Morally psychological mechanisms are examples. Defense mechanisms according to Freud with examples

In the life of an individual, internal and external conflicts occur, generated by contradictions between the subjective perception of the world and its objective picture, as well as between the real and the desired image of the Self.

Certain mental processes work to eliminate or minimize negative experiences caused by psychological conflicts. Such regulatory systems of the psyche are called defense mechanisms, and their totality is called the psychological defense of the individual.

Psychological protection is triggered when there is a real or potential threat:

personal integrity,
her identity,
self-esteem,
image of "I"
stability of the subjective picture of the world.

Psychological protection is designed to protect a person from anxiety, anxiety, fear. This system of mechanisms helps a person to survive in society, successfully adapt.

The essence of psychological protection is as follows:

elimination of the source of conflict experiences from the sphere of consciousness,
its transformation, in order to prevent conflict in the psyche,
reducing the severity of experiences through specific behavior.

At the same time, psychological protection does not give the individual the opportunity to take active steps to eliminate the source of experiences. Protecting from excessive inconsistency, smoothing out contradictions, reducing tension, lowering the significance of the situation, psychological protection only hides or transforms the conflict in the perception of a person.

There are situations that require the elimination of their causes and sources. In these cases, psychological defense mechanisms work more to the detriment than to the benefit of the individual.

The main mechanisms of psychological defense

The founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, began to study the mechanisms of psychological defense. He defined them as a way to resolve the conflict between the Id (Unconscious, instincts) and Super-Ego (Super-I, moral attitudes).

In modern science and practice of psychology, more than twenty types of psychological defense mechanisms are distinguished, and seven of the most common of them will be described below.

crowding out

This is the most universal mechanism, which consists in eliminating conflicting experiences, drives, motives, information, and memories from the human mind. They are pushed into the realm of the unconscious. The psyche "hides" an unacceptable phenomenon from consciousness, replacing it with a socially acceptable one. A person cannot remember the repressed negative events, while they are still stored in the depths of his memory, not giving in to awareness.

Inversion or reactive formation

This paradoxical mechanism forces a person to replace unacceptable emotions and manifestations with diametrically opposite ones. For example, experiencing hatred, but not wanting to show it, a person can be emphatically polite, kind, caring, roughly speaking, hatred is replaced by love.

Regression

Return to simpler forms of thinking and behavior. The psyche "falls into childhood", a person begins to think and behave like a child, trying to simplify a too difficult life situation.

Identification

Initially, this is a way for the child to assimilate social norms by copying the behavior of significant adults. This is how children learn, adapt to their social environment, adopt ideals and patterns of behavior. As a psychological defense mechanism, identification is an unconscious copying of the desired personality traits, thereby covering up their absence and a sense of inferiority.

Rationalization

The ability of a person to explain rationally unacceptable for himself or for society, irrational drives and instincts. When such a mechanism comes into force, the significance of forbidden desires is reduced, overestimated, a person convinces himself that he does not really need an object of desire, “calms down” unconscious impulses with reasoning.

Sublimation

This is a specific psychological defense mechanism designed to transform a specific type of energy - sexual desire - into a social activity of the individual. Very often, sexual energy that has not found a way out or is excessive gives strength for creativity, sports, active study and work.

Projection

An easy-to-understand psychological defense mechanism. It works when a person unconsciously attributes rejected and unacceptable qualities and patterns of behavior to other people.

When psychological defense mechanisms turn out to be ineffective, a person needs to either change the conflict situation (up to its complete elimination), or change himself, transform, adapt, change his worldview in such a way that the problem situation ceases to be such.

Human life consists not only of pleasant and joyful moments. Stress, tension, troubles at work and at home - all this also inevitably surrounds us. This, it would seem, should make human existence unbearable, but no, we are experiencing problems, we are trying to come to an agreement with ourselves. Here, the mechanisms of psychological protection of the individual come to our aid.

What it is

The concept of psychological defense was introduced into science by the world famous psychologist. It was he who noticed that in difficult moments a person comes to the aid of special psychological mechanisms, due to which experiences, anxiety decrease, and a feeling of relief comes.

It is important to note that the functions of psychological defense are generally positive, as they protect a person from unnecessary experiences, eliminate stress, and help maintain self-respect. But if this comfortable state is fixed for a long time, then self-deception or an incorrect perception of reality is not excluded.

Variety of ways

Currently, the following types of psychological defense are the most studied:

Crowding out.
Negation.
Regression.
Compensation.
Rationalization.
Reactive education.
Depreciation.
Fantasizing.
Insulation.

With a detailed examination, probably, each person will be able to find out the techniques that his psyche used as a defense.

Crowding out. With this type of protection, traumatic circumstances or unpleasant information pass from a person’s consciousness to the subconscious. But the problem does not go away - it remains in the psyche, maintaining emotional stress and affecting human behavior.

So, for example, repression as a psychological defense of the individual is very clearly manifested in people who have experienced violence. The emotional shock from the experience is so strong that the traumatic memory is sent deep into the subconscious. Thus, if we repeatedly forget something, then it is worth asking ourselves if we really need this information.

But sometimes the repressed memory shows itself. This is especially evident in human behavior. For example, a woman who has experienced violence may show distrust, anxiety, and even fear when interacting with men. Sometimes the repressed information comes out in slips of the tongue, slips of the tongue, slips of the tongue, and so on. Psychosexual disturbances or psychosomatic illnesses may also appear as a result of repression.

Negation. For the first time this mechanism manifests itself in early childhood. When denied, information that leads to internal disharmony or anxiety is not perceived.

For example, most people who have any kind of bad habit are ready to deny the obvious facts of disappointing statistics. After all, their agreement with them would mean an awareness of the damage they cause to their health.

Denial also helps to get away from circumstances that can be traumatic. For example, fearing to lose, a person avoids participating in competitions.

Regression. With this type of psychological defense, a person, in order to avoid anxiety, reacts to what is happening in the same way as he would have done at an earlier stage of life. So, in adults, children's behavior, excessive sentimentality, infantilism are noted. All this is present when the "Ego" does not want to recognize the existing reality.

Identification. Attracting this method of psychological protection, a person adopts the characteristic features of the personality and behavior of another individual.

So, being not brave enough, a person identifies himself with a courageous person. Thus, he achieves self-confidence and growth in his own eyes. For example, a child who is afraid of a parent unconsciously wants to be like him.

Compensation. In this case, a person makes great efforts to succeed where he is most vulnerable. Compensation also appears when disturbing circumstances are overcome with the help of over-satisfaction in other areas.

For example, a physically weak or cowardly person who finds it difficult to give a direct response to a threat tries to humiliate the offender with the help of his mind or resourcefulness, thereby finding satisfaction.

