DEFENSE MECHANISMS

Defense Mechanisms
Are behavior patterns that protect an individual from pain,
shame, or guilt. Defense mechanisms do not interfere with good
adjustment unless we use them so much that we become
ineffective in daily life.

Main types of defense mechanisms

1. Escape reactions
2. Compromise reactions
3. Substitute activities

1. Escape reactions or techniques

a. Repression – the unconscious withdrawal of certain

painful thoughts or feelings. For example, a girl may
deliberately “tend to forget” the moments she had
shared with her past boyfriend just because thoughts
of him would only make her grow fond of him and
reminisce the memories that go with their breaking up.

b. Fantasy – retreating into a world of fantasy or make

believe. Daydreaming is the most common form and it
has several types: display – where and individual would
probably dream that he is a brilliant concert pianist and
received splendid standing ovation and piercing shouts
of “Bravo!”; saving – where a person sees himself as a
world-famous surgeon who is the only one capable of
performing an impossible operation on his girlfriend’s
father who had been hurt seriously in an automobile
accident; grandeur - where one looks at himself as a
baron of a medieval feudal state and as he goes by, the
 field workers who are serfs bow; and homage – where an
individual may imagine himself as an obscure druggist
who discovers a solution for deterioration of world’s
food caused by atomic fallout and for this, he received a
Nobel Prize (Cohen, 1971).

c. Regression – this technique of escaping from frustrating

or anxiety producing conditions involves reverting to
earlier or more primitive of behavior; the reverse of
progression. Fixation a particular kind of behavior
remains abnormally long at given level. Thumb sucking,
bedwetting etc. to seek parental attention he enjoyed
when he was younger.

d. Apathy – opposite of active aggression and is

characterized by indifference or withdrawal.

e. Reaction Formation – tendency to conceal a motive from

oneself by giving strong expression to the opposite
motive. Person with repressed sexual ideas.

f. Denial – negative fantasy where an individual may refuse

to admit the existence of a reality too painful or
unpleasant to face. May even resort to consistently
ignoring criticisms. Denying facts may be better than
facing them in the sense that it may give the individual
time to tolerate the pain at a more gradual pace. People
postpone seeking medical attention (Hilgard, et.al.,
1983) Alibis – are used to substitute for real causes.

“Sour Grapes” – this is one of the oldest recorded, for

Aesop, the Greek storyteller, made it the subject of a fable
in 500 B. C. – “a famished fox saw some clusters of ripe
black grapes hanging from a trellised vine. She resorted to
all her tricks to get them, but wearied herself in vain, for
she could not reach them. “ I’m glad I wasn’t elected as
officer of the association, it would only eat up much of my
time, ” and “I m really fortunate that I wasn’t admitted to
the medical school, I would have become ill with all that
study.

Argument by Predestination – this is an insistence that

every individual is a pawn of fate and that all events are
preordained. “Que sera sera” The law student, who fails his
bar examination, rationalizes: “I was never meant to be a
lawyer.” Other rationalizations by predestination include
“Everything happens for the best,” “Only time will tell,” and
“ It is an act of God.

Argument by Exception – this rationalization reasons that

the individual’s shortcoming is highly unusual and
unrepresentative and therefore permissible. “I’ll drink
whiskey just his once; I only want to see what is it like,” and
“ I never failed a course before; it just isn’t like me.”

Argument by the Doctrine of Balance – this is an excuse

based on the concept that failure must always be equated
with success, a foolish theory reflected in the proverbs
“You can’t win them all, “ and “ Lucky at cards, unlucky at
love.” Sample rationalizations include “I would rather be
beautiful that bright, you cannot be both,” and “ I failed
math but I got a C in German.”

Argument by Extenuating Circumtances – this is the

contention that a unique adverse environment was the cause
of failure; “ A poor workman quarrels with his tools”
declares an English maxim. Typical extenuating
circumstances rationalization include “The exam was
objective and I didn’t get a chance to express myself,” My
watch stopped,” It was too hot,” and “ I didn’t hear.”

Argument by Necessity for Self-Preservation – this pleads

absolution using a creed set down by Homer in 825 B.C. “
Whatsoever sorrows may be thy doom, bear them with
patience if necessity entail them. “Representative
rationalizations are “ I had to cheat or I would have failed,”
and “ I need this chrome-plated circus-wagon-like car
because I must get to my job on cold mornings.”

