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Defence Mechanisms
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Repression - central to all the other mental mechanisms the defence mechanisms by which unacceptable impulses etc., are rendered unconscious. In normal people the repressed material finds expression in sublimation.
Sublimation - a process whereby primary emotions, sexuality and aggression are converted into and expressed in socially accepted terms, e.g. aggression sublimated into competitive sport.
Rationalisation - self-deceiving, apparently rational "explanations" for instinctual behaviour, e.g. schoolmasters invoking "discipline" to legitimise beating boys backsides.
Intellectualisation - excessive use of intellectual processes to avoid emotional expression and experience. Over-use leads to "cold" aloof schizoid personality formation.
Denial - the denial of a painful experience or some unacceptable aspect of oneself. Commonly seen in the early phase of normal grief reactions. May continue for an unusual length of time when it is an expression of abnormal grief reaction.
Reaction formation - means by which a repressed forbidden wish is expressed by its opposite e.g.: - voyeuristic urges expressed by anti-pornography militancy - a characteristic mechanism in obsessional neurosis though sometimes seen in other neurosis.
Displacement - displacing an affect or behaviour from one person to whom it would be appropriate, to another person or object. - e.g. mother scolds the child and the child breaks a doll because the child dare not attack the mother. - seen in delinquency.
Identification - a defence whereby a person takes on large aspects of another's personality including symptomatology - seen clinically where a bereaved person presents with a virtually identical symptom pattern to the deceased's terminal illness - also seen as part of normal growing-up "hero-worship" - seen in hysterics who unconsciously mimic another's symptoms.
Avoidance - a defence whereby the person does not attempt to attain or compete lest he or she fail and feel humiliated - may be seen in its most obvious form in the social phobias, e.g. of school or of other social settings
Magic undoing - a defence against unacceptable aggressive thoughts and comprises a mental or physical ritual to ward off the effects of that aggression - seen among "normals" in superstitious acts - commonly seen in obsessional-compulsive neuroses, e.g. Lady Macbeth-like handwashing
Projection - the attribution of one's own feelings or wishes to someone else, e.g. to feel persecuted by a boss whereas the hostility is one's own - the basis of paranoid states and paranoid personality disorder
Dissociation - a defensive process whereby two or more mental processes co-exist without becoming integrated - the basis of hysterical fugues and hysterical dual personalities
Conversion - a mental mechanism in which an emotional response to a stress is converted into a physical symptom which symbolises the conflict - the basis of conversion hysteria
Regression - a return to earlier childlike mental states also seen in normal people under stress, e.g. battle conditions and coronary care units.
The mental mechanisms marked have clear clinical implications.
It is one of the objectives of Psychotherapy to enable a person to be more aware of his/her characteristic maladaptive mechanisms and to change in the direction of a more adaptive use of mechanisms.
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