Projection. The mechanism of this protection consists in the transfer of thoughts, feelings, actions that are not accepted in oneself by a person to someone else. So, the proverb “He sees a speck in someone else's eye, but does not notice a log in his own” vividly illustrates this method of protection. Blaming others for your failures and problems also occurs within the framework of the projection.

Substitution. This is a mechanism in which there is a surge of emotions (most often anger, anger) on the least dangerous objects than those that provoked them.

Substitution can often be observed in everyday life. Often people simply do not have the opportunity to punish the one who offended them, treated them unfairly. A vivid example of substitution, when a person who is dissatisfied or offended by the boss and not having the opportunity to express it to him, when he comes home, transfers his indignation to his wife and children.

Rationalization. With this type of psychological defense, the individual tries to logically explain his oversights and failures. And it happens that he convinces himself and loved ones that everything is fine.

For example, a woman whose husband has left her tells herself and her friends that he worked little, did not help her, had a bad temper and smoked a lot. As they say: “I didn’t really want to.”

Also, an example of rationalization can be seen in the fable "The Fox and the Grapes", when, looking at the beautiful berries and not being able to pick them, the Fox began to persuade herself that the grapes were still green.

Reactive education. According to Freud, this defense mechanism is triggered when there is a possibility that previously repressed desires, thoughts that are unacceptable to the environment or the individual himself can return to consciousness. Then the person begins to behave contrary to these unacceptable urges.

For example, a man's excessive love for a woman can be transformed into hatred for her. Or a man who has homosexual inclinations may manifest himself as an ardent supporter of exclusively heterosexual feelings.

Thus, reality is greatly distorted, and it is difficult to understand the true attitude of a person to a particular situation. After all, an unkind attitude can actually be the result of strong, sometimes unrequited feelings.

Sublimation. This type of psychological defense involves the transformation of initially sexual impulses into others acceptable in society.

For example, a young man who has a penchant for or even sadism can realize his desires in writing literary works, paintings, and also playing sports. Thus, he sublimates his inclinations into a socially accepted and useful activity. Z. Freud in his works notes that the sublimation of sexual impulses has become the basis of the cultural movement in the West.

Depreciation. The methods and techniques of psychological defense described above are relatively humane in relation to the outside world. Depreciation is, on the contrary, one of the toughest ways to protect others.

A person who underestimates or even devalues himself wants to humiliate his entire environment. This is how he saves his self-esteem.

This mechanism can be most often observed among young people, because it is in adolescence that people most often have low self-esteem. This is often the reason for the ironic, unkind attitude of young people towards each other and the rest of those around them.

Fantasizing. This method of protection is characterized by the fact that a person lives in an illusory, fantasy world. Thanks to fantasies, self-doubt and anxiety are softened. In their fantasies, such people can be winners, rich, successful in personal relationships.

Z. Freud noted that happy people either never fantasize or do it very rarely. A satisfied person simply does not need it. As a result, it may happen that a person begins to live in an unreal, invented world.

Insulation. With this method of protection, a person divides his personality into two or more. One of them is separated, namely the one that causes discomfort, tension.

A striking example of this form of psychological defense is the behavior of a child who did something bad, and then "turned" into a different person (a toy, a fairy-tale character, etc.) and confesses that he saw the boy do something bad, and he's not to blame.

Classification

When classifying, methods of psychological defense are divided into mature and primitive. The mature ones include sublimation, fantasizing, regression, etc., while the primitive ones include denial, projection, depreciation, etc.

B.D. offers his own division of defenses. Karvasarsky. He divides them into four groups.

First group. It includes mechanisms that do not process information, but can displace, suppress, block, deny it.

Second group. This includes types of defenses that distort the content of a person’s thoughts, experiences (rationalization, projection, isolation, identification).

Third group. This group includes those types of defenses due to which emotional discharge occurs. The most striking example is sublimation.

Fourth group. It includes those types of defenses that allow manipulation (regression, fantasizing, idealization, depreciation).

Meaning

There are two general characteristics that psychological defense methods are endowed with:

They work on a subconscious level.
They deform, sweep away, distort the surrounding reality.

A person most often uses different methods of psychological defense at the same time in order to most effectively protect himself from what injures, worries, worries.

Thanks to research, the main thing was clarified: psychological defenses are completely normal. Largely thanks to them, a person in the outside world finds harmony with himself, gets rid of anxiety, stress, tension.

And in order to neutralize some features of the "work" of psychological defense, it is not the behavior of a person that needs to be corrected - it is necessary to eliminate the consequences of the trauma, due to which the defense of the psyche has become more active. Author: Yana Glukhova

Topic: "Psychological defense mechanisms"

Moscow 2013

Introduction

Chapter 2. Mechanisms of psychological defense

2.1 The concept of psychological defense mechanism

2 Psychological defense mechanisms

Conclusion

Bibliographic list

Introduction

Almost every day a person is faced with such situations when an existing need cannot be satisfied for any objective or subjective reasons. In such cases, behavior is usually regulated by psychological defense mechanisms that aim to prevent conduct disorders.

Psychological protection is associated with a change in the system of internal values of the individual, aimed at reducing the level of subjective significance of the corresponding experience in order to minimize psychologically traumatic moments. So, for example, R.M. Granovskaya, Doctor of Psychology, believes that "the functions of psychological defense are inherently contradictory: on the one hand, they contribute to a person's adaptation to his own inner world, but at the same time, on the other hand, they can worsen adaptability to the external social environment."

Psychological defense can also become a problem when it ceases to provide our comfort and safety and begins to cause trouble, and in order for this not to happen, you need to have at least the slightest idea of \u200b\u200bthe basic defense mechanisms.

I have to find out what mechanisms exist and how they can influence us and our behavior. This is the purpose of my research.

In order to achieve my goal, I have to solve a number of tasks, such as: find out what psychological defense mechanisms are, highlight the main ones and give them a brief explanation.

The methods of my research are analysis, synthesis, induction, and the object is the mechanisms of psychological defense.

The practical significance of my abstract is determined by the fact that the results of my generalization can be used in the educational process.

Chapter 1. The concept of psychological protection

What exactly is psychological protection?

Psychological protection is a regulative system of mental stabilization of the personality, aimed at eliminating (reducing) the negative effect caused by any psycho-traumatic effect.

It protects the personality from psychotraumatic experiences, in particular, displacing them into unconscious sensations, feelings, ideas. Psychological protection forms the psychological security of the individual. This is one of the components of the anti-suicidal barrier.

Consider also one more concept for this term.

Psychological protection is also considered as special techniques and actions taken by a person in order to maintain a positive self-image, normal well-being when negative personality traits, immoral thoughts, actions or ignoble feelings are attributed to him. This concept will be more understandable for any person.

Psychological protection can be represented as a system of mechanisms aimed at minimizing negative experiences associated with conflicts that threaten the integrity of the individual.

