Defense mechanisms and coping

Dr. Nilanjana Bagchi

Associate Professor and Head

Department of Psychology
Bethune College
 In Psychology, coping means to invest own
conscious effort, to solve personal and interpersonal
problems, in order to try to master , minimize or
tolerate stress and conflict.
The psychological coping mechanisms are
commonly termed coping strategies or coping skills.

Lazarus and Folkman (1984) define coping as:-

“Constantly changing cognitive and behavioural

efforts to manage specific external and/or internal
demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding
the resources of the person”.
Stages of coping (Lazarus and Folkman ,1984)
Primary Appraisal (stage 1)
In primary appraisal, individuals interpret
whether an event involves harm or loss that has
already occurred, a threat of some future danger, a
challenge to be overcome.
 
Secondary Appraisal (stage 2)
Individuals evaluate their resources and
determine how effectively they can be used to cope
with an event.
Coping (stage 3)
The term coping generally refers to adaptive
(constructive) coping strategies. That is strategies
which reduce stress. In contrast, other coping
strategies may be coined as maladaptive, if they
increase stress. Maladaptive coping is therefore also
described, when looking at the outcome, as non-
coping.
Furthermore, the term coping generally refers to
reactive coping, i.e. the coping response which
follows the stressor.
This differs from proactive coping, in which a
coping response aims to neutralize a future stressor.
Subconscious or non-conscious strategies (e.g. 
defense mechanisms) are generally excluded from
 The two main categories of coping strategies
are emotion-focused coping  and  solution-
focused coping.
Emotion-Focused Coping
Emotion-focused coping changes a person's
emotional response to the stressor. Emotion-focused
coping techniques are focused on reducing the negative
emotional responses we might experience because of
stressors. Some examples of emotion-focused coping
strategies are:
• Letting off steam by venting to friends or family
• Keeping yourself busy to keep your mind off the
stressor
• Seeking encouragement, moral support, sympathy,
and understanding from others
People are more likely to adopt emotion-focused
coping when they don't think their actions can
affect the stressor itself, so they alter their
response to the stressor.
This is like when a friend says something that
hurts your feelings. What he or she said may
make you feel badly about yourself and you may
spend a lot of time and mental energy thinking
about it. Talking to other people about the
situation or engaging in other activities may help
you deal with the emotional stress of that
encounter.
Problem-Focused Coping
Problem-focused coping is about trying to deal with
the stressor itself so as to avoid the stress response it
is causing. Problem-focused coping involves finding
practical ways to deal with stressful situations. Some
examples of problem-focused coping strategies are:

• Put other activities on hold in order to concentrate

on and cope with stressor
• Actively try to remove or work around the stressor
• Wait to act until the appropriate time
• Seek concrete advice, assistance, or information
This coping method is more common when
people believe that their actions can affect the
stressor.
According to Billings and Moos,1981,Coping strategies
can be divided into 3 types:-
ACTIVE COGNITIVE STRATEGIES-coping responses in
which individuals actively think about a situation in an effort to
adjust more effectively.

 Pray for guidance and /or strength

 Prepare for the worst
 Try to see the positive side of the situation
 Consider several alternatives for handling the
problem
 Draw on past experiences
 Try to step away from the situation and be more
objective
 Tell oneself the things that helps one to feel better
ACTIVE BEHAVIOURAL STRATEGIES- coping responses
in which individuals take some type of action to improve their
problem situation.

 Talk with friend/spouse/professional person

 Get busy with things to keep oneself busy
 Make a plan of action and follow it
 Let out feelings
 Try harder to make things work
 Exercise more
AVOIDANCE STRATEGIES- coping responses in
which individuals keep stressful circumstances out of
their awareness so they do not have to deal with them.

 Take it out on other people when one is

depressed or angry
 Keep feelings bottled up inside
 Avoid being with people in general
 Drink more to reduce tension
 Eat/ Smoke more to reduce tension
 Take more tranquilizing drugs to reduce
tension
 
 Practice Thought Stopping

 Engage in Self Control

 Self efficacy

 Disinhibition strategy

 Social Support

 Humour
 Planning

 Positive reinterpretation and growth

Life is not the way it’s supposed to be.
Its the way it is.

