Classification Of Defense Mechanisms

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The defence mechanisms can be classified hierarchically according to the level of maturity associated with them.

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1) Narcissistic Defences (most primitive - children, persons psychotically disturbed)

2) Immature Defences (seen in adolescents and some non-psychotic patients)

3) Neurotic Defences (encountered in obsessive-compulsive and hysterical patients, and adults under stress)

4) Mature Defences

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Narcissistic Defences

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1) Denial
2) Distorition
3) Projection

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Immature Defences

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1) Acting out.
2) Blocking
3) Hypochondriasis
4) Introjection
5) Passive-aggressive Behaviour
6) Schizoid Fantasy
7) Somatization

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Neurotic Defences

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1) Controlling
2) displacement
3) Externalization
4) Inhibition
5) Intellectualization
6) Isolation
7) Rationalization
8) Dissociation
9) Reaction formation
10) Repression
11) Sexualisation

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Mature Defences

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1) Altruism
2) Anticipation
3) Asceticism
4) Humour
5) Sublimation
6) Suppression

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Denial

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Avoiding the awareness of some painful aspect of reality be negating sensory data.

Refusing to accept external reality because it is too threatening.

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Distortion

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Grossly reshaping external reality to suit inner needs.
Using sustained feelings of delusional superiority or entitlement.

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Projection

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Perceiving and reacting to unacceptable inner impusles and their derivatives as though they were outside the self.
(delusions about external reality - usually persecutory in nature)

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Acting Out

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Direct expression of an unconscious wish or impulse in action - without conscious awareness of the emotion that drives the action.

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Blocking

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Temporarily or transiently inhibiting thinking.

Closely resembles repression but differs in that the tension arises when the impulse, affect or thought is inhibited

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Hypochondriasis

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Exaggerating or overemphasising an illness for the purpose of evasion and regression.
Responsibility can be avoided.

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Introjection

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Internalizing the qualities of an object.
Classic example = identification with the aggressor.

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Passive-aggressive behaviour

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Expressing aggression toward others indirectly through passivity, masochism, and turning against self.
e.g. procrastination

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Regression

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Attempting to return to an earlier libidinal phase of functioning to avoid the tension and conflict evoked at the present level of development.

Temporary reversion of the ego to an earlier stage of development rather than handling unacceptable impulses in a more adult way.

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Schizoid Fantasy

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Indulging in autistic retreat to resolve conflict and to obtain gratification.
Interpersonal intimacy is avoided and eccentricity serves to repel others.
Person does not fully believe in the fantasies, and does not insist on acting them out.

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Somatization

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Converting psychic derivatives into bodily symptoms and tending to react with somatic manifestations, rather than psychic manifestations.

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Controlling

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Attempting to manage or regulate events or objects in the environment to minimize anxiety and to resolve inner conflicts.

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Displacement

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Shifting an emotion or drive cathexis from one idea or object to another that resembles the original in some aspect or quality, but evokes less distress.
Commonly shifts sexual or aggressive impulses to a more acceptable or less threatening target.
e.g. mother yelling at child because she is angry at her husband.

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Externalization

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Tending to perceive in the external world and in external objects elements of one's own personality, including instinctual impulses, conflicts, moods, attitudes and styles of thinking.
A more general term than projection.

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Inhibition

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Conciously limiting/renouncing some ego functions, alone or in combination, to evade anxiety arising out of conflict with instinctual impulses, the superego, or environmental forces or figures.

A mental restraint functioning to protect the individual from anxiety.

An inhibition may be a conscious reluctance to act in a way that is contrary to one's principles and that would arouse mental conflict

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Intellectualization

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Excessively using intellectual processes to avoid affective expression or experience.

Undue emphasis is focused on the inanimate to avoid intimacy with people, attention is paid to external reality to avoid the expression of inner feelings.

Stress is excessively placed on the irrelevant details to avoid perceiving the whole.

A form of isolation, concentrating on the intellectual components of a situation so as to distance oneself from the associated anxiety-provoking emotions.

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Isolation

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Separation of feelings from ideas and events, for example, describing a murder with graphic details with no emotional response.

Separating an idea from the affect that accompanies it.

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Rationalization

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Offering rational explanations in an attempt to justify attitudes, beliefs or behaviour that may otherwise be unacceptable.
Can be seen socially - 'making excuses'.

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Dissociation

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Temporarily but drastically modifying a person's character or one's sense of peronsal identiyt to avoid emotional distress.

Mild spectrum of normal = boredom, conflict.
More severe spectrum of normal = daydreaming.

Pathological dissociation = dissociative fugue, hysterical conversion.

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Reaction Formation

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Transforming an unacceptable impulse into is opposite. e.g. characteristic of obsessional neurosis.

A defensive process (defense mechanism) in which anxiety-producing or unacceptable emotions and impulses are mastered by exaggeration (hypertrophy) of the directly opposing tendency.

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Repression

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Expelling or withholding from consciosness an idea ore feeling.

Primary repression - curbing of ideas/feelings before they have attained consciousness.

Secondary Repression - excludes from awareness what was once experienced at a conscious level.

Differs from suppression by effecting conscious inhibition of impulses to the point of losing and not just postponing cherished goals.

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Sexualization

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Endowing an object or function with sexual significance that it did not previously have or possessed to a smaller degree to ward off anxieties associated with prohibited impulses or their derivatives.

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Altruism

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Constructive service to others that brings pleasure and personal satisfaction.

Distinguished from 'altruistic surrender' - surrender of direct gratification takes place in favour of fulfilling the needs of others to the detriment of the self - satisfaction can only be enjoyed vicariously through introjection.

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Anticipation

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Realistic planning for future discomfort.

Goal-directed mechanism and implies careful planning or worrying and premature but realistic affective anticipation of fire and potentially dreadful outcomes.

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Asceticism

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Eliminating the pleasurable effects of experiences.

Gratification is achieved through the denial of the pleasure.

One of the primary goals of this defense is to defend oneself against the potential for giving into or becoming overly involved in sensual or pleasurable activities.

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Humour

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Using comedy to overtly express feelings and thoughts without personal discomfort or immobilization and without producing an unplesant effect on others.

Allows the person to tolerate and yet focus on what is too terrible to be borne.

Different from wit which is a form of displacement that involves distraction from the affective issue.

The thoughts retain a portion of their innate distress, but they are "skirted round".

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Sublimation

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A defense mechanism that allows us to act out unacceptable impulses by converting these behaviors into a more acceptable form.
e.g a person experiencing extreme anger might take up kick-boxing as a means of venting frustration.

Achieving impulse gratification and the retention of goals but altering a socially objectionable aim or object to a socially acceptable one.

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Suppression

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The conscious decision to delay paying attention to an emotion or need in order to cope with the present reality; making it possible to later access uncomfortable or distressing emotions whilst accepting them.

Consciously or semiconsciously postponing attention to a conscious impulse or conflict.

Issues may be deliberately cut off, but they are not avoided.