Such conflicts can be provoked both by contradictory attitudes in the personality itself, and by a mismatch of external information and the image of the world and the image formed in the personality. Sigmund Freud, an Austrian psychologist, psychiatrist and neurologist, who first approached the problem of psychological conflicts, interpreted them as a form of conflict resolution between unconscious drives and internalized social demands or prohibitions.

Subsequently, as a result of numerous studies conducted primarily in clinical practice, various types of psychological defense mechanisms were identified. Due to the implementation of psychological mechanisms, as a rule, only relative personal well-being is achieved. But unresolved problems become chronic, as a person deprives himself of the opportunity to actively influence the situation in order to eliminate the source of negative experiences. Psychological defense plays the most positive role when the problems that arise are of little significance and are not worth dealing with at all.

The functional purpose and goal of psychological defense is to reduce the intrapersonal conflict (tension, anxiety) between the instinctive impulses of the unconscious and the learned requirements of the external environment that arise as a result of social interaction. By weakening this conflict, protection regulates human behavior, increasing its adaptability and balancing the psyche. At the same time, a person can express the conflict between need and fear in different ways:

· through mental transformations,

· through bodily disorders (dysfunctions), manifested in the form of chronic psychosomatic symptoms,

· in the form of behavior change.

If the protective mechanisms of the psyche of a person are weak, fear and discomfort will inevitably overwhelm his soul. At the same time, to maintain the protection mechanisms at an optimal level, a constant expenditure of energy is required. And these costs can be so significant, and even unbearable for the individual, that in some cases it can lead to the appearance of specific neurotic symptoms and impaired adaptability.

The problem of psychological defense contains a central contradiction between a person's desire to maintain mental balance and the losses that an excessive invasion of defenses leads to. On the one hand, the benefits of all types of defenses, designed to reduce the tension accumulating in the human soul by distorting the initial information or a corresponding change in behavior, are undoubted. On the other hand, their excessive inclusion does not allow the individual to realize the objective, true situation, adequately and creatively interact with the world.

Thus, psychological protection plays a huge role for a person in solving any problems, resolving complex and incomprehensible situations.

Chapter 2. Mechanisms of psychological defense

Having clarified the concept of psychological defense, we can proceed to the definition of its mechanisms.

2.1 The concept of psychological defense mechanism

Psychological defense mechanisms are a set of such unconscious techniques, thanks to which a person provides his inner comfort, protecting himself from negative experiences and mental trauma.

As a rule, psychological defense mechanisms include denial, repression, projection, identification, rationalization, substitution, isolation, and some others. Different scientists consider various mechanisms, but I would like to dwell on the mechanisms of psychological defense by characterizing each of these mechanisms as R. M. Granovskaya describes them.

Let's start with such a mechanism as denial.

Denial - an unconscious refusal of a person to perceive information that is unpleasant for him, a mechanism for rejecting thoughts, feelings, desires, needs or reality that are unacceptable at a conscious level.

Denial comes down to the fact that the information that disturbs is not perceived. This method of protection is characterized by a noticeable distortion of the perception of reality. Denial is formed in childhood (if you hide your head under the covers, then reality will cease to exist) and often does not allow people to adequately assess what is happening around, which leads to difficulties in behavior. Adults often use denial in cases of crisis situations (terminal illness, approaching death, loss of a loved one, etc.).

So a person can listen carefully, but not perceive information if it poses a threat to his status, prestige. In this case, we should talk about denial. Also, it is hardly possible to achieve the desired result by telling a person “the truth in the face”, since most likely he will simply ignore this information. That is why psychology and pedagogy recommend never discussing a person's personality, but only his negative act.

The next psychological defense mechanism is repression.

Repression is the most universal way to get rid of an internal conflict by actively turning off an unacceptable motive or unpleasant information from consciousness. Repression is the process of exclusion from consciousness of thoughts, feelings, desires and drives that cause pain, shame or guilt. The operation of this mechanism can explain many cases of a person forgetting the performance of some duties, which, as it turns out, on closer examination, are unpleasant for him. Memories of unpleasant incidents are often suppressed. If any segment of a person's life path is filled with especially difficult experiences, amnesia can cover such segments of a person's past life.

Interestingly, what is most quickly repressed and forgotten by a person is not the bad that others have done to him, but the bad that he has done to himself or others. Ingratitude, all kinds of envy and a great many inferiority complexes are connected with this mechanism, which are forced out with terrible force.

This mechanism is also described in Leo Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace" on the example of Nikolai Rostov, who quite sincerely "forgot" about his non-heroic behavior in the first battle, but described his exploits with emotional uplift.

Let's move on to projection as a psychological defense mechanism.

Projection is an unconscious attribution of one's own, most often socially condemned qualities to another person, an unconscious transfer to another person of one's own feelings, desires and inclinations, in which a person does not want to admit to himself, realizing their social unacceptability. The projection mechanism allows you to justify your own actions. An example would be the case when a person showed aggression towards another, he often has a tendency to reduce the attractive qualities of the victim. In this case, such a person unconsciously ascribes cruelty and dishonesty to those around him, and since those around him are like that, then in his mind his similar attitude towards them becomes justified. As a matter of fact, they deserve it.

Identification is also one of the main mechanisms of psychological defense.

Identification is the process of unconsciously identifying oneself with another subject, group, model, ideal.

In the process of identification, one person unconsciously becomes like another (the object of identification). Both individuals and groups can act as objects of identification. Identification leads to imitation of the actions and experiences of another person. In a child, this mechanism often manifests itself in their unconscious imitation of one of the adults, most often a parent of the same sex, in adults - in the worship of an idol. Thus, according to Freud, with the help of identification, young children learn the behaviors of people who are significant to them, form the Super-I, take on a male or female role.

Sigmund Freud argued that identification is a defense against an object (which causes fear) by assimilation to it. So, the boy unconsciously inherits a strong and strict father and thereby seeks to earn his love and respect. Through arbitrary identification with the aggressor, the subject can get rid of fear. Through identification, symbolic possession of a desired but unattainable object is also achieved.

Identification leads to an increase in the individual's energy potential due to the symbolic "borrowing" of energy from other people.

Let's move on to rationalization.

Rationalization is a pseudo-rational explanation by a person of his own aspirations, motives for actions, actions actually caused by reasons, the recognition of which would threaten the loss of self-respect.

Self-affirmation, protection of one's own "I" - the main motive for the actualization of this mechanism of psychological protection of the individual.

Rationalization is an explanation by a person of his own intentions and aspirations for the purpose of self-justification and self-affirmation. At the same time, true motives are not recognized, since their awareness (if they are socially undesirable) would lead to a loss of self-respect.

It is striking that whenever a person is asked why he acted this way and not otherwise, his motives (in the opinion of the person) as a rule turn out to be "good". As a result of this psychological defense mechanism, a person rarely recognizes his intentions as immoral.

One of the mechanisms of psychological defense is also substitution.

Substitution is the realization of unsatisfied desires and aspirations with the help of another object. In other words, substitution is the transfer of needs and desires to another, more accessible object.

