Explain the defense mechanisms.

 The ego makes use of different defenses to protect itself from being overwhelmed due to these different anxieties. They are called defence mechanisms or ego defenses. They are strategies that are unconsciously used to ward off anxiety arising from unacceptable thoughts or feelings.

1) Repression: This is the principal defense mechanism where the ego unconsciously pushes the painful, troubling or threatening thoughts, experiences, events into the unconscious.

A lot of survivors of childhood abuse tend to forget the details of the abuse. This has not happened because they wanted to forget, but because the psyche couldn’t go on functioning with the memories of trauma continuing to remain in conscious memory.

2) Regression: During stressful times we go back to behaving in ways as we did as a child,e.g., reverting to thumb sucking when in a stressful situation.

3) Suppression: When the ego consciously tries to push experiences into the unconscious, it is known as suppression. An example of this would be trying to forget being scolded in class.

4) Displacement: When the impulse is satisfied by substituting the object. For example, a woman who is upset with her mother-in-law might show her anger on her child.

5) Denial: Overwhelming situations are blocked by the ego from awareness. For example believing that COVID-19 is a hoax or showing unwillingness to take vaccination for it.

Intellectualization: This defense mechanism uses intellectual components to distance painful emotions related to an event. Its aim is to relieve anxiety that is attached to a particular event. 

An example of this would be telling oneself that a loved one who has passed away has gone to a better place, and is no longer sick and in pain. In this way,sense can be made of a loved one’s death, without it causing a psychological breakdown.

6) Rationalization: When an individual uses logic to explain his or her mistakes away, it is called rationalization. It absolves an individual of accountability, e.g., saying “he was one who hit me first” as a way to justify physical violence.

Reaction formation: When the ego cannot accept the unconscious desires and beliefs transforms the individual to act in a way which is completely opposite of those View thoughts and beliefs.

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