Understanding Psychological Defense Mechanisms: From Denial to Altruism

[Music] Hi guys, my name is Dr. Naza and welcome to my channel.

Ever wonder why you deny eating that last cookie even when the crumbs are on your shirt? Or why you get angry at

someone who did nothing wrong? Those are just small examples of something we all do. These are the defense mechanisms.

These are the unconscious tricks your mind plays to protect you from stress, conflict, and uncomfortable feelings.

From denial to humor, you'll see how we all use them every day, often without even knowing it. Whether you're a mental

health professional looking to sharpen your clinical eye or an interested individual who simply wants to

understand yourself and others better, this video is for you. Stick around because by the end of this video, you'll

not only recognize these psychological superpowers in action, but also learn how to use the healthier ones to your

advantage. Let's start with some history. Back in the 1900, Sigmmont Freud, the father of

psychiatry and psychology, he first introduced the idea of unconscious defenses. He described them as ways the

mind keep anxiety at bay like repression when you repress previous memories and you remove them from your conscious

mind. In 1936, his daughter Anna Freud classified them in her book, The Ego and the Mechanism

of Defense, adding lots of flavors to her father's work. She is the master of ego psychology.

And in 1977, a psychiatrist by the name of George Veilent organized them into hierarchy

from primitive to mature to help us see which defenses are healthy and which might cause problems. So let's break

them down. So really we have major categories for these defenses. One, primitive or narcissistic defenses. Two,

immature defenses. three neurotic defenses and four mature defenses. So, we're going to start with the primitive

or narcissistic defenses. These are the earliest most basic psychological defense mechanisms we use to protect

ourselves from anxiety, shame or perceived threat. They are called primitive because they

develop very early in childhood and reflect a less mature way of coping often distorting reality rather than

integrating it. And this is where the problem. So really these defense mechanism are going to distort reality.

They are not going to help anyone. They won't help the individual. They won't help the society. They are commonly seen

in personality disorder especially borderline personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder. This

is when adults are stuck in the childhood primitive defenses. Remember in the previous videos we talked about

lots of psychosocial and psychosexual development according to lots of psychiatrist and psy psychologist and we

say that most of them would say that we have stages that people should go through to get to the next stage from

childhood to adult life. If they are stuck in one of these stages, they will be suffering forever with whatever is

going on in that stage. So we have lots of people who are stuck in their childhood stages that would actually

have him use these defense mechanism, the immature uh defense mechanism or the primitive

defense mechanism, narcissistic defense mechanism forever. So uh they are commonly seen in personality disorders

but we also see them in people who are stuck in childhood primitive defenses. So the first one I'm going to talk about

is denial which is the unconsciously ignoring perceptual or other data from external reality in order to avoid

unpleasant emotions. So pretty much you're talking to someone who's smoking and we all know that smoking is bad.

that person will tell you smoking isn't harmful. My grandfather lived to 90. So really this is unconsciously

ignoring perceptual or other data from external reality just to avoid the unpleasant emotion.

The other defense mechanism in the primitive uh category is projection. So projection is pretty much attributing

one's own end knowledge feeling to others like pretty much accusing a colleague of hostility when

you are the one feeling hostile. So pretty much projecting your own feelings to others. This is something even though

it's in the uh primitive or narcissistic defense but lots of people still do in their adult life. Right.

The other one, third one here in this category, splitting. It's a defense mechanism in which a person views

themselves, others or situations in all or nothing way, as either entirely good or entirely bad with no middle ground.

So pretty much this is like seeing someone as perfect one day and horrible the next day. This is black and white

thinking. This is something very common to see in patient with borderline personality disorder and this could

cause lots of psychosocial problems in patient with borderline personality disorder. So these are the main

primitive or narcissistic defenses denial projection and splitting. Now moving to immature uh defenses which are

the which are little like one step more developed than primitive defenses but still they reflect poor reality testing

or difficulty managing emotions adapt adaptively. They are often seen in adolescents and in adults with certain

personality disorders. Again, most likely patient with borderline personality disorder, narcissistic

personality disorder, but you can see them in other personality disorder or problem with impulse control problems or

even under significant stress. They could show up. So under this category we have acting

out, regression and somatization. These are the most common ones. So acting out is directly express uh through action of

