Defense Mechanisms

What do you do when you're upset with someone? What about when you're angry with yourself? What if you're just sad? Today, we're going to be discussing what happens when something happens that causes us to be anxious, otherwise known as defense mechanisms. (After reading, see if you have done/do any of these.)

Sigmund Freud (who I won't give a big introduction to because by now, you should know who he is) says that repression is a basic action that terminates anxiety-filled behavior; banishing a painful thought or memory. He also created these six defense mechanisms, which he says comes from repression.

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The first of the defense mechanism is regression. It is in this aspect that we may possibly revert to a more childish state of mind after encountering something that either gets us in trouble or makes us upset. For example, my mom and I got into an argument a few weeks ago over something that I shouldn't have overreacted to. Because of this, I stomped into my room, slammed the door, and pouted for the afternoon. Another example would be when I was younger (about 5 or 6 years old), I would suck my thumb when I would be very nervous about something (first day of school or camp, or having to meet new people). My brother did the same thing. The thumb-sucking is a very common repression mechanism.

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The next mechanism is reaction formation. This would be defined as covering up your true emotion with an exaggerated false emotion. I work at a small bakery in Old Town Florissant. Dealing with the public will sometimes lead me to do this. If a certain customer really ticks me off and I stay mad about it the rest of the day, I may actually be more friendly to other customers to hide the fact that I'm actually very, very angry.

The third mechanism is projection. This is basically "blame someone else." I actually have seen this in a young girl I know. Instead of saying that she doesn't like a certain girl in her class, she'll tell me that this girl actually hates her. She won't own up and say that she doesn't care for the girl in her class, but instead blames her dislike on the girl that she says she doesn't like. "Oh, she hates me. I don't know why." Make sense? Let's try another one. Say a husband and wife are fighting. The husband does something that makes the wife really mad, and they start fighting. The wife is really mad at the husband, but screams at the husband that he is mad at her.

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Another mechanism is rationalization. This could be described as doing something bad, but it's okay because you have a good reason for doing it. For example, someone steals medicine to save a dying relative, but they think that it's okay because they always give money to help charities get medicine for those less fortunate. Another example would be a girl in school always studies very hard for tests at school. She forgot to study for one test, so she decides to cheat. Everyone else has cheated at one point, so it's okay for her to.

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The fifth mechanism is displacement. This can be described as directing your anger away from the actual source. I have actually seen a child I know take part in this. She was playing a video game on a phone and got mad because she lost the game. She was so angry so she threw the phone against the wall. She wasn't actually mad at the phone, but a game on the phone. Another example would be a brother and sister are fighting so they both go to their rooms. The brother punches a hole in the wall, and the sister throws some books on the floor. In both of these situations, the people directed their anger elsewhere.

The last mechanism I'm going to talk about is denial. There's not really a way to describe denial besides saying that one refuses to believe something that is true to everyone around them. For example, a young man has gotten several speeding tickets, but refuses to believe that he is a fast driver. Another example would be a chronic drinker. Someone may spend dollar after dollar on liquor until they don't have any money left. They still don't see a problem with the amount of alcohol that they ingest.

And those are 6 defense mechanisms that Freud observed and named. They are a few others, but we'll stick with those for today. Check back next time! Thanks for reading!