If it is impossible to satisfy some of his needs with the help of one object, a person can find another object (more accessible) to satisfy it.

In the case of substitution, there is a partial discharge of energy, tension, which is created by one need and is associated with a certain transfer of energy to another object. But this does not always lead to the achievement of the desired goal, since there is a threat of restoration of tension.

For example, if the person you love and with whom you associated the satisfaction of your needs and desires is inaccessible to you, then you transfer all your feelings and possibilities for satisfying needs to another person. And if your dream of becoming a writer has not come true, then you can choose the profession of a literature teacher as a substitute, partially satisfying your creative needs.

The inability to directly express their dissatisfaction with the high authorities, a person takes out on his own subordinates, close people, children, etc.

The efficiency of replacement depends on how similar the replacement object is to the previous object (with which the satisfaction of the need was first associated). The maximum similarity of the replacement object guarantees the satisfaction of more needs that were first associated with the previous object.

Let's move on to inclusion.

Inclusion - empathy as a way to alleviate one's own internal tension. It is a method of psychological defense close to rationalization, in which the significance of the traumatic factor is also overestimated. For this, a new global system of values is used, where the old system is included as a part, and then the relative importance of the traumatic factor decreases against the background of other, more powerful ones. An example of protection by the type of inclusion is catharsis - the relief of internal conflict with empathy. If a person observes and empathizes with the dramatic situations of other people, which are significantly more painful and traumatic than those that disturb him, he begins to look at his troubles differently, evaluating them in comparison with others.

From the foregoing, it becomes clear that people who are able to sincerely empathize with the suffering of others, not only alleviate them for others, but contribute to the improvement of their own mental health.

For example, empathizing with the heroes of another soap opera, people are distracted from their own, sometimes more significant and significant problems. protection psychological conflict identification

Consider the last mechanism of psychological defense.

Isolation - isolation within the consciousness of traumatic factors for a person. At the same time, unpleasant emotions are blocked by consciousness, i.e. there is no connection between the emotional coloring and the event. This type of defense resembles alienation syndrome, which is characterized by a feeling of loss of emotional connection with other people, previously significant events or one's own experiences, although their reality is recognized.

Vivid examples of such a mechanism can often be alcoholism, suicide, vagrancy.

So, having considered all the mechanisms of psychological defense that were described by R.M. Granovskaya, we can conclude that psychological protection can help maintain a person’s internal comfort, even if he violates social norms and prohibitions, since it creates the basis for self-justification. If a person treats himself as a whole positively, admits in his consciousness the idea of his imperfection, shortcomings, then he takes the path of overcoming the contradictions that arise. However, it should be noted that it is necessary to know all the mechanisms in order to understand how to follow the path of self-improvement, solve problems, and not avoid or resort to psychological defense mechanisms.

Conclusion

So, having found out what psychological defense mechanisms are, highlighting the main ones and giving them a brief explanation, I can say that I have achieved the goal of this work - I found out what mechanisms exist and how they can influence us and our behavior.

These mechanisms are used by a person directly in practice, most often thoughtlessly, at a subconscious level, because it is already laid down by nature. Each person should be able to protect himself in a conflict situation, and these mechanisms help in this.

Defense mechanisms play, of course, a more maladaptive role, since by their nature they distort the perception of reality, but they can also be considered as adaptive, protecting not only a person's self-esteem, but helping him to cope with life's difficulties and difficult situations. Psychological defense mechanisms help us reduce stress or avoid it altogether. They often suggest possible solutions to problems, as well as provide respite and refuge from troubles that a person has no real opportunity to avoid.

List of sources and literature

Psychology of consciousness / Comp. and the general edition of L. V. Kulikov. - St. Petersburg: Peter, 2001. - 480 p.: ill. - (Series "Anthology on psychology").

Zelinsky S.A. Management of the psyche through manipulative influence. Subliminal mechanisms of manipulative influence on the psyche of the individual and the masses in order to program them to perform specified actions. - Minsk 2009 332 p.

R. Kociunas Fundamentals of psychological counseling - M .: "Academic project", 1999

Mechanisms of psychological defense and coping with stress - R. R. Nabiullina, I. V. Tukhtarova

Freud A. Psychology "I" and protective mechanisms. - M., 1993.

Romanova E.S., Grebennikov L.R. Mechanisms of psychological protection. - M., 1996

Zhurbin V. Concepts of psychological defense in the concepts of Z. Freud and K. Rogers// Vopr. psychology. 1990, No. 4

Berezin F.B. Mental and psychophysiological adaptation of a person. - L., 1988

Mikhailov A.N., Rotenberg V.S. Peculiarities of psychological protection in health and in somatic diseases// Vopr. psychology. 1990, No. 5, p.106

In this regard, it is difficult to consider M.P.Z. isolated from other mental processes, it is difficult to classify them according to clear criteria. Implementation mechanism and reason for M.P.Z. cannot be considered separately from the difference in general and from the model of the psyche, since the defense mechanisms are clearly tied to this model and are one of its necessary components.

Main types of M.P.Z.:

Suppression (displacement);

Negation;

Compensation (hypercompensation);

Regression (infantilization);

Jet formations;

Projection;

substitution;

Rationalization.

In the history of the study of M.P.Z. there are more than two dozen of them.

Defense mechanisms lie on the border of the conscious world and the unconscious and are a kind of filter between them. The role of this filter is diverse - from protection from negative emotions, feelings, and unacceptable information associated with them, to deeply pathological (the formation of various types of neuroses and neurotic reactions).

M.P.Z. also participate in the processes of resistance to psychotherapeutic changes. One of their important functions is to maintain the homeostasis of the personality, psyche and protect it from sudden changes. If M.P.Z. there would not have been a variety of characters, personalities, accentuations, psychopathy, since a person could easily assimilate new information every time it comes to him, and constantly change; several such changes could occur in one day. It is clear that under such conditions it is impossible to form relationships between people - friendly, family, partnership, except, perhaps, professional ones (and then only where professional skills are required without the participation of the individual, and there are very few such professions).

First of all, thanks to M.P.Z. we cannot quickly change for good or for bad. If a person has changed dramatically, then he either went crazy (a mental illness, but it will be obvious to a non-professional what happened there), or the changes accumulated inside the personality model for a long time and at one fine moment just appeared.

The system of the psyche (our model of the world) protects itself from changes - not only from negative emotions, feelings and unpleasant information, but also from any other information that is unacceptable to the human belief system.

Example. Deeply religious or magical thinking will automatically resist a scientific approach, and vice versa - scientific thinking will resist a deep religious or magical perception (however, there are always exceptions).

Therefore, it is possible to change only by changing the entire model of the world along with the M.P.Z., which can be found at home, analyzed and redirected their influence in a favorable direction.

To do this, it is worth considering the main types of M.P.Z. separately.