The way you cope with it is what

makes the difference.

Virginia satir
A defense mechanism is an unconscious psychological
mechanism that reduces anxiety arising from
unacceptable or potentially harmful stimuli.

In psychoanalytic theory, defense mechanisms are

psychological strategies brought into play by
the unconscious  to manipulate, deny, or distort
reality in order to defend against feelings of anxiety
and unacceptable impulses and to maintain one's self
schema

Defense mechanisms may result in healthy or

unhealthy consequences depending on the
circumstances and frequency with which the
mechanism is used.
Freud proposed three structures of the psyche or
personality.
•Id: The id is the unconscious reservoir of the libido, the
psychic energy that fuels instincts and psychic
processes. It is a selfish, childish, pleasure-oriented part
of the personality with no ability to delay gratification.
•Superego: The superego contains internalized societal
and parental standards of "good" and "bad", "right" and
"wrong" behaviour. They include conscious
appreciations of rules and regulations as well as those
incorporated unconsciously.
•Ego: The ego acts as a moderator between the pleasure
sought by the id and the morals of the superego,
seeking compromises to pacify both. It can be viewed as
the individual's "sense of time and place".
The reality principle
Id impulses are not appropriate in civilized society, so there is
societal pressure to modify the pleasure principle in favour of
the reality principle; that is, the requirements of the external
world.
Formation of the superego
The superego forms as the child grows and learns parental
and social standards. The superego consists of two
structures: the conscience, which stores information about
what is "bad" and what has been punished, and the ego ideal,
which stores information about what is "good" and what one
"should" do or be.
The ego's use of defence mechanisms
When anxiety becomes overwhelming, it is the ego's place to
protect the person by employing defence mechanisms. Guilt, 
embarrassment and shame often accompany anxiety.
 The anxiety is felt as an increase in bodily or
mental tension, and the signal that the organism
receives in this way allows for the possibility of
taking defensive action regarding the perceived
danger.

Defense mechanisms work by distorting the

id impulses into acceptable forms, or by
unconscious or conscious blockage of these
impulses.
 In the first definitive book on defence
mechanisms, The Ego and the Mechanisms of
Defence (1936), Anna Freud introduced the
concept of signal anxiety; she stated that it was
"not directly a conflicted instinctual tension but a
signal occurring in the ego of an anticipated
instinctual tension”.

The signalling function of anxiety is thus seen as

crucial, and biologically adapted to warn the
organism of danger or a threat to its equilibrium.
 Healthy persons normally use different
defenses throughout life.
 An ego defense mechanism becomes
pathological only when its persistent use leads to
maladaptive behaviour such that the physical or
mental health of the individual is adversely affected.

 Among the purposes of ego defense

mechanisms is to protect the mind/self/ego from 
anxiety and/or social sanctions and/or to provide a
refuge from a situation with which one cannot
currently cope.
 Defense mechanisms are largely unconscious
mechanisms which are activated in times of anxiety,
stress and distress without any choice or conscious
intentionality.

 Defense mechanisms can be regarded as survival

instruments (Fine, 1988).

Defense mechanisms are a necessary tool of

protection and in moderate use contribute to
successful adaptation (Cramer, 2008).
Theories and classifications

The list of defense mechanisms, with no theoretical

consensus on the exact number.

Classifying defense mechanisms according to some of

their properties (like underlying mechanisms,
similarities or connections with personality) has been
attempted. Different theorists have different
categorizations and conceptualizations of defense
mechanisms
•Denial: an outright refusal or inability to accept some
aspect of reality that is troubling. For example: "this
thing has not happened” when it actually has.

Projection : a person's thought or emotion about another

person, place or thing is too troubling to admit, and so,
that thought or emotion is attributed to originate from that other
person, place or thing. For example: “He hates me", when it is
actually the speaker who hates. A variation on the theme of
projection is known as "externalization".
 In externalization, you blame others for your problems rather than
owning up to any role you may play in causing them. Fate and bad
luck are particularly two overworked objects of projection.

