Self-Defense Mechanisms

Introduction:

Self-defense Mechanism is adopted when a person is incapable of coping with frustrations or failures to achieve goals. What interesting is through such mechanism the person most probably not able to attain his original goal (fulfill specific needs) but only protecting his ego or self-image. Although sometimes the person’s tension can be released, while sometimes may lead to unexpected results that even worse. It seems to be an incompatible mechanism. But when would one adopts the self-defense mechanism in real-life situations?

Analysis:

People cope with frustrations differently and there are a variety of ways for them to redefine the failure situations so as to protect their self-esteem. You may not aware of it as some mechanisms are adopted unconsciously. The 17 most commonly adopted self-defense mechanisms are demonstrated below with real-life situations.

Displacement

Displacement is a mechanism that redirecting one’s emotion from a “threatening” object to a “harmless” object in an unconscious mode. One will shift aggressive drives to a less menacing and more acceptable target acting as a substitute of emotion. A man blamed his child for not washing hands before meal after he was blamed by his boss at work.

Projection

A person will project the blame for one’s own failure to other persons or things in order to redefine the situation. A student comes to class late may blame the alarm clock or the bus driver.

Withdrawal

When one does not want to deal with the frustration, he or she may simply withdraw the situation. If a woman feels her husband doesn’t love her anymore, she may choose to divorce.

Denial

Denial is used when a person refuse to accept a fact or the reality. One common example is when a family member passed away, the instant response of most people will be saying that it is not a truth.

Aggression

Some may rely on aggressive behavior to protect their ego in response to frustration. You may simply read a newspaper to find an example: two football match audiences supporting different teams fought with each other regarding the dispute of the match result.

Repression and Suppression

The difference between repression and suppression is the former is an unconscious process while the latter is a conscious choice. Both prevent painful or dangerous thoughts from entering consciousness. For example, in repression, when one lost a family member in an accident, who may forget how the accident was caused although not getting injured. In suppression, one may try to distract oneself, such as thinking of unfinished work tasks, from receiving the message of losing a family member.

Sublimation

If you redefine a negative frustrating situation with positive outlets, then you adopted sublimation mechanism. It is manifested in a socially acceptable way. Many charities are started by people who or their loved ones are suffered from disabilities.

Regression

Childish and immature behavior is used to react to failures is called regression. For example, a fan has been queuing up for a long time to buy a concert ticket that he or she starts wailing when knowing that all the tickets are sold out.

Reaction Formation

The opposite feelings toward a person or an object are behaviorally manifested in order to resolve failures. When a man expressed admiration for a woman but was being rejected, the man may became to hate that woman.

Rationalization

People may invent plausible reasons for explaining why the goals cannot be achieved to resolve frustration. One may think that the company is not good to work at when he or she failed to get a job offer.

Compensation

Weaknesses cause frustrations. Sometimes people want to improve anything that they are weak in to resolve the situation. A healthy form is working hard on the weakness, say English, to make it become your strength. However, some may handle in an unhealthy way, for example, a person feels not being loved and become promiscuous.

Dissociation

In dissociation, when the truth contradicts with one’s belief, he or she will tend to discard these parts of reality. Although one may still remember the details, he or she will forget how the feeling is. When a chef’s hand was permanently injured, though he still cooks good but he may already lost his passion and feelings about cooking.

Autism

A person tries to satisfy the unfulfilled needs by imagination. A man who cannot afford to buy an apartment may daydream that he is living in an independent house.

Undoing

The undoing mechanism is based on a belief that it’s possible to correct or compensate the mistake which caused failures. People will feel guilty and try to do something to offset against the harm that already happened. An apology is a simple example. Another example is when one spilled