1. Repression (suppression, repression). This type of protection transfers unacceptable information from consciousness to the unconscious (for example, contrary to morality) or suppresses negative feelings, emotions. Any information and any feelings (even those that have a positive effect on the psyche) can be suppressed if they do not coincide with the model of the world. At the same time, according to the law of conservation of energy, everything that is suppressed does not go anywhere from us, but only transforms into other forms, triggering even more pathological processes. Up to a certain level, we can accumulate negative information or feelings, at best, we can completely dissolve a small negative in our unconscious (the buffer system simply dissipates this part of the displaced energy), but its possibilities are small, so it turns out that in most cases the accumulated negative information and / or feelings are looking for other ways out.

Since repression works like a valve, passing feelings and information only towards the unconscious and not giving them the opportunity to go back, there is nothing left for her to do but change in order to express herself - “up” (into the psyche) in the form of anxiety, anger, insomnia or "down" (into the body) in the form of psychosomatization and conversion syndromes. Once the negative feelings have accumulated to a critical level, they will inevitably cause a feeling of tension in the unconscious (like tension in a computer that runs at full power without interruption). This tension, being non-specific (as opposed to a causal repressed feeling), will easily penetrate into any layers of the psyche, including consciousness. This is how the initial stage of many neuroses is formed.

The feeling of tension is realized by us, and then, depending on our personality, it will be transformed either into a feeling of general anxiety (which will be differentiated and concretized over time), or into a feeling of general irritability, which will also be formed over time into specific irritability or anger at a person. , a group of people or an event. Insomnia appears as a result of tension within the unconscious and is one of the most common symptoms of a neurotic lifestyle. Psychosomatics appears when most of the repressed feelings have gone deeper into the nervous system, disrupting the work of the autonomic nervous system. Symptoms can be completely different - in general, this is a functional violation of one or another body system: from thermoregulation and a coma in the throat to a decrease in immunity and, as a result, frequent colds. The most common psychosomatic disorders in the form of tension in the skeletal muscles (lump in the throat, tension in the muscles of the neck, shoulder girdle, back as a result of exacerbation of osteochondrosis), hypertension or hypotension (fluctuations in blood pressure and pulse), dizziness, increased fatigue, general weakness, C .R.K., neurosis of the heart, etc. (for more details, see Formation of neurosis).

Repression is difficult enough to deal with, but be that as it may, the first stage of the struggle should be the expression (albeit non-specific) of repressed feelings through analysis and introspection. On an intuitive level, we guess what? suppressed in themselves. Using special purification techniques and artificially intensifying your emotions, you need to force their manifestation in order to fully express and empty the tense unconscious. In this case, it is desirable to go through several successive stages - from slight tension, anger and rage to tears, sobs, weakness, calm (the most effective example is the technique of dynamic meditation).

The basis of the fight against repression will be a change in the habit of resolving stressful situations by suppression. You need to learn to express emotions even in those situations where, it would seem, their expression is impossible (see Emotions. Feelings. Ways of expressing emotions).

The ability to recognize your emotions in time will greatly help to express them in time (the inability to recognize emotions is called alexithymia). Double standards, split personality (many subpersonalities that contradict each other), hedonism or moralizing (any extremes) will contribute to the habit of repressing and suppressing feelings and emotions.

2. Compensation (hyper compensation). This defense mechanism manifests itself when underdevelopment in one area of life is compensated by development in another area (or even several). In other words, when a void in one area of the psyche is filled with external (emptiness in the soul, excessive desire for communication, including in social networks) or internal (fantasy, leaving for a "bright" future, dreaminess, imagination of what is not) factors in other areas. In certain amounts, compensation is an auxiliary mechanism for the development of skills, maintaining a balance in the psyche through success in compensatory areas. For a child and a teenager, it acts as a developmental mechanism. However, if this mechanism is strongly expressed, then there is a pathological effect on life and the psyche.

If a person constantly compensates for an undeveloped sphere or dissatisfaction with something else, then he becomes dependent on this “other” (a person-compensator or compensatory sphere of activity), the development of other spheres completely stops. The result is a one-sided, inferior development of the personality with distortions in one area and a complete lack of abilities in another, vital environment. This leads to partial maladjustment when a person comes into contact with the causal sphere for compensation.

Also dangerous is the mechanism of disruption of compensation if the cause of compensation goes away. For example If a person moved from one relationship immediately to another, thus compensating for the old ones, then he will stay in the new ones only as long as he has dissatisfaction, unresolved, painful memories of the old ones. As soon as these emotions disappear, the desire to be in a new relationship immediately disappears, since they were exclusively compensatory in nature.

The same thing happens with compensatory behavior - it immediately disappears when the reason for compensation disappears (for example, playing sports with low self-esteem: when self-esteem rises, then sport is abandoned, since it was purely compensatory in nature). Another common example are computer games when played by adults. As a rule, this is of a compensatory nature - dissatisfaction in life (material, status, career, power) is compensated by easy and quick victories in military strategies, economic simulations and other games.

Compensating spheres or people become objects of dependence, rather artificial relationships are formed with them than sincere ones. In such relationships, neuroses easily arise.

Alcoholism and drug addiction are often based on compensation - dissatisfaction in life is compensated by enjoyment and a change in reality in the other direction. When taking these psychoactive substances, the emergence of psychological dependence is obvious, with time increasing biological dependence on the drug (however, not only compensation underlies addictions).

The desire for power and money is also often based on compensation. Having low self-esteem, a person, as a rule, seeks to increase it by accumulating the values of society - money, power, status. The compensation mechanism works as long as the compensatory sphere is developed, and it is possible to achieve success in it. Otherwise, a double breakdown occurs: firstly, the absence of a compensatory area or a person-compensator, and secondly, a return to the initial dissatisfaction and complete underdevelopment of that sphere (self-esteem), in relation to which sometimes long-term compensation was built. What a person compensates for - an underdeveloped area in the psyche, body, low self-esteem - does not develop in any way during the compensation process, which turns this psychological defense mechanism into a time bomb.

Solution for pathological compensation. First you need to analyze whether it is present at all in life, if so, then understand its main causes (internal emptiness, dissatisfaction, low self-esteem, underdevelopment in some area) and what compensates for (region, person). All efforts should be directed not to the termination of compensation, otherwise it will cause great stress or simply a change in the compensatory area, but to the reason for which this pathological mechanism is turned on. This cause (the undeveloped area), no matter how much you would like the opposite, you need to try to develop as much as possible. If it is impossible to develop the problem area, it is necessary to accept the reality as it is, without the formation of dissatisfaction, because this feeling has no place in the natural state of things. It is necessary to completely close the previous pathological stressful relationships and work on the right increase in self-esteem, without compensating for its lack by the endless pursuit of money, power, status, etc.