unconscious wish or impulse in order to avoid being conscious of the affect that accompanies it. So pretty much this is

you know you're angry and what you do you don't like to talk about your anger but what you do is you slam doors. So

slamming doors instead of talking about your anger is acting out very commonly seen and this is a very um uh

interesting defense mechanism because maybe people feels a little better when they slam doors but this is not a good

way to cope with stress. The other defense mechanism in the immature category here is regression. pretty much

throwing a tantrum after frustrating event. Just like small little old kids. When small little kids have any problems

or they don't like something, what they do? They can throw a tantrum. Adults should work through the stress. So when

adults use this repression and they throw a tantrum after a frustrating event, we call that regression. It's

like regressing to their childhood life. The other defense mechanism here is sumatization.

So sumatization, stress showing up as headaches or stomach pain. This is something very

commonly seen in kids. Kids don't like school. So they claim they have stomach pain or headaches, right? We think they

claim that but actually this is a defense mechanism called sumatization. It is unconscious. They are not faking

symptoms by the way. They are not lying. it is from their unconscious mind. Their unconscious mind is trying to defend

them and that's why it is causing what we call sumatization. So this is an immature defense mechanism but it

happens to protect the ego from the uh stress that was uh built in the unconsciousness or the unconscious mind.

The next category is what we call neurotic defenses. And these are very famous and this is actually where the

spotlight is because this is what most psychonamic psychotherapists concentrate on. So neurotic defenses are more mature

than primitive or immature defenses and are generally seen in healthy adults. So these are people who were not stuck

in a childhood stage but still they still involved some distortion of reality but they allow better

functioning and keep distressing feelings out of conscious awareness. These are often the focus of psychonamic

psychotherapy as I said because they can be brought to consciousness and worked through.

So under this category the most common ones we have displacement, repression, reaction formation, isolation and of a

effect and rationalization. The first one I'm going to talk about today is displacement. So displacement

is the reflection of feelings from source of those feelings toward a relatively less cared for object or less

threatening object. So pretty much someone someone who was yelled at by his boss will go home and they displace that

into their partners, their wife, their significant other or even their kids. So they cannot yell at their boss but

they go home and they yell at their partner or wife or kids because they are less cared for object or actually less

threatening object for them. They cannot yell at their boss. they could be fired but simply they can yell at their wives

and and their kids with less fear of uh consequences. So yelling at your partner after your boss criticizes you is a

displacement and that's something it is in your unconsciousness that should be brought to your consciousness and worked

through. The other defense mechanism in this category is repression. It's like a memory lapse or failure to acknowledge

input from a selective sense organ. So pretty much that's like forgetting a traumatic memory. And here you say, "Oh,

that's awesome. That's why we have memory lapses or failure to remember something. That's a good thing. I don't

want that to to be in my conscious awareness." Well, let me tell you what happens here.

So when you are repressing the trauma or the stress the trauma and the stress will never vanish by the way it is going

to go down to your unconscious mind right it is going to sit there and it's going to grow up and before it explode

it could transform into physical symptoms. This is someone who suddenly they get a

seizure episode. They go to see a neurologist, multiple MRI brains and and EEGs and everything is negative. And

here the neurologist will say, "Oh, these are pseudo seizures or non-epileptififor

uh seizures." And here you wonder what does that mean? That means I'm faking. No, you're not. So actually in

psychiatry we call that functional neurological disorder or what we used to call conversion disorder which is

converting the stress and the traumatic memory and event from the unconscious mind to the consciousness

by creating medical symptoms or physical symptoms. So it is unconscious. It is not up to you. You're not in control of

that. You're not lying. You're not faking symptoms. Simply your unconscious mind is trying to protect you.

It's it's really big in your unconscious mind and you want to just you know your unconscious mind wants to get it better.

So before it shows up to your uh uh consciousness, it will be transformed to physical symptoms.

