Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, initiated the exploration of defence mechanisms in the 19th century. He understood the defence mechanism as unconscious processes in relation to Id, Ego, and Super-Ego (Freud, 1894). His daughter, Anna Freud, continued to examine and define these mechanisms in the 20th century. She described them as “unconscious resources” employed by the ego to reduce the tension between the Super-Ego and the Id.
Unfortunately, Freud never provided a complete compilation of defence mechanisms or an encompassing theory of defences. Anna Freud did make an effort to develop a methodical classification of defence mechanisms, but her list is excessively focused on psychopathology.
The aim of psychodynamic psychotherapy is to identify the defence mechanisms to get inside the nature of the conflict. By acknowledging and identifying conflicts, patients enhance self-awareness and gain an understanding of the reasons for their behaviours, which caused the suffering. These insights prove valuable for individuals dealing with various mental health disorders like depression, anxiety, phobias, eating disorders, personality disorders, and more. Therefore, the comprehension of defence mechanisms is crucial for clinicians to advance in their therapeutic approach.
Since Freud a century of exploration and a quarter century of empirical investigation, defence mechanisms have garnered significant attention and understanding in the field of psychodynamic psychology.
The Id, Ego and Super-Ego
According to Freud, the mind consists of three components: the Id, Ego, and Super-Ego. The Id represents basic needs and desires, acting as a pleasure centre. In contrast, the Ego interacts with the external world, controls impulses, and defines our conscious perception. The Super-Ego holds rules and “supervises” the Ego. It’s identical with the “moral institution” controlling, on the conscious and unconscious level, our thoughts, feelings, and actions. The defence mechanisms serve the Ego from the “punishing” and oppressing Super-Ego.
Ideally, these components work together harmoniously. Freud suggested that in conflicts, individuals employ defence mechanisms to safeguard their self-concept or self-esteem. When self-esteem or self-image is in danger of being jeopardised, individuals employ defence mechanisms.
To uphold self-esteem, individuals unconsciously develop defence mechanisms. Despite the individuals being unaware of using these mechanisms, their presence indicates a perceived threat to self-esteem and self-concept.
The defence mechanisms are only deployed to decrease the tension created by a conflict. The main role of defence mechanisms is Ego-protection. They help to maintain our favourable conscious perception about ourselves, protecting it from unpleasant thoughts and feelings. In the majority of cases, defence mechanisms operate fully unconsciously, sometimes semi-consciously, but always without our voluntary control. It means they are activated automatically, and the individuals don’t even realise when they get active. During the transition from childhood to adolescence and eventually into adulthood, the defence mechanisms may endure, regress, or evolve along with the changing and challenging life circumstances.
Primitive, moderate-level and mature defence mechanisms
Defence mechanisms are categorised by their level of sophistication. The less primitive ones are typical in childhood and in adults with Borderline Personality Organisation. The latter were unable to acquire more elaborated defence mechanisms during their socialisation process.
The neurotic defences provide a moderate level of adaptiveness.
In “normal” people, defensive mechanisms are also at work. However, they possess a high grade of maturity, allowing the highest level of adaptation by promoting the integration of affects with ideas.
Primitive defence mechanisms
The description “primitive” used for the defence mechanisms doesn’t mean that people in whom such mechanisms operate are less intelligent. As we mentioned before, the defence mechanisms work on an unconscious or semi-conscious level, and they can’t be influenced by an individual’s willpower. However, the nature of the mechanism itself is unsophisticated (“primitive”), and the person remains unaware when and how the defence mechanism activates and evolves.
Primitive defence mechanisms can be observed in children and adults with personality disorders. They manifest as immature actions, disavowal, and image distortion. A heavier reliance on these immature defences indicates limited awareness of emotional and cognitive aspects of internal conflicts or external stressors. These mechanisms serve to block out unacceptable thoughts, emotions, and behaviours, shielding the individual from perceived threats.
Acting Out
Acting out involves engaging in extreme behaviours to express thoughts or emotions that seem inexpressible otherwise. Instead of saying, “I’m angry,” an individual who acts out may throw objects or punch the wall. This release of pressure often brings a sense of calm and peace. For instance, a child’s temper tantrum reflects acting out when they don’t get their way with parents. Self-injury common in personality disorders can also serve as a form of acting out, expressing emotional pain through physical means.