In extreme cases the individual may become convinced that other

forces or persons are systematically working against him. This may
develop into delusions of persecution. On an elementary level this
may be experienced in our tendency to see others in the light of our
own personality make up.
In more extreme degrees the individual with guilt arousing
homosexual leanings may accuse other men of trying to seduce him
while he remains unaware of his sexual inclinations. Mental patients
obsessed with unethical sexual ideas accuse others of “pouring
filth into their minds”
•Fantasy: engaging in daydreams about how things should be,
rather than doing anything about how things are. For example:
Daydreaming of killing a bully instead of taking concrete action
to stop the bully from bothering you . It may temporarily add
excitement to drab existence.
•Fantasy may be:
• productive –used constructively in maintaining motivation and
in the solution of immediate problems as in creative imagination.

• non productive- merely wish fulfilling activity compensating

for lack of achievement rather than promoting achievement

•Conquering hero
•Suffering hero
•Displacement: An unacceptable feeling or thought about a person, place or thing is
redirected towards a safer target. For example, it may feel unsafe to admit anger
towards a parent, but it is perfectly safe to criticize the neighborhood he or she lives in.

•Intellectualization/ISOLATION Overwhelming feelings or thoughts about an event

are handled by isolating their meaning from the feelings accompanying the meaning,
and focusing on the meaning in isolation. For example, you cope with the recent death
of a parent by reading about the grieving process.
•Separation of feelings from ideas and events, for example, describing a murder with
graphic details with no emotional response
.EG prisoner awaiting execution saying with a shrug of shoulders “So they’ll kill me
and that’s that”. The hurt over mother’s death is reduced by saying she lived a full
life..it is the will of the Lord
•.
•Repression: It is not suppression. The individuals own painful or
dangerous thoughts and desires are excluded from his consciousness without his
awareness of what is happening. It is referred to as “selective forgetting”. But it is
more of selective remembering.eg a soldier experiencing the death of his friend
may become amnesic of the battle experience. Repressed desires are revealed in
dreams, reveries, jokes and slips of tongue. It helps the individual to control
dangerous desires and minimizes the pain of a sudden traumatic experience.

Reaction Formation: Individual protects himself from dangerous desires not only by

repressing them but by developing conscious attitudes and behaviour patterns which
are just the opposite.eg self appointed protectors of public’s moral. In everyday
behaviour .reaction formation may take the form of “don’t care” attitude to conceal
feelings of rejection and a craving for affection. In extreme form the individual may for
example develop exaggerated fears for syphilis which may keep his desires on
“check”.
Rationalization: Attempting
to prove that one’s behaviour is
“rational “and justifiable and thus worthy of self and
social approval.
Two major defensive values.
a. it helps us to justify what we do and what we believe
b. Aids us in softening the disappointment connected
with unattainable goals

Two types of rationalization

1. Sour grape mechanism
2 .Sweet lemon mechanism

Indications of rationalization-
a. Hunting for reasons to justify our behaviour or beliefs
B .Being unable to recognize contradictory evidence
•Displacement: defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive
impulses to a more acceptable or less threatening target; redirecting emotion to a
safer outlet; separation of emotion from its real object and redirection of the
intense emotion toward someone or something that is less offensive or
threatening in order to avoid dealing directly with what is frightening or
threatening. For example, a mother may yell at her child because she is angry
with her husband. Phobias act as additional defenses by protecting the
individuals from situations in which his dangerous impulses might be carried out
in action.
• Compensation- covering up weakness by emphasizing
desirable trait or making up for frustration in one area by over
gratification in another. The physically unattractive girl may
develop a very pleasing personality. Not all compensatory
reactions are desirable.eg a boy who feels inferior may become
locally bully
•Undoing: A person tries to 'undo' an unhealthy, destructive or
otherwise threatening thought by acting out the reverse of the
unacceptable. Involves symbolically nullifying an unacceptable or
guilt provoking thought, idea, or feeling by confession or atonement.
Apologizing for wrong committed against errors and undergoing
punishments are all forms of atonement.

