3DEFENSE MECHANISMS Conflict between id ego and super ego The ego is always trying to balance the id and superego in order to maintain a healthy state of consciousness and to restore them to reality However before the ego steps in to be the referee much anxiety and stress result In order to overcome this situation the ego defends itself by using defense mechanisms thereby protecting the individual from anxiety that distorts reality Also the ego s defense mechanisms prevent the dangerous unconscious thoughts to enter the conscious domain These mechanisms often appear unconsciously with a key intention of distorting or falsifying reality Once the reality gets falsified or distorted the person s perception of the situation changes and thereby anxiety decreases Though Sigmund Freud observed a number of defense mechanisms it is his daughter Anna Freud who elaborated on those defences The following section will provide you with the existence of 10 major defense mechanisms with appropriate examples This section is to understand how human beings in general and children in particular use their ego as referee in the process of restoring their thoughts and behaviour into reality Denial It is a mechanism by which a person believes certain true facts are actually false Here the external events are just blocked from awareness Have you seen people who smoke Most of them think that they won t get sick from smoking because they are in denial In the attempt to resolve the conflict the ego gives up You would have seen people denying a physician s diagnosis of a disease as correct and seeking a second opinion This is nothing but denial Other examples are people fainting at a threatening situation denying the death of a loved one etc Displacement It is the redirection of an impulse towards a substitute or less threatening target The conflict between id ego and super ego sometimes forces a person to accept superego while redirecting his impulse or drive towards less threatening substitute target Have you ever slammed the door instead of hitting a person If yes you had exhibited the defense mechanism Displacement Other examples are a person after a heated argument with his boss may go home yell at his wife kick the dog beat up a family member or even engage in cross burnings Intellectualization The process by which a person focuses on the intellectual aspects and avoids expressing unacceptable emotions is called intellectualization Actually speaking this defense mechanism helps a person to shape up his personality in a better way When asked to write your positive qualities don t you attribute exaggerated positive traits to yourself This is nothing but intellectualization By attributing exaggerated positive traits you gain confidence or self esteem in yourself One more example of intellectualization is focussing on the details of funeral against expressing sadness and grief towards the death of a loved one Projection It is also called displacement outward It is almost the complete opposite of turning against the self or placing your own unacceptable impulse feelings drives onto someone else It increases the tendency to see one s own fault in others Putting in simple words it is as per the popular saying How you perceive yourself is how you perceive others For example a person who is self centered and could focus only on his her intentions and desires thinks that the next person is also self centered and will not render help to others Rationalization It is a type of defense mechanism wherein logical or rational reasons are supplied instead of the real reason A person applying this mechanism makes excuses as an effort to make it seem the unacceptable behaviour exhibited is okay for certain rational reasons You would have often heard adolescents giving rational reasons for falling in love as because their parents do not show love on them Another example to explain this mechanism is tht a student who cheats on a text may say I only copied few questions and wrote others on my own Reaction Formation It is otherwise called as believing the opposite This happens because the true belief would have caused anxiety in them and hence the person tries to change that unacceptable impulse drive belief into its opposite A very simple example for this mechanism is your own statements given during your adolescent period Boys Don t you say the girls are disgusting Girls Don t you say with equal vigour How gross boys are But we adults will know what your true feelings are Regression It is going back to a previous stage of development when faced with a stressful or threatening situation This is the reason why certain times your behaviour becomes more childish or primitive You very well know that temper tantrums are often exhibited by a preschool child but you at any stage of life might show the same behaviour when you don t see things getting your way Repression It is a defense mechanism wherein you try to push your uncomfortable thoughts out of consciousness Here the ego tries to push your bad or painful memories underneath the surface of the lake It is also referred to as motivated forgetting so that you will not be able to recall a threatening situation person or event For example by the effort you may completely forget a tragic family accident that had happened in your childhood because of recalling the trauma or anxiety you underwent The person holds in their urges just like a tea kettle holding in steam But care should be taken as it would burst at any point in time Introjection It is sometimes called identification It involves taking someone else s personality characteristics into your own as that process helps you to solve some of your own emotional difficulty For example a child who is left alone most of the times take up this defense mechanisms identifying his her mother s characterized and introjecting into himself herself by acting s mom in order to learn his her fears Sublimation It is a most acceptable process of defense mechanism wherein you try to redirect your wrong or unacceptable urges drives into a society acceptable and even in a productive form For a person to be aggressive an easy way of channelizing his impulse is by directing his energy into playing sports thereby sublimation had occurred This synoptic presentation of the major defense mechanisms would have thrown light on how a personality of a man changes from time to time But how do these mechanisms help us to deal with children as the focus of