Defense Mechanisms

Part 2

What you do: Keep painful thoughts and feelings away

from consciousness. Don’t think about it!Examples: Early abuse Lies you have told Painful memoriesProblems: Diverts needed energy Blocks out stressful situations that could be

worked out

• Refusing to recognize objective events in conscious awareness

• Shutting things out as if they did not exist

• e.g., “she didn’t break up with me, we decided that the relationship wasn’t working.”

What you do: Tell yourself it is not happening Tell yourself it is not your fault Conscious denial

• Redirecting distress from original target to someone/something else

• I.e., Directing an emotion from a target that is threatening to one that is not

• e.g., angry with the mother but shouts at the sister

Feeling:• anxiety• angerWhat you do:• Direct the feeling away from its

actual target to another, safer target

What you do:• Attributing personally undesirable thoughts and/or

feelings to others• Choosing to see one’s own faults in the other

Examples:• e.g. a cheating and jealous boyfriend who accuses

his girlfriend of not being honest with him “I hate her” really means “I think she hates me”Problems: Misperceive the other person’s motivations Don’t deal with your own feelings Overreaction

What you do: In defense against the threatening impulse,

express the opposite impulse.Examples: Someone frightens you so you act super nice Someone frightens you so you snub them The sex offender becomes the great protector

of society.Problems: False persona

• Detaching emotion from a taxing experience by analyzing it

• e.g., grieving a death of someone close turns into a semi-medical discussion about the ailment that caused the death

• Channelling unacceptable impulses into positive, acceptable behaviour or forms of expression by society’s standards

• E.g., becoming a surgeon, Painting

The channelling of unacceptable impulses into more acceptable outlets.

E.g. Anger – Hockey fights

What you do:• Making excuses by distorting

the threatening factsExamples:

• a fast food addict might say “I have high blood pressure because it runs in my family”

• If I had wanted to try hard, I could have done it too.

• If I wanted to I could have a body

• like his/hers.• If I had better teachers, I

would have gotten higher grades.

Problems:• Energy would be better spent

on improving.• The truth catches up with

you.

A process of separating parts of the self from awareness of other parts and behaving as if one had separate sets of values…

e.g. an honest person who cheats on their income tax return and keeps their two value systems distinct and unintegrated while remaining unconscious of the cognitive dissonance…

Is the attempt to take back behaviour or thoughts that are unacceptable.

E.g. Excessively praising someone after having insulted them…

What you do:• During a time of stress,

reverting back to an earlier stage of development when life was presumably simpler

• e.g. thumb sucking or bed wetting in school children

Examples:• Temper tantrums, swearing,

fighting, sulking, cryingProblems:• Does not solve the problem• People think you are

immature• You are not learning to cope

well

What you do: Develop or strengthen positive traits to

make up for limitations Distract attention from the weaknessesExamples: Weak in school, excellent in sports. Class clownProblems: Unbalanced Incompetent in some areas

What you do: Dreaming, imagining instead of living in the present world,

because you don’t feel competent to achieve. PretendingExamples: Wanting to look good and pretending to yourself that you

are one of the movie stars you read about. Making up stories about how successful you are, rather than

working on your success.Problems: You get stuck in the fantasy rather than

using your talents to become successful.