15 Psychological Self-Protection Mechanisms That Let You
Psychological self-protection mechanisms are ubiquitous in human psychological activities, and their function is similar to that of the physiological immune system. When people are about to or have fallen into a state of tension and anxiety for some reason, they can use psychological self-protection mechanisms to relieve or eliminate inner anxiety and pain in order to better adapt to life. Here are 15 psychological self-protection mechanisms.
1. Rationalization
When people's motives or behaviors are not accepted by society, or are frustrated by other reasons, in order to reduce the tension and anxiety caused by the conflict of motives or the frustration of failure, they look for some ostensibly high-sounding reasons to justify themselves. Of course, these reasons cannot withstand scrutiny. They are not true reasons or good reasons. But they can play a psychological protective role at certain times.
2. Imitation
It is the unconscious absorption of other people's desires and personality characteristics into their own and expressed. The object of imitation is always the respected person or favorite behavioral characteristics of the same person. By imitation, it can relieve personal pain or anxiety, and at the same time, it can be used to share the happiness of others' success. For example, imitate the appearance or behavior of a star.
3. Potential suppression
It is to suppress intellectually unacceptable desires, emotions, or motives. Although these desires, emotions, and motives may disappear, people will not be nervous and anxious about them without realizing their existence. For example, a girl has been with a boy a lot recently, so rumors have spread, and her classmates have said that they are in love, and the girl is deeply wronged. In fact, she may not have no desire for further development in her heart, but she cannot accept the reality that "they are in love" intellectually, so she has submerged this motive.
4. Projection
It is to transfer disliked or unacceptable characteristics, attitudes, ideas, and desires to the outside world or others and assert that others have such motives in order to avoid self-blame. But people who are used to using projection to maintain their psychological balance often affect their true understanding of themselves and their interactions with others. Therefore, it is necessary to apply the projection protection mechanism appropriately.
5. Reverse
It refers to a person who has a motive or impulse in their heart, admits that it will cause unease, but instead shows the opposite motive or impulse. Generally, the direction of an individual's behavior is the same as the direction of his motivation. But sometimes it will also show the phenomenon of "left and right". For example, some patients are very concerned about their own illness, but they pretend to be indifferent in front of others.
6. Somatization
It is to transform mental pain and anxiety into physical symptoms to reduce psychological tension. For example, patients with neurasthenia often deny that there is a problem with their way of thinking, emphasizing that inner tension is caused by physical weakness or insomnia.
7. Replacement
It is the unconscious transfer of one desire or emotion towards one thing to another. For example, students who are looked down upon at school often turn their grievances against classmates and teachers to their family members in order to calm their mood.
8. Fantasy
When encountering problems that cannot be solved, they place themselves in an imaginary realm that is divorced from reality, attempting to cope with setbacks in a non-realistic and fictional way to achieve psychological balance. This protective mechanism is often used by the weak.
9. Sublimation
Acquire desires that cannot be satisfied in reality in a way that is consistent with social norms. For example, aggressive desires cannot be used indiscriminately, but may be satisfied by playing ball or shooting.
10. Compensation
It refers to the personal pursuit of goals, ideals frustrated, or due to their own physical defects, behavioral mistakes and failures, choose other activities that can achieve success instead, in order to make up for the loss of self-esteem and confidence due to failure.
11. Denial
Reduce mental pain by denying facts that cause mental pain. For example, children often cover their eyes with their hands when they break things and cause trouble; cancer patients deny that they have cancer; wives do not believe in the sudden and unexpected death of their husbands, etc.
12. Degradation
When people feel severely frustrated, the way to give up as an adult is not to use, but to retreat to a less difficult, less resistant, safer situation - childhood, inadvertently restoring childhood dependence on others, rather than actively seeking treatment for their own diseases, fearing to take on adult responsibilities.
13. Transfer
It refers to the emotion towards an object that cannot be directly expressed to its object for some reason (danger or unsocial habits), but is transferred to other safer or more acceptable objects. For example, a salesperson or a waiter who cannot solve a lot of troublesome problems at home and cannot vent to children or the elderly, has to take anger at the customer, and the service attitude is extremely poor.
14. Isolation
Isolate part of the truth from the state of consciousness, so as not to make yourself aware of it, so as not to cause mental unpleasantness. The most often isolated is the part of the whole thing that is related to the truth. For example, the elderly often say "return to heaven" and "sleep" instead of dying. In psychotherapy, doctors pay attention to the phenomenon of patients using isolation, which can help to find the patient's major psychological problems. Because what the patient has to hide in the subconscious is the problem that psychotherapy may target.
15. Offset
It means to use symbolic things to offset the unpleasant things that have happened to remedy psychological discomfort and unease. For example, according to the custom of our country, do not break things during the lunar year. In case a child breaks a bowl, the old man will quickly say "safe years".
