The Types and Uses of Personality Defense Mechanisms

People use defense mechanisms to deal with unwanted and unpleasant thoughts and desires, to cope with anxiety and protect themselves from pain. These mechanisms are typically done unconsciously and are learned in childhood. However, some adults continue to use defense mechanisms. Psychoanalysts use the identification of defense mechanisms to teach more appropriate and effective ways of coping. As many as 15 defense mechanisms have been identified.

Repression

• Freud identified repression as the most important defense mechanism. It is an unconscious effort to prevent unpleasant or threatening material from reaching conscious thought. Repression is believed to occur often in instances of abuse or trauma to protect the person from accepting horrifying information or events.

Sublimation

• Sublimation is the channeling of unacceptable thoughts or behavior into more appropriate ones. For example, an appropriate use of sublimation is to channel aggressive sexual impulses into socially appropriate physical activities, such as sports or exercise. Sublimation is considered to be an effective and successful defense mechanism.

Displacement

• Displacement can be described as the ineffective version of sublimation. It is the channeling of impulses into less appropriate targets. It is used by individuals when they are afraid to or do not know how to confront threatening situations. For example, a man may feel stressed and overwhelmed at work due to an overbearing boss. He does not confront the boss due to fear of being fired. He instead comes home and takes out his anger by verbally and physically abusing his wife.

Denial

• Refusal to accept facts or events is denial. This is considered the most primitive defense mechanism and is used often in childhood. In adults, denial is commonly used in instances of alcohol and drug addiction. Although all evidence may demonstrate that the person uses drugs or alcohol regularly and with negative consequences, the person may continue to deny that he is addicted.

Reaction Formation

• Reaction formation is a defense mechanism that is used to hide from threatening situations or to convince others, or the self, that our thoughts are opposite of the truth. An example of reaction formation is a woman who is in an abusive marriage but continues to publicly express her love and affection for the man who beats her daily.

Intellectualization

• Thinking about situations while removing the feelings and emotional content of them is intellectualization. For example, a person who has been through a traumatic event such as a car accident may describe the details of the event without including any feelings associated with the event. This allows the person to process the facts, but not the emotions.

Projection

• Projection is the attribution of a person's own impulses onto others. This occurs when a person does not want to accept his own thoughts and behavior. Projection often occurs in instances of adultery such as when a wife is having an affair but accuses her husband of infidelity.