. This is a healthy mechanism that really helps work through trauma and relieve pain.
Some of these mechanisms are subtyped. For example, there are nine types of rationalization: indifference, self-deception, discrediting a victim or purpose, direct and indirect rationalization, anticipatory and relevant, for oneself and for others.
When the defense mechanism of the psyche turns on
The psyche, like any system, strives for stability. Therefore, if a person himself cannot consciously cope with the negative that has piled on him (fear, guilt or shame, anger, aggression, and much more), it includes unconscious defenses, thereby saving himself.
Enabling and disabling protective mechanisms occurs unconsciously, against the will of a person. As a short-term help, this option of our psyche comes in handy (everyone has defense mechanisms, their activation is normal). However, if a person too often finds himself in traumatic circumstances, then defense becomes his usual behavior, and this is already abnormal. For example, regression turns into infantilism, substitution turns into alcoholism or workaholism, etc.
Z. Freud believed that only sublimation is a positive mechanism of psychological defense and is not fraught with danger. All other mechanisms are dangerous and, if used frequently, are destructive. They need to be replaced with deliberate behavioral strategies.
