Defense Mechanisms
Have you ever wondered why you do some of the things you do? Why did you react that way? Why did you take that path of action? While there are many answers to the question of what motivates our behavior, defense mechanisms are an important consideration.
So, what are defense mechanisms, and what purpose do they serve in your system? Defense mechanisms are ways your brain protects you from things it perceives as harmful or threatening. Think about it, if you are exposed to something that your brain interprets as a threat, your brain and body are going to do everything in their power to protect you and keep you safe from that perceived threat. That includes making physical and or psychological changes.
Defense mechanisms become unhelpful if they are used for too long or when there is no real threat present. Remember, defense mechanisms show up when you need to be protected, so if there is nothing you need protection from, a defense mechanism might be influencing our behavior in ways that don’t actually jive with you. One of the most important things to know about defensive mechanisms is that a majority of them are unconscious. This means that the part of your brain you aren’t actively aware of steps in with a defense mechanism to try and deal with the pressure of the situation and environment around you without your conscious awareness. Here are ten common defense mechanisms and examples of how they can show up in your day to day life.
Repression: To put something completely out of your mind. To hide from the conscious mind the reality you witnessed.
- Repression can be a strong defense mechanism that shows up for survivors of trauma. Maybe you witnessed a traumatic event and when you’re asked about it later on, you can’t remember anything about it. That could very well be your unconscious brain utilizing repression to protect you from that trauma.
Denial (of Reality): Refusal to recognize things that are really there or that actually happened. A form of escapism.
- Think of denial as vacating a situation. Has anyone in your life ever said something to you along the lines of “I never did that!” or “That never happened!” That might be the defense mechanism of denial coming through to help them vacate their behavior.
Rationalization: Attempting to prove that what you’ve done is logical and rational. Can look like making excuses
- Another very common response for trauma survivors and adults who’ve grown up with emotionally immature parents. Somewhere along the way, your brain learned that if you say just the right thing in defense of yourself, you achieve emotional safety. Later on you might realize that you’ve just delivered an extensive list of reasons to your boss for why you ate a ham sandwich for lunch instead of turkey. You don’t actually need to rationalize that decision, but your trauma brain might make it feel like you do!
Projection: Misplacing or attributing your negative feelings onto others.
- Projection has become a bit of a psychology buzz word over the past few years. Let’s make sure you have an accurate understanding of what it is. Imagine you have been frustrated with your romantic partner lately. You tell your therapist that they are judging a recent decision you made. When you explore it with your therapist you realize, they never actually said anything critical of you, but rather they sat and listened while you told them about your recent decision. This is projection if you have feelings of fear around your decision and misplace them onto your partner, when the partner hasn’t done anything to indicate feelings of fear towards you.
Suppression: A conscious putting out of mind, “I don’t want to think about that now.”
- Suppression is the one conscious defense mechanism on this list. That means you use your brain to actively, with your awareness, choose to put something out of your mind. Healthy suppression can look like compartmentalization. However, it can quickly turn into unhealthy suppression when you are actively avoiding thinking about or feeling something difficult or uncomfortable.
Regression: Retreating in your mind to an earlier level of development.
- One question I love to ask my clients when they are exploring a behavior or reaction that they didn’t like is “How old do you feel?” That question in exploration often gives clients a lot of sight into their emotional experience from the situation. They might not be able to pin point an exact age, but ten out of ten times they can tell me they don’t feel the adult age they actually are, but rather a younger version of themselves. That’s a sign of regression, friends!
Compensation: Covering up a weakness that may be real or imagined by over emphasis and gratification in another area.
- For example, let’s say you are a high achieving person. You’ve graduated college, earned one, maybe two graduate degrees. You’re working at a prestigious institution upon the completion of your degrees. However, you struggle with emotional vulnerability and connection in your personal relationships. You might have overcompensated by pouring your energy into achieving professional status to avoid self doubt about your challenges with your personal relationships.
Displacement: Placing feelings you have elsewhere.
- Let’s say you have a day full of back to back meetings at work. Your boss was on your case and you are frustrated. When you arrive home, you might make a comment to your significant other or roommate that initiates a fight. That’s displacement of your work frustrations on your personal life, friend! Ask yourself what you need to blow off that steam and then do it. Your personal relationships will thank you!
Intellectualization (isolation, dissociation, compartmentalization): Cutting off uncomfortable emotions by focusing on analyzing through logic and facts.
- Intellectualizers unite! Sitting in emotions is HARD! Oftentimes our brains tell us that we cannot tolerate our emotions. The defense mechanism of intellectualization comes in by getting us to think logically or rationally about an emotional state. Turns out, in order to feel better you need to sit with and feel the feelings.
Acting out: Expression of emotion created by conflict or threats.
- While you might think of children when you hear the term acting out, adults can act out too. Acting out is, at its core, a behavioral change. If you notice changes in your behavior that are not congruent with your values or that are causing conflict in your life, this defense mechanism may be at work.
This is not an exhaustive list of defense mechanisms, but hopefully you have gained an understanding of some of the ways your brain impacts your decision making and behavioral choices. Defense mechanisms are rarely used in isolation. You might notice a combination of defense mechanisms being used to navigate challenging situations. When defense mechanisms prevent you from functioning effectively in the world at your job or in your personal relationships, that could be a sign of problems that could be addressed in therapy.