While defense mechanisms are often thought of as negative reactions, we all need them to temporarily ease stress and protect self-esteem during critical times, allowing us to focus on what is necessary at the moment. Some of these defenses can be more helpful than others. For example, utilizing humor to overcome a stressful, anxiety-provoking situation can actually be an adaptive defense mechanism. Some of the best-known defense mechanisms have become a common part of everyday language. We might describe someone as being "in denial" of a problem they face.
When someone falls back into old ways of doing things, we might term them as "regressing" into an earlier point of development. They can serve a helpful role by protecting your ego from stress and providing a healthy outlet. In other instances, these defense mechanisms might hold you back from facing reality and can act as a form of self-deception. If you notice that overuse of certain defense mechanisms is having a negative impact on your life, consider consulting with a mental health professional.
Psychotherapy may help whether you pursue a traditional face-to-face treatment or an online therapy option. Learn the best ways to manage stress and negativity in your life. Cramer P. Understanding defense mechanisms. Psychodyn Psychiatry. Association of ego defense mechanisms with academic performance, anxiety and depression in medical students: A mixed methods study. Corey, G. Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy 8th ed.
Minimization of childhood maltreatment is common and consequential: Results from a large, multinational sample using the childhood trauma questionnaire. A theory of blame.
Psychological Inquiry. Anderson MC, Huddleston E. True and False Recovered Memories. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation. Vaillant GE. American Psychiatric Pub; Burgo, J. Why Do I Do That? Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for VerywellMind. At any time, you can update your settings through the "EU Privacy" link at the bottom of any page. These choices will be signaled globally to our partners and will not affect browsing data.
We and our partners process data to: Actively scan device characteristics for identification. I Accept Show Purposes. Displacement Have you ever had a really bad day at work and then gone home and taken out your frustration with family and friends? Denial Denial is probably one of the best-known defense mechanisms, used often to describe situations in which people seem unable to face reality or admit an obvious truth e. Repression and Suppression Repression is another well-known defense mechanism.
Sublimation Sublimation is a defense mechanism that allows us to act out unacceptable impulses by converting these behaviors into a more acceptable form. Projection Projection is a defense mechanism that involves taking our own unacceptable qualities or feelings and ascribing them to other people.
Intellectualization Intellectualization works to reduce anxiety by thinking about events in a cold, clinical way. Rationalization Rationalization is a defense mechanism that involves explaining an unacceptable behavior or feeling in a rational or logical manner, avoiding the true reasons for the behavior.
Regression When confronted by stressful events, people sometimes abandon coping strategies and revert to patterns of behavior used earlier in development. Reaction Formation Reaction formation reduces anxiety by taking up the opposite feeling, impulse, or behavior. Other Defense Mechanisms Since Freud first described the original defense mechanisms, other researchers have continued to describe other methods of reducing anxiety.
Some of these defense mechanisms include: Acting out : Coping with stress by engaging in actions rather than acknowledging and bearing certain feelings Aim inhibition : Accepting a modified form of their original goal e. Remember, defense mechanisms can be both good and bad. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Sign Up. What are your concerns? Displacement occurs when a person represses affection, fear or impulses that they feel towards another person.
Accepting that it is irrational or socially unacceptable to demonstrate such feelings, the psyche prevents them from being converted into actions. However, the feelings are instead displaced towards a person or animal whom it is acceptable to express such sentiments for. A person who dislikes their teacher after being given low grades may feel that they would be punished if they express their hostility towards them.
Therefore, they may unconsciously displace their antipathy onto their best friend, making excuses for treating them badly without justification. In the case of Little Hans , Freud believed that the boy had displaced a fear of his father onto horses, whose blinkers and facial features reminded him of his parent.
Instead of misbehaving towards his father, he felt anxious at being in the presence of horses and would avoid leaving the house when possible. People who use dissociation as a defense mechanism tend to momentarily lose their connection to the world around them.
They may feel separated from the outside world, as though they exist in another realm. The may enter a state of daydreaming, staring into space and letting their mind wander until someone nudges them, prompting them to acknowledge reality once more.
A case which Freud analysed after reading an autobiographical account of an illness was that of Daniel Schreber , a German judge who described the dissociative feeling that he and the rest of the world were separated by a veil. Schreber felt as though he was not entirely a part of his environment and that he was in some way separate from it.
When life seems mundane or distressing, people often use fantasy as a way of escaping reality. They may fantasise about winning the lottery or idealised outcomes of their lives changing for the better in some way.
Fantasies help us to explore alternatives to situations that we are unhappy with but unrealistic expectations of them being fulfilled can lead to us losing touch with reality and taking more viable actions to improve our lives.
Looking for a funny aspect in an environment in which we lack control can help us to endure it, and can even be an altruistic act in helping others to better cope as well. Showing humility involves lowering our expectations and view of our self importance, sacrificing our pride and often focussing on others. Humility can enable us to pacify those around us in tense conflicts and encourage cooperation with other people to take place.
For example, someone who is known to boast about their abilities may show humility whilst trying to complete a difficult task. This might encourage others to empathise with, and help, them. Idealisation involves creating an ideal impression of a person, place or object by emphasising their positive qualities and neglecting the those that are negative.