3. Rationalization. This mechanism is an attempt to control negative or unacceptable information for us through distortion in order to protect any fact or human behavior. In other words, when a person rationalizes, he, using the plasticity of logic (see Plasticity of logic), adjusts an event or the behavior of another person to his model of the world, while rationally distorting many facts of this event. As an example- justification of one's own or someone else's immoral behavior.

It may seem that rationalization concerns only the cognitive (mental, ideological) link, but this is not true, since any information that poses a danger to us is loaded with emotionally negative emotions, and therefore we begin to defend ourselves against it. After the information and emotions have been adjusted to their perception model, they are already devoid of danger, and this fact is perceived as true - that is, the person himself does not see any distortions. Example: reasoning about war can lead to the conclusion about its usefulness for society, since it provides the flow of new resources, the renewal of the economy, etc.

4. Intellectualization. This is an attempt to control negative emotions through the use of a rational link, so that these emotions can be explained not through their true cause (since it does not suit a person, like negative emotions themselves), but through other reasons and facts - incorrect, but acceptable. The emotion itself is then misinterpreted as a result of a turbulent thought process, which automatically makes its expression impossible. This leads to the dissociation of the thought process aimed at emotion and the sensory flow itself, originally associated with the fact. Simply put, we process a negative, unacceptable fact in such a way that we end up depriving it of an emotional component, which is simply suppressed (by dissociating from the thought process itself).

Example: the person who stole for the first time immediately experienced unpleasant feelings of guilt about this, but in the process of intellectualization he fully justifies himself (“many people do this, even my boss, so why am I worse?”, “There is nothing wrong with this, since this good for me and my family” and similar misconceptions).

Great damage to the psyche occurs due to the suppressed emotion of guilt, which, one way or another, now in the unconscious will fulfill its function of self-punishment (see Guilt. Pathology).

5. Denial. Any unacceptable and painful fact can be completely denied by our perception as non-existent. Of course, deep down, in the unconscious, we understand that this has either already happened, or is happening now, or will happen in the future. That is, in addition to perception, the participation of various layers of our psyche is obligatory here, in particular, the mind, which can easily deny the existence of any real fact or assert the existence of an unreal fact or event. However, complete denial cannot occur due to the fact that, when faced with extremely unacceptable information, we immediately pass it through ourselves, where it leaves its mark. In this sense, denial is similar to rationalization (logical denial of the existence of a fact) and repression (repression of extremely negative feelings into the unconscious) - these two processes occur simultaneously.

The brightest example denial is a person's reaction to a pronounced stressful event in life - the death of a loved one, betrayal or betrayal, etc. First of all, many people react to this by denying the fact of this negative event (“no, this cannot be!”, “I don’t believe that this could happen”). Further, either the normal process of experiencing a stressful event is turned on, or denial is fixed in the psyche, which invariably leads to negative consequences. The consequences are expressed in the fact that a person cannot adequately relate to a sad event, for example, does not come to a funeral or lives as if the deceased person is next to him or left for a while; continues to build relationships with a traitor, a traitor, without making any attempts to solve the problem. In addition, there is a deep suppression of sorrowful feelings of loss, which most often turn into psychosomatic symptoms and cause a violation of various body systems (jumps in blood pressure and pulse, S.R.K., a drop in immunity, hormonal disorders, etc.).

Solution. In the normal state, denial works to limit the flow of information that flows into our psyches in abundance. Also, denial helps to partially mitigate the extremely unpleasant stressful fact at the very beginning of contact with it. However, then it must switch to other forms of natural reactions, to stress. Since the mechanism is unconscious, it is impossible to "catch" it during its operation. Therefore, it is worth analyzing past stressful events for the manifestation of protection through denial and the consequences of it. If you find it there, most likely it works in the present tense, so you need to do a hypothetical analysis and understand where denial can manifest itself now. To do this, it is necessary to determine all stress factors that are present at the moment in life, as well as over the past 3 years. Then analyze which reactions in feelings, thoughts or behavior followed the stress immediately, and which ones were delayed. This will reveal not only denial, but also all other mechanisms of psychological defenses.

To deal specifically with denial, one must address a fact that was repressed and that was unacceptable and therefore excluded as causing suffering. You need to accept this fact, live it (perhaps through sadness, grief, longing, anger, hatred, contempt and other emotions that will eventually go away through your expression), and then try to adapt to it from the position of the norm, not including, if possible, other means of protecting against it, or including them deliberately in controlled doses (so they will be safe).

6. Regression. This method involves not only descending to a lower level in the development of the personality, where there is (did not exist) a “complex” problem, but also transferring it into the past, as if it had already exhausted itself. But in fact, it either continues to exist now, or has recently really resolved, but this only means that after a while it will repeat again (for example, pathological cyclic relationships, a pathological cyclic scenario in life, addictions), or it has ended, but thanks to regression, there was no adequate response to the stressful event, and negative experiences were only partially suppressed.

Regression is interesting in that it affects the whole personality as a whole. A person should, as it were, degrade, become more primitive, more ignorant, immoral than he really was. This is often accompanied by infantilization of the personality (return to childish, adolescent behavior), primitivization of behavior, regression of creative abilities and moral and ethical values. This method contains a part of denial, part of suppression and avoidance. A person with this protection tries to solve all subsequent problems in the easiest way.

7. Substitution (shift). Here, an inexpressible feeling or opinion is redirected from the object to which they are intended (friend, boss, relative) to any other object (alive or not alive, the main thing is safe for expression) in order to reduce tension through the expression of a specific emotion or feeling, a negative opinion .

The most common example: when a person receives a dose of negativity at work from a manager (colleagues, clients), but cannot express it because of fear of losing his job or his status, he brings this negativity home and begins to “chase” household members, breaks doors, dishes, etc. . To some extent, this reduces tension, but not completely, since the full release of emotion is possible only in relation to the object that caused it.

In small amounts, this protection helps to distribute and redirect feelings in a safe direction, thereby helping a person. But if the substitution is expressed strongly, then it will bring problems. The reasons for them may be different: an inferior expression of feelings to the object-substitute (when part of the energy has to be suppressed), the reverse negative reaction of the substitutes to the person who “merges” on them the negative that they do not understand; formation of double standards; inauthentic existence (the impossibility of full-fledged self-expression), which does not solve the problem with the object that causes initial negative experiences.

Typically, the substitution is traced from one external object to another external, but there are other options. For example, auto-aggression is the displacement of anger from an external object onto oneself. The shift from an internal object to an external one is called a projection.

8. Projection. This is a defense mechanism in which we impose our negative experiences and thoughts on another person (other people or even entire events in life) in order to justify and protect ourselves and our attitude towards him (to them). Simply put, this happens when we judge others by ourselves, once again making sure that we are right. By projecting onto others what is happening in us (usually negative feelings and thoughts), we mistakenly attribute it to other people (events), protecting ourselves from our own negativity. In small amounts, projection helps to move negativity from oneself to others, but in most cases, projection performs a negative function in a person's life. Double standards, lack of self-reflection (criticism of one's behavior), low level of awareness, transfer of responsibility to other people - all this provokes us to create even more projections that reinforce these negative processes. It turns out a vicious circle that prevents the solution of real problems that lie in our inner world.

