For Freud the defense mechanisms They are the unconscious psychological strategies that people use as protection against the emotional conflicts that arise, with the aim of maintaining psychological balance.
The mission of these mechanisms is to defend against thoughts and emotions that produce anxiety, feelings of depression, fractured self-esteem, etc. In short, they protect us from what is painful to us and that we cannot tolerate. They prevent us from suffering.
Are the defense mechanisms natural or pathological?
They are considered an inherent part of people’s psychic functioning. They manifest when we find ourselves in trouble and are natural. Defense mechanisms are responsible for establishing a barrier that cuts off what threatens in the form of tension, anxiety or insecurity. In this sense they can be effective and adaptive.
However, they can also become pathological.
According to classic psychoanalytic theory, when they are disproportionate, excessively frequent or rigid, imbalances may appear that cause the development of disorders such as anxiety, stress, neuroses, phobias, obsessions, hysteria…
Therefore, it is worth distinguishing defense mechanisms into those that are successful or ineffective. The former achieve their objective of reducing anxiety in the face of dangers; The latter do not achieve this and fall into repetitive cycles that cause psychopathologies such as the aforementioned neurosis, etc.
Other characteristics of defense mechanisms
Some of the features that characterize defense mechanisms are the following:
They are defensive processes of the ego
In the psychoanalytic structure, Freud considered them manifestations of the “ego” in response to the demands of other psychic instances: “id” and “superego.” These manifestations are aimed at establishing balance between these three antagonistic forces that govern our thinking and behavior.
They are personalized
That is, each person reacts in a way to a circumstance that causes us distress. There is a wide variety of factors that influence the formation of defense mechanisms: upbringing, personality, all types of experiences, traumas…
Transient or entrenched
Their function is usually temporary, to allow them to accept or adapt the situation that triggered them. However, some of them become permanently installed in our way of being and acting.
They develop in situations of distress
They appear when pressure overcomes us, they are activated unconsciously to eliminate the unpleasant sensation, whether internal pressures (arising from ourselves) or external pressures (caused by other people or external agents).
They influence our behavior and our decisions
As protection systems, they are useful to defend us when something overwhelms us, but they also affect our perception and interpretation of reality, conditioning our behavioral response.
What are the most common defense mechanisms?
Some of the best known and treated by psychological literature are repression, denial, projection, displacement, denial, compensation…
How to restore balance to defense mechanisms
In those cases in which there has been a mismatch with the defense mechanisms that has generated reactions such as depression, stress, anxiety, etc., professional help can allow emotional relearning and channel the defense mechanisms so that they do not cause harm.
In a therapy context, people can discover how their defense mechanisms are behaving and identify which ones are offering effective and adjusted protection and which ones are negatively affecting their emotional health.
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