It is hard to deny that everything in our life does not always work out as we would like. And if we fiercely reacted to every unsatisfied desire or failure, then, most likely, nothing intelligible from us would remain. It is to prevent mental disorders that our subconscious uses psychological defense mechanisms. For the first time Freud described them and brought forth as many as 8 mechanisms that allow us to avoid feelings of anxiety and resolve internal conflict. What are these mechanisms and how do they work?
Crowding out
This is the simplest and most frequently encountered mechanism, but it is also less effective. When confronted with personal failures or tragedies, people push them to a subconscious level. Subsequently, a person cannot understand the cause of his anxieties, worries and emotions. Psychoanalysts help patients again bring these problems to a conscious level in order to resolve them. Often this mechanism works in children, and unresolved problems affect adulthood.
Substitution
This protective mechanism replaces our subconscious desires and aspirations in a variety of ways, for example, jokes or dreams. Also, substitution may occur in the field of conflict behavior. Often people break their anger at others who are not involved in emotional overstrain. Any troubles in the family and anger that you want to throw out to your relatives, a person spills out at the cashiers in the supermarket or at his subordinates.
Projection
When this mechanism works, a person ascribes his shortcomings and unacceptable desires to others. Sometimes a wife constantly gets her husband a question of whether he loves her - this may mean that she herself is not confident in her feelings. The student who failed the exam indicates the incompetence of the teacher himself, etc.
Rationalization
This mechanism adjusts reality for us. An example of this is the fable about the fox and grapes, which tells about the fox who tried to reach the vine branch, but when she still couldn’t do it, she decided that the grapes were still green. Or the guy the girl refused, reassures herself that she is ugly or stupid - another striking example of rationalization.
The following mechanisms are not so popular. Regression, for example, manifests itself when a person "falls into childhood" and becomes unusually infantile. Reactive education is one of the most complex mechanisms. It proceeds in several stages: first, a person develops an impulse unacceptable to him or society, but as a reaction to this impulse, the opposite one arises. Many men who position themselves as ardent homophobes, according to Freud, are themselves latent homosexuals.
And the last mechanism characteristic of creative natures is the mechanism of sublimation - socially unapproved desires or a person redirects sexual energy to another kind of action: he plays sports, draws, and plays musical instruments.
