9 Major Defence Mechanisms of Personality

Defense mechanisms are Unconscious psychological  techniques employed by a person to shield themselves from worry brought on by undesirable thoughts or feelings. They are unconscious psychological processes that serve to shield a person from thoughts and feelings that could cause anxiety because of internal conflicts and environmental pressures.

Defence mechanisms are non-rational strategies designed to defend the ego, a person may resort to, if none of the rational techniques works. Although they may vary in their specifics as described by other researchers including Freud’s daughter Anna who also looked at the other defence mechanisms used by the ego, Freud believed that they always allow a person to function properly. 

He described his findings on defence mechanisms using the terms below.

 REPRESSION

This is an unconscious type of forgetting of the existence of something that brings us discomfort or pain. However, the memories do not just disappear; they will continue influencing one’s behaviour even in adulthood. For instance a girl who was sexually abused during childhood may find it difficult to relate with males and have successful intimate relationships.

 DENIAL

This defence mechanism is related to repression and involves denying the existence of some external threat or traumatic event that has occurred. It acts to keep the information out of our conscious awareness by arguing an anxiety provoking stimuli saying that something does not exist or Parents of a child who has died may continue to deny the loss by keeping the child’s room unchanged.

REACTION FORMATION

The other mechanism is known as reaction formation which is the taking of the opposite belief because the true belief causes anxiety. For example, sitting in the corner and cry after hearing some bad news or throwing a temper tantrum when you do not get your way.

PROJECTION

Projection is another way of defending against disturbing impulses by attributing them to someone else. It involves taking our own acceptable qualities or feeling and then ascribes them to another person. It allows people to avoid thinking about the stressful, emotional aspect of the situation and instead focus only on intellectual component. For example, a person who has been diagnosed with an illness might focus on learning about that, disease in order to remain distant from the reality of the situation.

REGRESSION:

In this, a person retreats or regresses to an earlier period of life, that was more pleasant and free of frustration and anxiety. According to Freud, when a person is faced with a situation that is so anxiety provoking that they cannot deal with it, they protect themselves by retreating to an earlier stage of development. For example, the wetting of pants upon seeing or hearing a scary thing.

 RATIONALISATION:

This involves reinterpreting our behaviour to make it seem more rational and acceptable to us. We excuse or justify a threatening thought or action by persuading ourselves that there is a rational explanation for it. An unacceptable behaviour or feeling is explained in a rational or logical manner avoiding the true reasons for the behaviour. For instance, a person who is disappointed in a relationship might rationalise the situation by saying they were not in love after all. The other example is a person fired from a job may rationalise by saying that the job was not a good one anyway. It is less threatening to blame someone or something else for our failures than to blame ourselves.

 DISPLACEMENT

The other kind of defence mechanism is called displacement. This happens when an object that satisfies an id impulse is not available, and then a person may shift the impulse to another object. In other words, it is taking out frustrations, feelings and impulses on people or object that are less threatening. For example, when one has a problem with the boss, rather than arguing with him, he will instead keep quiet in fear of the consequences and then transfer that frustration toward innocent people or object that does not pose any threat.

SUBLIMATION

This involves finding a substitute to alter the id impulses. It allows a person to act out the unacceptable impulses by converting the unacceptable behaviours into acceptable ones. For instance, a person experiencing extreme anger may take a drive around town as a means of venting frustration. Freud believed that sublimation was a sign of maturity that allows people to function normally in socially acceptable ways.

INTROJECTION:

This is where one takes on attributes of a strong other person who is able to cope with current threat. A common pattern is where a child introjects aspects of parents into its own persona. Another example is an adolescent introjecting or adopting the mannerisms, values, or lifestyle of a movie star. Such an introjection gives the adolescent an inflated sense of self-worth and keeps feelings of inferiority to a minimum. People introject characteristics that they see as valuable and that will permit them to feel better about themselves.

On the other hand, Freud believed that all behaviours are defensive but that not everyone uses the same defences in the same way. All of us are driven by the same id impulses, but there is not the same universality in the nature of the ego and superego. Although these structures of the personality perform the same functions for everyone, their content varies from one person to another. 

They differ because they are formed through experience, and no two people have precisely the same experiences, not even siblings reared in the same house. According to Freud, what we do and why we do it, who we are and how we become this way are all related to our sexual drives. Therefore, differences in personalities originate in differences in childhood sexual experience.