With chronic projection, we will blame our loved ones or other people for their failure, anger, unworthy behavior towards us, we will constantly suspect them of betrayal. The negative consequence of such protection is the desire to correct an external object onto which something negative is projected, or in general get rid of from him, in order to put an end to the feelings he has evoked.

Projection is one of the main qualities of suspicious people, paranoid personalities and hysteroids. Distrusting themselves due to low self-esteem and lack of self-esteem, they (we) shift distrust as a personality trait onto other people and conclude that other people are unreliable and can betray, set up, change at any moment (one of the mechanisms that form pathological jealousy ).

Projection as a protection is part of the global mechanism of perception of the surrounding world.

Solution. It is necessary to reduce projection as a defense, starting with the development of the skill of sensory self-reflection. The ability to recognize our emotions and feelings will automatically insure us against a pronounced projection. With it, we will understand where our feelings and thoughts are, and where others are. This will make it possible to express them correctly, without harm to oneself and others. A pronounced projection of anger and distrust destroys any relationship, since people whom we constantly suspect in our projection of what they did not do and blame for what they did not even think about, simply will not understand us and, as a result, will be disappointed in us.

9. Introjection (identification, identification). This is a reverse projection process, when we attribute to ourselves other people's feelings, emotions, thoughts, behavior, scenarios, perception algorithms. Just like projection, introjection is not so much a defense mechanism as a necessary process of interaction with reality. In childhood and adolescence, it is a necessary learning mechanism when a child copies the behavior of adults, adopting the necessary adaptive ways of perceiving and behaving in reality.

A relatively adaptive role is played by introjection with heroes, superheroes, strong personalities - on the one hand, it helps to develop strong qualities, on the other hand, it deprives us of our individuality and gives false ideas about omnipotence, which inevitably leads to dangerous situations that we cannot cope with. greatly overestimating their capabilities.

pathological influence. Introjection dissolves us in society. Identification with the heroes of films or books not only suppresses our individuality, but also takes us to an alien and unreal world of illusions and hopes, where everything comes true, where people do not die, where there are ideal relationships, ideal people, ideal events. When we return to reality with such a global identification, we unconsciously try to behave in an appropriate way (but we don’t succeed, because superheroes, etc. are fictional characters), we demand an ideal attitude from reality and other people to ourselves, we expect our introjected hopes to come true, and thus we throw ourselves even further away from actually achieving real results. All this as a whole forms a deep sense of dissatisfaction, and as a result - disappointment. When everyone does this, the level of dissatisfaction, like an infection, spreads to a large part of society, turning it (dissatisfaction) into a normal state of affairs.

When identification with an ideal object occurs consciously, then the connection of the introject with it is preserved all the time. The trap is that if the role model disappears or changes (for example, ceases to be a hero), automatically the whole system of introjection in us collapses. This can lead to grief, depression, to a strong decrease in self-esteem, which is mostly based on identification with our hero.

Solution.

a) Analyze the presence and severity of the work of pathological introjection in life.

b) Learn to separate your inner world (emotions, feelings, behavior) and the world of other people (their feelings and behavior).

c) To understand that the introject will never be fully built into our psyche, it will be an external object inside us, that is, a new subpersonality will be formed that will once again split us into pieces.

d) Accept the idea that each person has his own way of development - unique and individual; we need examples of others only for our own learning, and not for copying into our own lives their personalities, character traits, behavior patterns and expectations.

e) Remember that identification with the ideal will surely bring dissatisfaction, disappointment to life, dissolve in the crowd of such imitators.

f) Fight the blurring of one's own boundaries by strengthening one's "I", increase self-esteem, accumulate knowledge about oneself and form a consistent behavior and worldview.

10. Jet formations. This protective mechanism is characterized by the suppression of one feeling (emotion, experience), which is unacceptable or forbidden for expression (by society, by the person himself), by another feeling that is directly opposite in meaning (emotion, experience), which far exceeds the first feeling in severity.

The complexity of the structure of life often leads to a dual (ambivalent) perception of other people, events, and oneself. But such inconsistency is not perceived by our consciousness either in feelings or in information, we immediately try to get rid of it by any means. One of these methods is reactive formations, which intensify one feeling to the extent that it does not crowd out the opposite one.

For example, when there are two conflicting feelings - hostility on the one hand and love on the other hand - then reactive formations can work in any direction. Both in the direction of hostility, strengthening it to hatred and pronounced disgust (which makes it easy to suppress love for a person and dependence on him), and in the direction of love, which will take on the character of obsession, superdependence (sexualization, idealization, moralization of this person), while completely suppressing hostility and contempt. However, this mechanism does not solve the problem, since the opposite pole periodically makes itself felt (manifested in words or in behavior directly opposite to the main one), since it has not disappeared anywhere, but only passed into the unconscious.

Protection can work even for a lifetime, while its severity may decrease over time. Protection also works in the case of symbiosis or habit to another person. In order to leave or try to leave it, people unconsciously develop directly opposite negative feelings towards the second participant in the symbiosis (as a rule, these are parents). In a teenager, this can manifest itself in a sharp change in attitude towards parents, whom he had recently loved, there is a transition to opposition to them, hostility and disrespect appear - all for the sake of the desire to highlight one's "I", become more adult and independent, get out of symbiotic relationships ( such a situation can be considered as a variant of the norm).

Protection with the help of reactive formations can be turned on not only when we have two ambivalent (contradictory) feelings towards a person or event, but also if we have one feeling, whose manifestation, however, is highly undesirable, is condemned by society, our own morality or any other prohibitions. Automatically, this feeling can switch to the opposite, which is acceptable to society and one's own morality, and is also not blocked by other prohibitions.

Examples. Homophobia in men who are subconsciously prone to homosexual desires (there are exceptions here). Stockholm syndrome, in which the hatred and fear of the hostages for their captors is replaced by understanding, acceptance and even love for them (rather rare). The saying “from love to hate is one step” just describes the work of this protection. Often this protection manifests itself in pathological relationships, where there is enmity between spouses or partners, many conflicts and contradictions, but reactive formations, suppressing the negative, turn these relationships into passionate, dependent, saturated with love, up to obsession with each other. As soon as one of the participants loses the initial repressed feeling (anger, contempt, not switched in the opposite direction), the relationship immediately collapses, as love and dependence go away overnight. This rarely happens, because such relationships are usually sadomasochistic in nature (in the psychological, not in the sexual sense of the word), and they are known to be the strongest relationships on earth, despite their complete pathology, since each gives the other something what he needs.