Splitting
Another primitive defence mechanism is “splitting,” where both positive and negative impulses are compartmentalised. The individual simplifies experiences into rigid categories of all-good and all-bad, devoid of any shades of grey. By combining “splitting” with “projecting,” the individual unconsciously disowns their undesirable qualities, attributing them consciously to someone else. Splitting occurs in individuals with Borderline Personality Organization.
The other two primitive defences, idealisation and devaluation, serve as the defence mechanisms that reflect an individual’s difficulties in maintaining a balanced view of others. The hidden mechanism behind those two is also projection.
Idealization
In idealisation, the individual is projecting excessive positive qualities into an object (another person). Such projection protects him from emotional conflicts, preserving the illusion of perfection. However, idealisation swiftly shifts to intense anger, known as devaluation, towards the once idealised person.
Devaluation
In Borderline Personality patients, idealisation can quickly turn into devaluation due to the inability to differentiate perception. Such an individual can’t create a differentiated picture of another human being, seeing only its extreme qualities: good and bad, perfect or imperfect.
Devaluation characterises an object as worthless, exaggerating its negative qualities. Challenged or disappointed, the patient swiftly devalues the formerly idealised object, avoiding the stress of ambiguity.
Interacting with individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), people experience confusion as they shift from being idealised to devalued. These cycles make it difficult for individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder to maintain stable relationships.
Projection
occurs when one attributes their undesired thoughts, feelings, or impulses to another person who doesn’t possess them. Projection is used to avoid expressing unacceptable thoughts or to alleviate discomfort associated with those thoughts. For instance, a spouse may feel angry at their partner for not listening, while it is the angry spouse who struggles with attentive listening. Lack of insight and self-awareness contribute to projection.
Projective identification
Projective identification was introduced by psychoanalyst Melanie Klein. It is a defence mechanism allowing individuals to distort reality for a socially acceptable self-image. Unlike projection, projective identification can alter the behaviour of the person being projected onto. This occurs through interpersonal interaction, where the projector pressures the projected to think, feel, and act in line with his projection. The person being projected onto may experience subtle pressure to conform to the desired behaviour or belief. Projective identification is closely linked with splitting and omnipotent control, where the individual tries to maintain control over their environment.
Denial
involves rejecting reality and acting as if painful events, thoughts, or feelings wouldn’t exist. Denial is a highly primitive defence mechanism commonly observed in early childhood development but also in patients with Borderline Personality Organization, or severe addictions. Such individuals employ denial in their daily lives to avoid confronting uncomfortable emotions or aspects they refuse to acknowledge. For example, a heavy alcoholic may deny having a drinking problem as not existent.
Intellectualization
refers to an excessive emphasis on rational thinking when faced with unacceptable impulses, situations, or behaviours, devoid of emotional engagement. Rather than dealing with associated painful emotions, individuals rely solely on intellectual analysis to distance themselves from the impulse, event, or behaviour. For example, a person receiving a terminal medical diagnosis might focus on discussing futile medical procedures instead of expressing sadness and grief.
Neurotic defence mechanisms
The neurotic defensive category falls in the middle range of adaptiveness, encompassing neurotic and obsessional defences. These defences allow individuals to address either the emotional or cognitive aspects of internal or external stressors one by one. By keeping the conflict out of awareness, these defence mechanisms prevent overwhelming anxiety.
Displacement
involves redirecting thoughts, feelings, and impulses meant for one target onto another person or object. People resort to displacement when they cannot express their emotions directly to the intended recipient safely. A common example is a man who gets angry with his boss but suppresses it for fear of job loss. Instead, he comes home and takes out his anger on the dog or starts an argument with his spouse. Displacement proves ineffective as it causes additional problems by misdirecting emotions.
Reaction Formation
involves transforming unwanted or dangerous thoughts, feelings, or impulses into their opposites. For instance, a person who hates their boss and desires to quit the job may instead display excessive kindness and express a desire to work there indefinitely. Inability to express negative emotions leads to an exaggerated display of positivity to mask anger and dissatisfaction.
