Defence Mechanisms

In our day to day lives, we face different situations and several people and the manner in which we deal with them is almost always different. Defence mechanisms are behaviours people use to separate themselves from unpleasant events, actions or thoughts. These psychological strategies may help people put distance between themselves and threats or unwanted feelings, such as guilt or shame.
 
Defence mechanism is the psychoanalytical term of unconscious methods that the person uses to distort reality, thereby protecting it from anxiety, worry or even fears. These are psychological strategies that are consciously used to protect a person from anxiety, or thoughts and feelings that might be unacceptable. The idea of defence mechanisms comes from psychoanalytic theory - a psychological perspective of personality that sees personality as the interaction between three components: id, ego, and superego. There are several defence mechanisms that we use on a regular basis to cope with unpleasant events and situations in life. Mostly everyone has a typical pattern of using these mechanisms, and these are generally based on our past experiences, events and the people we have dealt with. 
 
While there are several defence mechanisms, the following are the most commonly known: 
  • Anxiety has been defined as a feeling of fear, dread or apprehension and it is different from fear, which occurs in response to an actual threat or situation. To deal with deep worry or anxiety, we knowingly and unknowingly use these types of defence mechanisms:
  • Denial - When we don’t accept the repercussions or deny the existence of the issue or even its seriousness.
  • Regression - If we have been through any unpleasant event, by moving back to a psychological time, one may get the symptoms back.
  • Projection - This defence pattern makes us believe that we are right in our act or behaviour, and it is the others who are wrong or jealous. 
  • Displacement - Showing/expressing anger or displeasure on someone who’s not associated with the event or the situation. A good example of displacement defence mechanism would be getting angry at your child, even though your anger is meant for your workplace. 
  • Sublimation - By diverting your emotions and unfulfilled desires towards something else, like workout or sports.
  • Repression - It allows thoughts to stay in the background or unconscious.
 
Are defences necessary?
Human beings are built up of emotions, feelings, relationships, love, expectations, desires, aspirations and so many more such factors. We are controlled and driven by all these above factors and many more - there are heartbreaks, failures, let-downs, betrayals and we could encounter all these in the process of achieving our desired lives. Everyone goes through most of these instances, at some point in our lives and in order to live and lead a social and visibly normal life, we need to have defences in place. These defense mechanisms keep us going and we learn how to cope with the issues. However, if these mechanisms go out of proportion they could turn out to be harmful as well.
To summarise, defence can help: 
Protect ourselves from feelings of anxiety
Ward off unpleasant feelings and make us feel good
 
It is also important to note that ego-defence mechanisms are natural and normal until in proportion and control. 
 
What are the possible values of Defence Mechanism? 
A defence mechanism is an effortless psychological pattern that controls anxiety from potentially harmful levels or trigger. These may result in healthy or unhealthy consequences depending on the circumstances and frequency with which the mechanism is used. In psychoanalytic theory, defence mechanisms are psychological strategies brought into play by the unconscious mind to manipulate, deny or distort reality, in order to defend against feelings of anxiety and unacceptable impulses and to maintain one's self-schema or other schemas. These processes that manipulate, deny or distort reality may include the following: 
  • Repression, or the burying of a painful feeling or thought from one's awareness even though it may resurface in a symbolic form; 
  • Identification, incorporating an object or thought into oneself 
  • Rationalization, the justification of one's behaviour and motivations by substituting "good" acceptable reasons for the actual motivations. 
In psychoanalytic theory, repression is considered as the basis for other defence mechanisms.
 
What do you think might happen, if you successfully strip away a client/counselee’s defences?
 
Anxiety defence mechanism can work both ways - we all use and have defences. We choose to form methods that work for us and save us from going into deep anxiety and worry. These methods will vary from person to person and might be only vaguely similar to that of others. An ego defence mechanism becomes severe only when its frequent use leads to negative behaviour, so much so that the overall health of the individual is adversely affected. 
 
If the basic defence mechanism of a person is taken away, the person might get uncomfortable, feel insecure and vulnerable or get extremely confused and disturbed, worrying about how to deal with a situation which they have been dealing with smoothly with their defence system. We all need our defence mechanisms to cope and deal with anxiety and deep worry. How we live, behave, talk and deal with people is a part of the defence mechanism that we create for ourselves unknowingly. Some choose humour while others prefer to retreat into a shell to deal with a situation that might be troubling. Most of us choose to live with the comfort of our defence mechanisms, even though it all depends on the complexity and frequency of the usage of the same. However, even though these mechanisms are helpful at the basic social and behavioural levels, very frequent and intense usage may require help.