Psychological defense and its varieties. Features of the formation of this state and the mechanism of work on specific examples. The voiced methods of psychological defense are quite often extremes in people's behavior. The line between the desire to protect oneself and inadequacy is sometimes very conditional.
When does the psychological defense work?
It is difficult to understand any problem if you do not consider it in detail in practice. Psychological defense mechanisms are usually triggered when the following situations arise:
- Replenishment in the family … In very rare cases, the firstborn is an unwanted child. The growing baby gets used to being the center of the universe for the whole family. When a brother or sister is then born, a young egoist has a regression effect. Psychological trauma of this kind makes the child behave not in accordance with his age. Trying to attract the attention of his parents, he begins to be as capricious as his little rival.
- The reaction of a frightened child … Usually our fears are formed in childhood. The once cult film "It" based on the work of Stephen King horrified a whole generation of young fans to tickle their nerves. The famous actor Johnny Depp still suffers from coulrophobia (fear of clowns). In this case, one of the mechanisms of psychological defense of a person is triggered in the form of an attempt to isolate affect and completely oust it from consciousness, which does not always work out in practice. The same kid, having damaged any valuable thing, will completely deny his involvement in the deed. Such behavior does not always indicate a child's tendency to deceive. It's just that his instinct of self-preservation is triggered by the thought of being punished parents, and his memory obligingly erases any memory of the spoiled thing.
- Behavior of a rejected gentleman or lady … Trying to protect their pride, would-be fans begin to look for all sorts of flaws in the insidious person. In this case, we are talking about rationalization, which helps a person to survive defeat on the love front. If the rejected person behaves with dignity in this situation (begins to write poetry and is engaged in self-education), then we will talk about sublimation.
- Self-defense of a victim of violence … With the help of the internal block in the form of a complete denial of the events that have occurred from them or their displacement from consciousness, people in a similar way try to get rid of the shock. This is especially true for those individuals who have experienced sexual abuse. Some adults believe that if their child is hurt at the hands of a pervert, then with age he will forget about everything. Experts do not advise fathers and mothers of a small victim to relax like this, because the subconscious mind will signal to her about the danger that may come from adults.
- Behavior of a patient with serious pathology … With the help of one of the types of psychological defense in the form of denial, a person tries to convince himself that nothing terrible is happening to him. He will refuse the proposed treatment, considering it a pointless waste of money with a contrived problem.
- Disruption of emotions on loved ones … Quite often, family members get hit when their boss shouted at their relative at work. Constant nagging from management triggers a substitution mechanism when anger spills out onto the immediate environment. In Japan (in order to avoid such behavior) dolls with the appearance of a boss after a stressful day are allowed to be cut into a nut with a bat.
- Student behavior … Young people in most cases delay the preparation for exams to the last or completely ignore it. Justifying their own irresponsibility, they then blame everyone, from the lay professor to the Minister of Education. Projection becomes for them the main way to whitewash themselves in the eyes of the public.
- Fear of plane travel … Aerophobia can be called one of the examples of a person's psychological defense. In this case, we will talk about replacement, when, instead of an airliner, people prefer to travel on a transport that is safer, from their point of view.
- Imitation of idols … Usually, this manifestation of identification is characteristic of children. It is during the period of maturation, dreaming to stand out among their peers, that they begin to see the abilities of superheroes from blockbusters.
- Buying a new pet … Again, we will talk about replacement, when, having taken the death of a cat or a dog hard, people try to acquire an animal similar to them. They will try to name it in the same way, which, in principle, will only aggravate the bitterness of the loss.
What is psychological protection - see the video:
The functions of psychological defense can be viewed from different points of view, but it is based on the instinct of self-preservation. On the one hand, it can be called a positive phenomenon. However, with the same anger and fear, excess energy should find its natural outlet, and not be blocked in the depths of consciousness. The sounded process then becomes a destructive distortion of reality and can end with the same neurosis, stomach ulcer and cardiovascular diseases.