Dissociation
Dissociation refers to losing track of time and personhood and adopting an alternate representation of oneself to carry on. Those who dissociate frequently lose connection with their usual thought processes, memories, and even their sense of time. Individuals with a history of childhood abuse often experience some form of dissociation. In extreme cases, dissociation can lead to a belief in multiple selves (commonly known as “multiple personality disorder“). Dissociative individuals often hold a disconnected view of themselves and their world. Their experience of time and self-image may lack continuous flow, allowing them to detach from the real world temporarily and seek solace in an alternate realm devoid of overwhelming thoughts, emotions, or memories.
Repression
entails unconsciously blocking unacceptable thoughts, feelings, and impulses. Repressed memories are inaccessible due to unconscious suppression. However, memories are not carved in stone; they can be influenced and distorted by life experiences, external influences, and individual perception.
Regression
occurs when individuals revert to an earlier stage of development to cope with unacceptable thoughts or impulses. For instance, an overwhelmed adolescent experiencing fear, anger, and burgeoning sexual desires may exhibit behaviours from their earlier childhood, such as bedwetting. Similarly, adults facing immense stress may regress by retreating to their beds, avoiding everyday activities.
Undoing
is the attempt to retract an unconscious behaviour or thought that is deemed unacceptable or hurtful. For instance, after unintentionally insulting your partner, you may spend the next hour complimenting their attributes to counterbalance the damage caused by your remarks.
Rationalization
involves reframing perceptions or offering alternative explanations to justify one’s thoughts or actions when faced with changing circumstances. For example, a woman who is dumped by a man she admires might reinterpret the situation as “I knew he was not right for me.”
Isolation of affect
This defence mechanism was already observed and described by Sigmund Freud. Isolation of affect is a defence based on separating emotions from ideas. In such a way, affect gets unconscious and emotionally neutral. This mechanism plays a significant role in OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder) and is also commonly observed in previously healthy individuals after a traumatic experience, often causing PTSD. Detachment is achieved through repetitive intrusive thoughts and ritualistic behaviours.
Compartmentalization
involves separating parts of oneself, behaving as if separate sets of values exist without awareness of their integration. For example, an honest person cheats on their income tax return, keeping their two value systems distinct and unconnected, unaware of the cognitive dissonance.
Mature defence mechanisms
The mature defensive category represents a high adaptive level, comprising the most effective defence mechanisms operating in “normal” individuals. Emphasising the use of mature defences enables individuals to integrate and partially acknowledge their feelings, ideas, desires, and thoughts related to internal conflicts. By integrating emotions with thoughts, these defences optimise and potentially resolve psychological distress.
Suppression
Suppression is a defence mechanism helping to deal with distressing mental contents (conflicts). Individuals consciously push these contents out of awareness until they can cope with them adaptively. Suppression resembles repression, but in repression the conflict remains inaccessible to consciousness, while in suppression the temporarily unconscious conflict gets conscious and gets solved when the opportunity arises. Unlike repression, suppression does disrupt self-awareness, but only temporarily.
Sublimation
Sublimation is the redirection of libido from unacceptable impulses, thoughts, or emotions into socially acceptable actions. For instance, channelling sexual impulses into artistic activities or increased professional performance provides a productive outlet, preventing destructive actions and anxiety.
Sublimation can also manifest through humour or fantasy. Humour is a “vehicle” of sublimation, acting as a defence mechanism by transforming unacceptable impulses into jokes, reducing the inner tension. The nature of humour contains aggressive impulses, which can be related to external objects, making jokes about someone else, or about the individual himself. Fantasy, on the other hand, involves channelling unattainable desires into imaginative scenarios. The action doesn’t happen in real but only in the fantasy of the subject.
Compensation
is a psychological process that counterbalances perceived weaknesses by emphasising strengths in other areas. Recognising that one cannot excel in all aspects of life, a person may compensate for a lack of skill in one area by emphasising their proficiency in another. For example, someone with a not very appealing appearance can compensate for this deficiency through extraordinary professional success.
Other non-typical defence mechanisms
There are other defence mechanisms that can’t be clearly categorised.
Identification with the aggressor
refers to a defence mechanism in depth psychology where a person who is physically and/or emotionally abused or oppressed by an aggressor unconsciously identifies with them. The person internalises and adopts personality traits, values, and behaviours of the aggressor without their conscious knowledge and often against their conscious will, turning them into self-parts/ego states.
