Defense Mechanisms

[Ready for Fall 2026]

Modified: 2026-08-03 8:49 PM CDST

• Defense mechanisms are psychoanalytic or Freudian constructs.
  • They were created to help explain individual responses to anxiety.
  • They have been borrowed from their original context to help explain individual coping styles.
  • Defense mechanisms are unconscious, meaning that we are not consciously aware of their operation.
  • They are also individualized, meaning that different people use different sets of them.
  • Finally, they are normal, meaning that everybody uses them.
• However, defense mechanisms do become of clinical interest when they are exaggerated. This last topic will be examined in a later chapter.

Defense mechanisms, in their original context, are unconscious methods of dealing with anxiety. More generally, they can be seen as dealing with stress, or a cause of anxiety. Below is a list of some common defense mechanisms with a short description of each.

• Compensation
  • A perceived deficit is compensated for by skill or success in another area.
    • For example, a perceived lack of height is compensated for skill in business, the arts, or other areas.
• Denial
  • A reality that causes anxiety is simply not perceived.
    • For example, a mother may unconsciously refuse to see her son's true character because it is too anxiety-arousing.
    • The use of denial may lead to abrupt intrusion of reality into one's life.
    • The mother above, for example, may not receive the news that her son has been arrested for armed robbery.
• Displacement
  • Displacement is the redirection of energy from a dangerous or forbidden object to a more socially acceptable one.
    • For example, attraction to a married person may be displaced to some other activity.
      • A classic instance is playing a musical instrument instead.
• Fantasy
  • Fantasy is the conjuring of an imagined scenario to replace a real one.
    • Imagining one's sexual partner as being someone else is a fairly common example.
• Intellectualization
  • Intellectualization is treating an emotionally charged situation in a muted or non emotional fashion.
    • For example, someone who accepts the news of a marital breakup passively and with stoicism may be using intellectualization.
• Projection
  • Projection is blaming others or other things for one's problems or failures.
    • For example, someone might say, "The devil made me do it", or blame others for being the cause of a problem.
• Rationalization
  • Rationalization is realizing that one's motives are not always pure or publicly acceptable and substituting appropriate motives.
    • For example, failing to study because one was "exhausted" rather than "lazy" is an example. Being lazy is not seen as a socially acceptable motivation
• Reaction formation
  • Reaction formation is showing the exact opposite of one's true motivation or intentions. (Unconsciously, remember.)
    • So, saying "I hate you." may indicate love instead.
    • Or, believing that you love to teach may be necessary after you have spent years preparing and then found out that the only job you could obtain was in a horrible school with violent students.
      • The choice is to admit your wasted time and energy preparing for such a job, or to believe that you enjoy it.
• Repression
  • Repression is central to psychoanalysis. It requires that highly anxiety-arousing items be stored deep in the unconscious, where they will not affect conscious activities.
    • Repressed items, however, may manifest themselves in dreams or in slips of the tongue.
      • A repressed item is not usually available for recall.
      • Instead, it may appear later, unexpectedly.
        • For example, I once attempted to recall all of the Fourth of July days I had spent over a ten-year period, but one was unaccessible to me.
          • A few weeks later, while in the shower, it hit me.
            • I had been involved in a major family dispute that particular day, and had apparently repressed it.
• Regression
  • Regression occurs when the coping behaviors of an earlier developmental stage reappear.
    • For example, crying or throwing a tantrum may be used to cope with a stressful event.
      • Typically, we view such behaviors as inappropriate for adults, and further, as holdovers from an earlier time (childhood) when such behaviors were more acceptable.
• Sublimation
  • Sublimation is when motives are either sexual or violent, reflecting the psychoanalytic instincts of libido and thanatos (both will be discussed later), and are redirected into non-instinctual paths.
    • For example, aggressive motivations may be redirected into the more acceptable framework of games.