Aim: How do defense mechanisms help us cope with emotions and stressful situtations?
For good physical and emotional health it is important to identify stressors, manage stress appropriately and incorporate coping skills into your daily routine. However, some coping strategies are done on an unconscious level, and we are not aware of them. These coping strategies are called defense mechanisms.
Class notes:
Defense mechanisms: Unconscious coping strategies: the ways that people defend themselves against difficult feelings or emotions.
Each defense mechanism involves a little bit of “fooling yourself.” By twisting the reality of the situation in your mind, it becomes easier to accept. Fooling yourself in this way allows you to put off dealing with the problem and the emotions it causes. You experience a feeling of temporary relief and can think through the problem with a clear mind.
Defense mechanisms can be helpful coping strategies when used in moderation.
Defense mechanisms can be hurtful to emotional growth when overused, as a person may become too dependent on defense mechanisms and may not learn to express true feelings, or confront problems.
Commonly used Defense mechanisms
Compensation- making up for a weakness in one area by excelling in another area
Rationalization- making excuses in your mind for why an emotion is present or why an event occurred
Denial- refusing to accept the presence of an emotion or situation
Reaction Formation- acting in a way that is the opposite of how you truly feel
Projection- blaming someone else for why an event occurred
Regression- reverting back to child-like behavior (or earlier forms of behavior) to deal with emotions
Daydreaming- fantasizing in order to escape an unpleasant reality
Psychosomatic Illness- strong emotions cause a physical response, even though there is nothing physically wrong
Repression- unconsciously forgetting
Idealization- seeing someone admired as who you want them to be, not as who they really are
Identification- taking on the characteristics of someone you admire
Displacement- shifting emotions onto someone who has nothing to do with the situation