Argument by Comparison – this is the peculiar assertion that

the shortcomings of others excuse the individual’s
shortcomings. Representative rationalizations are ‘It was all
right to cheat a little; everybody else cribbed more,” and “ I
failed, but some students received an even lower grade.”

Argument by Sympathism – this is a plea for underserved

compassion. Example of this are “ I can’t be expected to
pass English. I came from a poor home and “ I didn’t get the
teaching job because I wear glasses and I don’t see well.”

Argument by Procrastination – this admits a present fraily,

but postpones its correction to the future. Examples of
proscastination rationalizations are “ I should have
performed well on the exam, but I promise to do better
next time,” and “ I’ll think about the problem tomorrow.
Maybe it will go away.”

Argument by Faulty Definition – this propose that an

incorrect definition is a suitable argument, a sly use of
illogical reasoning, typical faulty definition rationalizations
are “Negroes are subhuman and I need not treat them as
people,” and “ Taxes are a basically wrong so I will not
report all my income.”

Argument by Intellectualism – this shrouds a shortcoming

with technical language so that its true severity cannot be
evaluated easily. Representative intellectualization
rationalization are “ I was in the 23 percentile, where the
rd

raw scores are expressed and T scores” (translation

“flunked”), and I am parsimonious” (translation “I am
selfish”).

b. Indentification – sometimes an individual pretends

anxiety by unconsciously identifying himself with other
persons or things; he perceives the satisfied motives of
others as his own or his own satisfied motives as belonging
to others. This defense mechanism is called identification
and it may take any of the following types (Cohen, 1971)

Introjection – ( Positive Identification) – here, the person

senses a “oneness” between himself and another that
enables him to assimilate “reflected glory” to himself. Most
introjection satisfies ego-ideal motives and examples are
numerous: boys positively identify with their fathers (“My
father owns a Mercedez Benz!”), girls with their mother (“
My mother is president of the PTA!”), parents with their
children ( “My son, a scholar, graduated with cum laude
honors”), and college students with their basketball team
(“We won against Adamson – 112-60!”).

Projection (Negative Identification ) – when a person finds

that some of his thoughts and feelings are intolerable he
does not only repress them but likewise convince himself
with the belief that some people have these thoughts and
feeling toward him. In short, as Cohen (1971) says, the
individual senses his own frustrated or conflictful motives
as possessed by another and this enables him to divest
failure from himself as when a spinster project her own
unfulfilled sexual motives into the neighborhood high school
students ( “The young people are oversexed!”), or when a
student has a strong desire to cheat in an examination but
refuses to do so because his conscience won’t let him.
Hence, he may become extremely suspicious of other
students and may accuse them of cheating when they are
not actually.

c. Sublimation – this defense mechanism is characterized by

the redirection or rechanneling of urges ( mostly libidinal or
sexual) toward more socially acceptable forms of
expression.

d. comprehension and Atonement – this is a more socially

desirable defense mechanism whereby one endeavors to
make up for a weakness in one function by excelling in some
other. Thus, a student wears attention-getting apparel as a
compensating substitute for unfulfilled self-reward
demanded by his ego-ideal ( manifested as inferiority
feelings), a girl whose home-making motivation is thwarted
by absence of suitors may compensate by working hard to
become a success in the business world, and a sexually
promiscuous woman joins a church as an atoning substitute
for the unfulfilled self-punishment demanded by her
conscience ( manifested as guilt).
Direct Aggression – frustration often leads to an actual or
direct aggression against the individual or object that is the
source of the frustrating condition. Aggression of this kind
is not necessarily hostile; it may be a learned way of solving
a problem. When one child takes a toy from another child
the second is likely to attack the first in an attempt to
regain the toy. Adults usually express their aggression
verbally rather that physically; they are more likely to
exchange insults than blows ( Hilgard, et.al., 1982)

Displaced Aggression – when the source of frustration is

vague and intangible or when the person responsible for the
frustration is so powerful that an attack would be
dangerous, aggression may be displaced and the aggressive
reaction may be directed toward the actual cause of the
frustration. (Hilgard, et al., 1982) A woman working as a
secretary in a business firm, for example, having been
reprimanded by her boss may have a “carry over” of her
unpleasant experiences when she gets home and may take
out unexpressed resentment on her family. A boy may strike
the wall with his fist upon learning that he received a failing
mark in one of his subjects. A student who has been
humiliated by her teacher may draw a caricature of this
source of her unpleasant experience.