•Sublimation: Transformation of unhelpful emotions or instincts

into healthy or socially acceptable actions, behaviours, or emotions,
for example, playing a heavy contact sport such as football or rugby
can transform aggression into a game.
•Eg a girl who desires to marry but cannot resorts to taking up nursing as a profession
REGRESSION

A defensive reaction involving a retreat to the use of reaction patterns which are appropriate

at an earlier level of development. It involves a modification of behaviour in the direction of

more primitive infantile modes of behaviour.

Identification

increasing feelings of worth by identifying self with person or institution of illustrious

standing.

Introjection: A primitive form of identification in which the

individual internalizes aspects of the threatening situation. The
essence is “If you cannot beat them, join them” eg. Inside the Nazi
camps old prisoners were sometimes instrumental in getting rid of
•Acting out: an inability to be thoughtful about an
impulse. The impulse is expressed directly without any
reflection or consideration as to whether it is a good idea
to do so. The individual reduces anxiety aroused by
forbidden desires by actually permitting their expression.

•For example: a person attacks another person in a fit of

anger without stopping to consider that this could
seriously wound or disfigure that other person and/or
possibly result in legal problems.

•Sympathism: Individual strives to gain sympathy of

others by telling about his tough breaks illnesses and
other difficulties. Thus his self worth is bolstered.
 Defense mechanisms are a part of normal
functioning but they can be considered as
pathological under the following conditions:

The defenses used are age inappropriate;

o have a high intensity;

o the continuous and inappropriate usage of

defenses even when uncalled for;

o the quantity exceeds the quality (Cramer, 1998). 

 Over-reliance on defenses can lead to
). 

major negative consequences: The

suppression of feelings; development of
psychological and physical symptoms
caused by the repressed feelings;
damage to the self and increased
dependency on habits and fantasy, which
impair one’s functioning; lack of honesty
and intimacy in relationships. 
Generally speaking, excessive use of
defense mechanisms is associated with
Axis I and II psychopathology (Watson,
2002)
 The idea whether defense mechanisms
produce adaptive and functional behaviours is
still controversial. In the long term, defense
mechanisms do contribute to the development
of severe pathology, yet the fact that they seem
to help the individual to cope in a short term
should not be ignored nor dismissed.

Defenses are efficient mechanisms that help dealing

with threatening and at times traumatic stressors.
Pathology probably does not originate from the actual
use of defense mechanisms; it is caused by a
continuous reliance on defenses, instead of actually
attempting to solve the core problems that cause their
necessity in the first place.
Coping mechanisms are often confused and interchanged with
defense mechanisms due to their similarities.

 Both processes are activated in times of adversity. Defense

mechanisms and coping strategies reduce arousal of negative
emotions.

 Furthermore, both processes aim at achieving adaptation only

the means to the end differ. Defenses help the individual by
distorting reality and coping strategies attempt at solving the
problem, thus challenging the reality (Cramer, 1998).
Miceli and Castelfranchi (2001) add that coping behaviours
eventually modify the reactions to the stressful event rather than
distort the perception of the event. The individual has full control
of the coping strategies used (Cramer, 2000).

Coping enable the individual to attain realistic goals by using

available resources and past experiences while acting within
society’s rules of conduct.

Unlike defense mechanisms, which are unconscious

processes, coping methods are conscious processes. One
must realize that in reality, sometime a person will exhibit
rational coping simultaneously with unconscious defenses.
 Coping thus involves flexibility and defenses are more
rigid, distort logistics, are unstoppable and their goal is to
reduce anxiety not to solve the source of the anxiety (Haan,
1977).
 The choice of coping mechanisms is perceived more as
dependent on timing, situational and personality factors.
 Different situations lead after all to different coping
strategies. Defense mechanisms are more stable and
habitual. 
 Hentschel et al. (2004) summarize the difference by
referring to the questions “how” and “what”. Defense
mechanisms, according to the author, deals with “what” parts
of the distressing event should be distorted, while coping
deals with “how” the event should be managed.
 The individual can choose to stop a
certain coping style and choose another
strategy. A choice of a certain coping
strategy implies intent and full awareness
of the operation.

Defense mechanisms, on the other hand,

operate outside consciousness and
awareness of the individual. One cannot
intentionally choose to use another defense
mechanism.
Thank You