Ego Defense Mechanisms

"The world breaks everyone and afterward some are strong at the broken places."

 -Ernest Hemingway

 

Defense mechanisms get a bad rap.  There is a range of defense mechanisms that all serve the purpose of relieving anxiety and or stress.  Some of these are adaptive and some are maladaptive.  

Mature defense type include Altruism, Sublimation, Suppression, Anticipation and Humor.  Sublimation is engaging and channeling anxiety in to a productive outlet such as sports, hobbies and activism.  The idea of suppression being a mature defense mechanism may be strange.  I think an appropriate description would be temporarily ignoring a stressor or anxiety inducing situation in order to deal with it later.  It would be mature to recognize a problem but still know that there is nothing or very little that can be done at the time and therefore prioritizing accordingly.  The key is recognition and dealing with it at a more appropriate time.

Immature defense type include projection, fantasy, hypochondriasis, passive aggression, acting out and dissociation.  You recognize some of these mechanisms as those annoying behaviors of children and adolescents.  Of the list projection and dissociation may need further clarification.  Projection is the inclination to assume that the anxiety ridden thoughts about ourselves are assumed to be coming from someone else.  For example, a person that has anxiety about their job performance will assume that the boss is also concerned about their job performance.  Dissociation is typically associated with traumatic experiences. There is a pattern of the potential to develop into mature defenses. 

Neurotic defense type include repression, displacement, isolation, intellectualize, reaction formation. Repression is a mechanism that touches on all defense mechanisms but become neurotic when there is a failure to recognize the stressor and/or anxiety inducing situation.   Reaction formation is a defense mechanism that is typically associated with abusive relationships.  When explaining reaction formation I think of physics ….an equal and opposite reaction.  A reaction formation to someone you despise would be to befriend and lavish that person with compliments. These patterns are lacking in the potential to develop into mature defenses.  These behaviors would require more work to become mature and a delicate balance to be adaptive. 

The last type of defense mechanisms is Psychotic. Reality perception is maladaptive in this type of defenses.  This includes extreme forms of delusional projection, denial, distortion.  

This list is not all inclusive.  For more information take a look at this document. Always consider that each defense mechanism serves a purpose whether it is adaptive or maladaptive. Consider how it affects other important functions of life such as employment, personal care, and/or personal relationships.

Defense mechanisms are highly related to the work of Dan Ariely.  On the blog Barking up the WrongTree, Eric interviews Professor Dan Ariely.  In this interview they go over some basic concepts Professor Ariely work in behavioral economics such as the good side of irrational behaviors, attempting to correct irrational behaviors and dishonesty. They talk about the Lego and IKEA effect which I will write about as related to the Warrior Ethos.  This is really interesting social science information. Check out this interview about irrational behaviors and danariely.com