DEFENSE MECHANISMS

DEFENSE MECHANISM	DESCRIPTION	EXAMPLE
Projection	Attributing one's thoughts or impulses to another.	“If my wife was a better housekeeper I wouldn’t have such a problem.”
Displacement	Shifting of emotion concerning person or object to another neutral or less dangerous object or person	A person who is angry at his wife yells at the son.
Sublimation	Diversion of unacceptable drives into socially acceptable channels	A person who likes to watch porn suddenly starts painting
Internalization	Incorporation of someone else's opinion as one's own
Rationalization	Attempt to make behavior appear to be result of logical thinking	A person with two closets full of clothes buys new ones for the job interview because she has nothing to wear
Intellectualization	Excessive reasoning or logic used to avoid experiencing disturbing feelings	A person who is given fatal diagnosis. The person then researches about the disease, including alternative treatments so as not to confront the feelings of rage, fear and sadness that are present.
Reaction formation	Development of conscious attitudes and behavior patterns into opposite of what one really wants to do	A parent who is frustrated with a child and wants to spank him instead becomes overprotective about the child’s safety
Symbolization	Something represents something else; symbolization is involved in phobias
Denial	The individual totally fails to accept or recognize a painful reality acts as if it does not exist	“I don’t believe I have diabetes. I feel perfectly fine.”
Conversion	The individual unconsciously attempts to deal with a conflict through the loss of the use of a body part	A person who witnessed a terrible sight becomes blind
Regression	The individual reverts to a previous level of development in order to cope with  mounting anxiety	A person who failed her test cries in a fetal position
Repression	The individual  unconsciously  blocks painful or unacceptable thoughts or impulses from their awareness	The victim of a crime insists that, as they think about it, what happened was not as bad as it actually was in reality
Undoing	The individual tries to retract behavior or thoughts that are deemed unacceptable	The person who has been saying unkind things about a coworker starts helping that person with their work.
Avoidance	The individual will not face situations or objects that unconsciously represent what are to that person unacceptable sexual or aggressive impulses and the consequences of these impulses	A person avoids spider, and claims a fear of them, due to the unconscious desire to squash vulnerable people to elevate self-esteem
Acting Out	The individual attempts to deal with emotional conflict or a stressful situation though action, often self-defeating but usually noteworthy	A teenager gets into trouble at school because there are marital problems between the parents at home and the teenager does not know how to cope with the feelings evoked by the situation.