Idealisation adjusts the way in which we perceive the world around us and can lead us to make judgement that support our idealised concepts. We often idealise the image we hold of people we admire - relatives, partners or celebrities, making excuses for their failures and emphasising their more admirable qualities. In order to pacify a person whom we perceive to be a threat, we may emulate aspects of their behavior.
By adopting their mannerisms, repeating phrases or language patterns that they tend to use and mirroring their character traits, a person may attempt to appease a person. This defense mechanism was described by Anna Freud as identification with an aggressor.
A person moving schools or countries, starting a new job or entering a new social circle might adopt the social norms or attitudes of classmates, neighbors, colleagues or other people whom they seek acceptance from, for example, in order to avoid being rejected by their new peers.
When a person is attached emotionally to an issue, they may be tempted to consider it in intellectual terms. This often involves standing back from the situation and attempting to take a cold, neutral view of it. Introjection occurs when a person takes stimuli in their environment and adopts them as their own ideas.
A person may introject religious ideas that they have heard at church, or political opinions that friends espouse. Behavior can also be introjected - the mannerisms of a father may be observed by his son and then replicated. The defense mechanism of isolation can lead a person to separate ideas or feelings from the rest of their thoughts.
In distinguishing an emotion or impulse from others in this way, a person attempts to protect the ego from anxieties caused by a specific situation. For example, a person with a particularly stressful job may use isolation to separate their work life from their family life, avoiding the stress affecting their relationships. Displays of aggression are considered unsociable and undesirable in many societies, so when aggressive or violent impulses are experienced, people tend to avoid them as much as possible.
However, the remaining energy driving such aggression may prove to be more difficult contain, and may manifest in other forms, known as passive aggression. A passive aggressive person may be uncooperative in carrying out their duties or other tasks, may deliberately ignore someone when spoken to and might adopt a negative view of their situation, such as their job, and of those around them e. When we experience feelings or desires that cause anxiety, or that we are unable to act on owing to the negative impact that they would have on us or those around us, we may defend the ego from resulting anxieties by projecting those ideas onto another person.
A person who is afraid of crossing a bridge with a friend might accuse them of having a fear of heights, for example, and in doing so, avoids accepting their own weaknesses.
In the case of Daniel Schreber, who accused his therapist of attempting to harm him, projection may have occurred when he attributed his own feelings and desires onto his therapist, Professor Flechsig. Rationalisation occurs when a person attempts to explain or create excuses for an event or action in rational terms. In doing so, they are able to avoid accepting the true cause or reason resulting in the present situation. Examples of rationalisation include a shoplifter blaming the high price of sweets to justify their theft of a chocolate bar, when in reality they simply enjoyed the act of shoplifting.
If a person fails an exam, they may excuse themselves from blame by rationalising that they were too busy to revise during the revision period.
When the insatiable desires of the id conflict with the ego and super ego, a person may formulate a reaction to those impulses. Often, this action is the direct opposite to the demans of the original desire, and helps to counteract impulses which may be unacceptable to act out or fulfill. For example, a man may experience feelings of love towards a married woman. The super ego recognises that the fulfillment of his desires would contradict social norms regarding acceptable behavior, and so a reaction formation would occur - the man may experience feelings of dislike towards her - the opposite of the original feelings.
Repression is perhaps the most significant of defense mechanisms in that repressed feelings and impulses can lead to the use of many other mechanisms.
Moreover, the superego acts as our moral compass, inducing feelings of guilt at having experienced the irrational desires that the id creates. Tensions inevitably arise between the id, ego and super ego and the guilt induced by the latter can lead to feelings of anxiety and shame.
They found that individuals who experienced sexual problems related to anxieties over taboo desires were more likely to also have greater creative accomplishments than those who reported no sexual problems or those with sexual problems unrelated to taboo feelings. The researchers suggest that their studies represent "possibly the first experimental evidence for sublimation and suggest a cultural psychological approach to defense mechanisms.
So what role might the process of sublimation have in your life? As Freud suggested, sublimation is usually considered a healthy and mature way of dealing with urges that may be undesirable or unacceptable.
Rather than act out in ways that may cause us or others harm, sublimation allows us to channel that energy into things that are beneficial. This defense mechanism can actually end up having a positive effect on your health and wellness. While we sometimes might be able to see how our negative feelings can drive us to act in certain ways, we are often very much unaware of such things.
We may be even less aware of the underlying defense mechanisms that are at work. There also may not be a direct correlation between the cause of the negative emotion and the behavior that results from sublimation. While earlier examples showed anger being sublimated into physical action, such feelings can result in a variety of behaviors.
For example, frustration could also lead a person to engage in a relaxing hobby such as fishing or painting.
Sublimation can be a powerful influence on behavior, although one of which we are largely unaware. Even though this defense mechanism may operate on a subconscious level, you can take inspiration from it by intentionally finding ways to substitute more healthy and productive behaviors for harmful ones. Ever wonder what your personality type means? Sign up to find out more in our Healthy Mind newsletter. Macmillan; Sublimation, culture, and creativity. J Pers Soc Psychol.
Geller, J. Of snips American Imago. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. DOI: Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for VerywellMind. At any time, you can update your settings through the "EU Privacy" link at the bottom of any page.
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I Accept Show Purposes. Sublimation is not always obvious because it operates at a subconscious level. Was this page helpful?
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