The term “defense” in psychoanalytic was first introduced in Sigmund Freud’s study “The Neuro-Psychoses of Defence,” to describe the ego’s attempts to protect us from painful or stressful ideas or emotions.
The term would later be abandoned in favour of the term “repression” as their relations remained undetermined.
Freud would later in 1926 revert to the old concept of defense as a general designation for all the techniques the ego makes use of to minimize the conflicts while the word ‘repression’ was assigned to a specific method or type of defense as discussed below.
To freud, healthy personality development depends on the balance between the Id, Ego, and Superego for:
- The Id provides energy and contains impulses (Desires and wishes).
- The Ego negotiates with reality, maintains equilibrium and prevents an inner conflict from occuring.
- The Superego enforces moral standards by punishing and rewarding.
The never-ending struggle between our instincts drives in the id and counter forces generated by the ego, superego and external environment creates an internal tension and discomfort which leads to anxiety.
Like physical pain, anxiety serves as a danger signal that alarms the ego to deal with the
problem at hand. And this is where defense mechanisms come in.
What are Ego Defense mechanisms ?
EDMs are unconscious mental techniques that our mind employs to protect us from feelings of pain, stress and anxiety.
They include;
1. Repression is where anxiety-arousing or unacceptable memories, feelings, and impulses are pushed from our conscious awareness to the Unconscious Mind.These repressed contents still strive for release and still shape much of our behaviours.
Eg; An individual who was sexually abused in childhood forgetting about the memory.
2. Surpression
It’s is a conscious defense mechanism where a person deliberately avoids thinking about distressing thoughts, feelings, or memories. Unlike repression (which is unconscious), suppression involves awareness for the individual is aware of the distressing thought, impulse or feeling but chooses to set it aside.
Take for instance;
- a student who postpones grief over a breakup until after exams finals.
- Or an individual in a family gathering, feels angry because of a relative’s insensitive comment but chooses not to dwell on it to avoid conflict.
3. Displacement.
In Displacement, there’s a need for a punching bag where a dangerous impulse is repressed and directed to a less threatening or much safer outlet separate from it’s original source.
Eg; A man yelled by his Boss has his anger repressed only to later displace it by kicking or yelling at his kid back at home.
4. Denial.
Here an individual refuses to acknowledge the existence of a reality or aspect of an environment or self.
For instance; A drug addict brushing of the news that Addiction has negative consequences to health despite clear evidence.
Or a parent insists their drug-addicted child is “just going through a phase.
Here, our minds prevent us from uncomfortable truths or information that clash with our beliefs.
5. Projection.
In projection, an individual attributes his own negative or undesirable feelings, thoughts or impulses to others.
For instance; Someone insecure of his intelligence might accuse others of being less intelligent.
This helps an individual to avoid facing their own undesirable attributes.
6. Intellectualization
Here, an individual focuses more on the intellectual or rational component of a distressing event neglecting the emotional component.
For instance ; An individual rejected in an important relationship may talk in a highly rational manner about the “interesting unpredictability of love relationships.”
7. Rationalization
A defense mechanisms where individuals try to give logical or rational arguments to explain unacceptable or irrational behaviours and feelings.
Eg; Someone justifies his envious feelings to another with words that appear like moral persecutions.
A student caught cheating on an exam justifies the act by pointing out that the professor’s tests are unfair and, besides, everybody else was cheating too.
8.Reaction formation
Here, the unacceptable impulse is repressed and later released as an exaggerated expression of the opposite behavior.
- A mother who harbors feelings of resentment toward her child represses them and becomes overprotective of the child.
- Being overly nice to someone you hate.
9. Regression.
Here an individual resorts to an earlier, more primitive, or less mature patterns of behavior in response to stress or anxiety.
A common example is an adult throwing a tantrum like a toddler when frustrated.
According to Anna Freud, these behaviors are acted out from the stage of psychosexual development in which an individual is fixated and vary greatly depending on the stage at which a person is fixated.
For example; someone fixated at the oral stage resorts to eating or smoking excessively unlike that at the anal stage which results in excessive tidiness.
10. In Sublimation, which is a more positive one, taboo impulses are channeled into socially desirable and admirable behaviors, completely masking the sinister underlying impulses.
For example, an individual with a hostile attitude finds expression in becoming a trial lawyer.
A man with strong hostile impulses may become an investigative reporter who ruins political careers with his stories.
Things To Known About Ego Defense Mechanisms.
- They operate unconsciously, so we are usually unaware that we are using them to ward off anxiety.
- The ego not only employs them to cope with conflicts and threats arising from within (the ID,and Superego) but also from the outside environment.
- Almost all of us use the mechanisms at times, but maladjusted people use them excessively in place of more-realistic approaches to dealing with problems.
Eg; An issue that would realistically be solved through a rational discussion instead of employing other defense mechanisms such as displacing anger.
- While they’re mostly associated with coping with negative emotions such as shame, fear and anxiety,they may be employed in case of positive emotions that may threaten the emotional balance in the psyche eg; overwhelming and conflicting emotions.
For instance ; an individual employs the denial mechanism by downplaying or ignoring a highly positive situation with “This can’t be me” if they have feelings of inferiority or if the drastic change threatens their current, more stable (even if less happy) reality.
References;
1. Ann Freud (1936), The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence.
2. Sigmund Freud (1923), The Ego and the Id.
3. Sigmund Freud (1894), The Neuro-Psychoses of Defence.
Standard Edition, 3:45-61