DEFENSE MECHANISM

1.       Denial – refuses to accept a painful reality, pretending as if it doesn’t exist. Example: A man who snorts cocaine daily, is fired for attendance problems, yet insists he doesn’t have a problem.

2.       Displacement – directing anger toward someone or onto another, less threatening substitute. Example: An older employee is publicly embarrassed by a younger boss at work and angrily cuts a diver off on the way home.

3.       Identification – taking on attributes and characteristics of someone admired. Example: A young man joins the police academy to become a policeman like his father, whom he respects.

4.       Intellectualization – excessive focus on logic and reason to avoid the feelings associated with a situation. Example: An executive who has cancer requests all studies and blood work and discusses in detail with her doctor, as if she were speaking about someone else.

5.       Projection – attributing to others feelings unacceptable to self. Example: a group therapy client strongly dislikes another member but claims that is the member who “dislikes her.”

6.       Reaction Formation – Expressing an opposite feeling from what is actually felt and is considered undesirable. Example: Robert, who despises Carlo, greets him warmly and offers him drinks and special attention.

7.       Sublimation – redirecting unacceptable feelings or drives into an acceptable channel. Example: A mother o a chid killed in a drive-by shooting becomes involved in a legislative change for gun laws and gun violence.

8.       Undoing – ritualistically negating or undoing intolerable feelings or thoughts. Example: A man who has thoughts that his father will die must step on sidewalk cracks to prevent this and cannot miss a crack.