Solution.

a) As usual, the first thing to do is to analyze, based on the information received above, your life for the presence of this type of protection in it.

b) You need to start working not from the expressed feeling, which is currently manifesting, but from the initial, opposite to it, which is suppressed.

c) You need to work out a repressed feeling carefully, otherwise it can simply turn the defense in the opposite direction, change the pole (love will turn into hatred, but dependence will remain, i.e. you have to hate all your life in order to keep your love).

d) If there are two feelings, you must either consciously choose one, refusing to suppress the other, or create a compromise option.

This is a list of the main types of M.P.Z. is over, however, there are other types of defenses, which are only separate cases of the work of the above, but which are worth knowing about for more effective work on neurosis.

Dissociation- this is a group of various defense mechanisms, as a result of which some part of information, sensory or cognitive, which is undesirable, negative and contains stress factors (perception of reality and oneself in it, time, memory for some events).

In other words, dissociation is the disintegrated work of various mental functions, which, as it were, split (dissociate) from our “I”.

Examples: separate work of thinking and feelings during intellectualization; active forgetting of some negative events; the feeling that the events of my life in the present (past) are (happened) not with me.

Dissociation is characterized by a change in the sense of life; it becomes an alien, another world. Change in self-perception - a person sees himself "as a stranger", characterizes himself as "not his own", Impaired identification with himself, with the outside world or with certain events. It is also worth noting that the above states can occur not only due to dissociation.

Humility. If it is expressed strongly, then it represents self-abasement and slavish obedience. A person becomes a complete conformist, while he receives a lot of encouragement from society, since humble people are beneficial to others - they are obedient, submissive, do not contradict, agree in everything, easily controlled, etc. In return for their behavior, a humble person receives respect, praise, and a positive assessment. At the same time, a person suppresses his “I”, adjusts, avoids conflict with society.

Moralization- this is the attribution of moral qualities (which are not in reality) to a significant person for us in order to justify him in our eyes. Moreover, such a person most often does not adhere to the high moral principles that we attribute to him. We do this to avoid or suppress our feelings of contempt, disgust, or anger towards him.

Turn against yourself or auto-aggression. This method implies a shift in the direction of aggression from the object to which it is intended (the culprit, the cause of anger) to itself, since the original object is either inaccessible for expressing anger, or expressing negativity towards it is prohibited by moral principles (for example, if it is a close person: a girlfriend , friend, spouse, etc.). The substitution in such situations usually shifts from external objects to itself. Despite the destructive nature of the defense (physical and mental self-punishment, self-abasement), it becomes easier for a person in comparison with the initial stressful situation that caused this defensive reaction. May refer to such mechanisms as reactive formations and displacement.

Sexualization. This defense mechanism is similar to moralization, only with the aim of protecting the object from their own negative feelings (contempt, disgust, anger) and thoughts. The object is given a special sexual meaning, up to a strong increase in sexual attraction to it. Often this is observed after the betrayal of spouses (partners), which they know about. Refers to the mechanism of reactive formations.

Sublimation. This is a group of various mechanisms, the common feature of which is the redistribution of energy from pathological desires and needs to normal ones - socially acceptable and adaptive. Also, energy with the help of sublimation can be redistributed from forbidden bi

Day by day, a person encounters situations when an existing need cannot be satisfied for any reason. In such cases, behavior is usually regulated by psychological defense mechanisms that aim to prevent conduct disorders.

Psychological protection is associated with a change in the system of internal values of the individual, aimed at reducing the level of subjective significance of the corresponding experience in order to minimize psychologically traumatic moments. R. M. Granovskaya believes that the functions of psychological protection are inherently contradictory: on the one hand, they contribute to the adaptation of a person to his own inner world, but at the same time, on the other hand, they can worsen adaptability to the external social environment.

In psychology, the effect of the so-called pending action. It lies in the fact that any obstacle leads to an interruption of the action until the obstacle is overcome or the person refuses to overcome it. The works of many researchers show that unfinished actions form a tendency towards their completion, and if direct completion is not possible, a person begins to perform substitution actions. We can say that the mechanisms of psychological defense are some specialized forms of substitution actions.

Psychological defense mechanisms

To psychological defense mechanisms are usually referred to negation, repression, projection, identification, rationalization, substitution, alienation and some others. Let us dwell on the characteristics of each of these mechanisms as R. M. Granovskaya describes them.

Negation comes down to the fact that the information that disturbs is not perceived. This method of protection is characterized by a noticeable distortion of the perception of reality. Denial is formed in childhood and often does not allow people to adequately assess what is happening around, which leads to difficulties in behavior.

crowding out- the most universal way to get rid of an internal conflict by actively turning off an unacceptable motive or unpleasant information from consciousness. Interestingly, what is most quickly repressed and forgotten by a person is not the bad that others have done to him, but the bad that he has done to himself or others. Ingratitude, all kinds of envy and a great many inferiority complexes are connected with this mechanism, which are forced out with terrible force. It matters that a person does not pretend, but really forgets unwanted, traumatic information, it is completely ousted from his memory.

Projection- an unconscious transfer to another person of one's own feelings, desires and inclinations, in which a person does not want to admit to himself, realizing their social unacceptability. For example, when a person has shown aggression towards another, he often has a tendency to reduce the attractive qualities of the victim.

Identification- unconscious transfer to oneself of feelings and qualities that are inherent in another person and are inaccessible, but desirable for oneself. In children, this is the easiest way to learn the norms of social behavior and ethical standards. For example, a boy unconsciously tries to be like his father and thereby earn his love and respect. In a broad sense, identification is an unconscious adherence to images, ideals, which allows you to overcome your weakness and feeling of inferiority.

Rationalization- a deceitful explanation by a person of his desires, actions, which are actually caused by reasons, the recognition of which would threaten the loss of self-respect. For example, while experiencing some kind of psychic trauma, a person protects himself from its destructive impact by evaluating the traumatic factor in the direction of decreasing significance, i.e. not having received what he passionately desired, he convinces himself that “I didn’t really want to.”

substitution— shifting an action directed at an inaccessible object to an action with an accessible object. This mechanism discharges the tension created by an inaccessible need, but does not lead to the desired goal. Substituting activity is distinguished by the transfer of activity to a different plane. For example, from a real exercise to a fantasy world.

Isolation or alienation- isolation within the consciousness of traumatic factors for a person. At the same time, unpleasant emotions are blocked by consciousness, i.e. there is no connection between the emotional coloring and the event. This type of defense resembles alienation syndrome, which is characterized by a feeling of loss of emotional connection with other people, previously significant events or one's own experiences, although their reality is recognized.

Thus, it is necessary to know that psychological protection can help maintain a person’s internal comfort, even if he violates social norms and prohibitions, since it creates the basis for self-justification. If a person treats himself as a whole positively, admits in his consciousness the idea of his imperfection, shortcomings, then he takes the path of overcoming the contradictions that arise.