Starting with submission to a repressive and authoritarian upbringing structure, this reaction safeguards one’s psychological system as a last resort. It protects against a potential collapse in the face of overwhelming attacks. Paradoxically, while it maintains self-functioning temporarily, the consequences of identifying with the aggressor undermine self-integrity and well-being. Personal autonomy development is suppressed.
The well-known example of the identification with the aggressor is the so-called Stockholm Syndrom.
Conversion
The term conversion is on the one side a defence mechanism, on the other a DSM-5-approved diagnosis.
Conversion as a defence mechanism means a process where psychological conflict manifests through somatic symptoms. According to Freud, conversion in hysteria occurs when the unbearable idea’s excitation is transformed into a physical manifestation, which he proposes calling “conversion.”
In conversion, individuals exhibit seemingly physical symptoms, but without any diagnostic findings supporting such symptoms. However, a connection between the symptoms and distressing events can be presumed. This means that a conflict is not accepted by the Ego (consciousness) and is “converted” into a physical manifestation, often symbolically representing the conflict. Symptoms can include blindness, deafness, seizures, or paralysis.
A frequently cited example involves a woman who is being betrayed by her husband and “wants to close her eyes to this fact.” She becomes blind without any organic findings.
Dissociation
This term also encompasses dissociation as a defence mechanism and certain psychiatric diagnoses with dissociative symptoms.
Dissociation is the phenomenon of a temporary gap in consciousness. In dissociation, the consciousness “switches off” certain contents to safeguard the Ego. It shields individuals from integrating highly distressing thoughts, feelings, or memories into their consciousness.
For instance, during therapy, a patient recounts a deeply traumatic event to his therapist. As he recalls the experience, he suddenly feels overwhelmed, exhausted, and momentarily “switched off” for several seconds. This dissociative episode shields the individual from re-experiencing the traumatic event.
Dissociation occurs in the following mental health disorders:
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
- Dissociative amnesia: This involves an inability to recall personal details or events from one’s life. Typically, the amnesia is limited to a specific time period, although rare cases may entail complete identity loss.
- Depersonalisation, Derealisation Disorder (DDD): Depersonalisation refers to feeling detached from oneself, as if observing actions from a third-party perspective. Derealisation, on the other hand, involves a sense of the surrounding world being unreal, akin to a dream-like state.
- Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) was earlier called “split personality. Individuals with Dissociative Identity Disorder experience a fragmented sense of self, perceiving themselves as different people in varying contexts or possessing multiple identities within one body.
Defence Mechanisms in Psychodynamic Therapies. Summary
Defence mechanisms are unconscious psychological processes serving the Ego (i.e., our conscious perception) to avoid confrontation with unpleasant, shameful, or painful memories and feelings. Defence mechanisms create a calming worldview that feels manageable and gives people the illusion of control over reality. They block out anything that could disrupt this perception.
The concept of defence mechanisms
The concept of defence mechanisms was first introduced by Sigmund Freud in the context of his psychoanalytical theory. The first ever scientific, evidence-based proof of suppression, one of the defence mechanisms described by Freud, was delivered by Carl Gustav Jung in his word association test.
There are a variety of defence mechanisms overlapping or blending into each other. Depending on their personality, people may be more likely to use certain defence mechanisms. For example, an extroverted optimist might rationalise unpleasant realities to “make them seem better,” while a self-critical introvert might tend to repress unwanted impulses instead.
Do defence mechanisms work in normal people?
Defence mechanisms are at work not only in people with mental health disorders. They are also active in normal people. They help us cope with stressful emotions like anger, feelings of inferiority, shame, guilt, or sensations that conflict with our values and beliefs. The problem arises when people get too heavily on these coping mechanisms. Through the use of defence mechanisms, the original problems remain unresolved and tend to grow worse over time, leading to neuroses.
The goal of psychodynamic therapies
The aim of psychodynamic psychotherapy is to create awareness of the defence mechanisms and the conflicts behind them. By doing so, the individual gets access to the “lumber room” of his psyche, solving the conflicts, making the defence mechanism obsolete, and opening the road for true growth and healing.