In the mist of conflict with a really important person in my life; I made a clear decision to listen rather than defend my argument. I let go of trying to convince the other party as to why they should see the situation from my perspective and I accepted the fact that they might never see it the way I see it. I listened with curiosity rather than waiting to rebuttal and defend my stance and allowed them the space to have their own opinion about our conflict. As I consciously did this; the walls came down between us and we were able to mend the tension that had been lingering between us for months.

To say it simply; the conflict was resolved.

Defense mechanisms are often unconscious strategies that we use to cope with hard feelings in order to protect ourselves from psychological harm. When we feel threatened our “wall” goes up and our defenses come out.

Our defense mechanisms are put in place to protect us from thoughts, feelings or memories that bring up painful and uncomfortable emotions. Defense mechanisms can lead us to bypass our emotions so we can avoid feeling overwhelmed. They are known to be our “psychological shields” protecting us from difficult emotions such as anxiety or shame.

Whenever we lack the skills to deal with life events or relationship conflict in healthy ways our lives will be met with more strain and struggle than need be. This is why it’s so valuable to know the ways that you show up when you’re on the defense.

If severe enough, the ways that our defensive behaviors come out can make or break our relationships and reduce the fulfillment of our lives.

This post offers you the chance to check in with how you uniquely cope and show up when situations arise that trigger defensive behavior. It can improve the quality of your life to have the awareness and skillset to remain calm and collected when you’re met with defense, conflict or any other difficult situation in your life. 

Here are some ways that we defend & self protect

• we anticipate

• we make excuses

• we project 

• we control

• we avoid

• we play victim

• we believe we are “right”

• we blame

• we “dumb down” or invalidate our feelings and the feelings of others

These impulsive or disruptive ways of dealing with difficult situations are usually automatic and often unconscious. They're impulsive ways that we’ve (over time) taught ourselves how to deal with situations that threaten us in some way shape or form. 

Before we break down these defense mechanisms, I want to take a moment to talk about a cliche topic that us therapists are known to bring up…….childhood. (i know; hang in with me here.)

The truth is that whoever acted as our primary caregivers growing up had a huge impact and influence on our development. Our caregivers were our first up close and personal examples of how to cope with our feelings, difficult situations, conflict and just about everything that goes into being a healthy and well functioning adult.

Some of us had parents that were emotionally intelligent and taught us really good tools to help us cope with disappointments, hard emotions and relationship conflict; while some of us did not.

Not handling our reactions well, could be the result of never learning how. This is not to place blame on anybody; this is to point out that sometimes we don’t pick up the healthy skills that we need to navigate life’s conflicts with more maturity.

(*Feel free to read my post on emotionally immature parents HERE.)

Freuds 7 Main Defense Mechanisms

Not that this gentleman needs an introduction for many of us, however, if you’re new to the name, Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis. He believed that there are 7 main defense mechanisms that are expressed when threat is determined; denial, repression, projection, displacement, rationalization, reaction formation, and sublimation.

Lets go over what each of these look like, so you can identify what you’re specific defense mechanism(s) are:

1. Denial: Refusing to accept that something exists or happened. Denial involves ignoring “what is” in order to avoid difficult emotions. Read more about denial HERE.

key signs of denial:

• refusal to talk about the problem.

• justification of your behavior.

• blaming external events or other people for causing the problem.

• Continued involvement in a behavior despite negative consequences.

• Talk of addressing the problem in the future.

• Avoidance of thinking about the problem.

2. Repression: Keeping a thought, feeling, or memory of an experience out of consciousness. Read more about repression HERE.

Physical signs of repressed emotions include:

• High blood pressure

• Skin conditions

• Fatigue

• Obesity

• Headache

• Dizziness

• Back, neck, chest and abdominal pain

*Repression is often confused with suppression, another defense mechanism. Where repression involves unconsciously blocking unwanted thoughts or impulses, suppression is entirely voluntary. Suppression is deliberately trying to forget or not think about painful or unwanted thoughts. EX: “I don’t want to think about that; let’s not talk about it.”

3. Projection: Attributing a threatening urge, impulse, or aspect of oneself to someone else. An example of projection would be instead of acknowledging that you’ve been disloyal,  you may accuse your partner of disloyalty. Read more about projection HERE.

4. Displacement: Directing emotions from a threatening source to a safer target. Displacement helps us channel emotions and urges that could be considered inappropriate or harmful to more healthy, safe, or productive outlets. Read more about displacement HERE.

5. Rationalization: Creating an acceptable, yet false explanation of a situation, behaviors, thoughts or feelings by using logic. Read more about rationalization HERE.

Examples of rationalization:

• Minimizing the situation (“It’s not that bad.”)

• Making excuses

• Blaming others

• Making Comparisons (“What I did isn’t as bad as what (fill in a name) did last week.”)

• “Explaining Away” the problem (“Sorry I didn’t show up, i had so much work to do.”)

6. Reaction formation: Doing the opposite of what you would really like to do. Acting in the opposite way of your true feelings. Read more about rationalization HERE.

*A classic example of reaction formation: A boy who puts down a girl on the playground because, on a subconscious level, he's attracted to her.

7. Sublimation: Known as  one of the more “mature” of the defense mechanisms. Sublimation involves channeling unacceptable impulses into socially acceptable behaviors. This defense mechanism helps us to shift our unwanted impulses into less harmful and often even helpful actions and behaviors. Read more about sublimation HERE.

Awareness is key here. If you were able to identify your “emotional weapon” or defense mechanism throughout this post, you now have valuable information that can really help you to grow and expand in this area.

“Know thy enemy and know thy self” - Sun Tzu

Knowing the way in which you can show up defensively and working toward gaining healthier and more productive ways of coping with your ability to perceive a threat will help you greatly within your relationships and life. This is invaluable.

Thank you for reading and being here with me.

*Above image by Photographer, Amy Lynn Bjornson.