The other defense mechanism in this group is reaction formation. pretty much behaving in a fashion opposed to an

unacceptable instinctual impulse. Well, you had a fight with someone and next day, you know, uh instead of going and

fighting again with that person, you bring that person some donuts. So really, it's like treating someone you

dislike with excessive kindness. That is uh reaction formation. Now here you may tell me that looks good. So why we just,

you know, call that immature defense mechanism? Well, the problem with this one, you're actually behaving in a

fashion opposed to what you feel, right? So you're you're trying to force yourself or your unconsciousness is

forcing your consciousness to behave to behave in a different way and to be more acceptable socially. So that could

create lots of future problems and that's why you have to think about it and actually resolve your feelings

and not actually allowing your behavior to be just different than you're feeling. Uh the other one is isolation

of affect just like describing trauma without emotion. uh this is you know it's just removing

emotion from the traumatic event which again you may tell me that looks good and most of these neurotic defenses you

may tell me that looks good I'm not going to think about it but yeah we're humans right and humans are not only uh

data it is combination of data feelings emotions uh uh lots of thinking lots of defense mechanisms right so we have to

know I cannot isolate my a effect because my a effect is a big part of me. So that's why I have to talk about it

and change it somehow to a different defense mechanism. The last one in this category that I'm going to talk about is

rationalization. So someone who did not get the job would tell you, oh I don't really want that

job anyway. So you're rationalizing to yourself to make yourself feel better even if it's wrong. It's like you really

wanted a this job but you know after you didn't get it you said oh I didn't really want that job anyway you may tell

me oh that's helpful I don't want to think about these things and you know u make myself feel bad well you know

you're did not resolve the conflict so the conflict is not vanishing it is in your unconscious mind and you have to

resolve it but it's going to be in your awareness at some point now we'll move to the mature defenses

And here mature defenses are the most adaptive and psychologically healthy. They allow people to manage internal

conflict and emotional stress while maintaining connection to reality and relationships. These are often

associated with resilience, good coping skills and emotional intelligence. In this category, the major four ones are

sublimation, suppression, humor and altruism. So I'll talk a little bit about them and

these are going to be the the main one that we're going to talk about how to change the other one to these ones

because these are defense mechanism good for humanity. So the first one sublimation pretty much turning anger

into sports or art. You're having bad time at work. Uh you go home uh and what you do is you change and you go to the

gym and you start working out and you come back home you feel better. That's sublimation. or you start a new hobby

because you're having a stressful job or stressful relationship. This is actually much better than projecting your feeling

on others or displacing anger from your boss who yelled at you to your wife who's at home and did not do anything

only supporting you. The other defense mechanism here, which is to me a little questionable because it's called

suppression. So pretty much you're you're choosing not to think about an argument until you're ready, which may

things to be okay. But after doing lots of suppressions, suppressions could become repression and you're going to

repress these stress in your unconscious mind and that could explode at some point or turn into the conscious mind or

even give you somatic symptoms. humor. Joking about your own mistakes or actually joking the stress out. This is

how I call it. So you're in stressful situation, you just humor it out. Joke it out. This is a good defense

mechanism, but it takes lots of modeling and training. Not everyone could use humor in every day, but sublimation,

it's easier to use than humor. Now, the last defense mechanism in this category is very important for humanity. It's

called altruism, which is pretty much reducing anxiety or stress by helping others. You're having a bad uh uh stress

or bad job or whatever and after you finish, you go to the in-house shelter and you help people who don't have food.

This is pretty good. We need more people in this world using altruism. So again, sublimation, suppression, humor, and

altruism are good defense mechanism. The best one that I would recommend that we should all use more are sublimation,

humor and altruism. So now let's move to a different perspective here. How to help ourselves

understanding defense mechanism and how to understand ourself better. So here you know we need to talk about a very

old therapy called psychonamic psychotherapy. That's what sigon freud started and we need to see that there is

core principles of this uh kind of therapy that we need to know and try to do it on ourselves or our patient

depends on uh uh your position. So the core principles are the unconscious mind matters, psychic determinism, early

childhood shapes adult life, defense mechanism, the centrality of relationships and insight as curative.

So the first one is uh the unconscious mind matter. Don't say my unconscious is underneath the surface. I don't see it.

I don't feel it. I don't hear it. It doesn't matter. No, it's the opposite. It is there. It is you. It is going to

show up. It is going to make you suffer. So you have to understand this fact that when things are in your unconscious

mind, they matter. And your unconscious mind matters. And you always have to talk about, oh, what happened to me

before that I don't think about that. It's in my unconscious mind. Talk about your childhood events. All the things

that happened to you that made you feel bad and you forgot about it because you repressed it, right? When you repress

things, they don't vanish. They go to your unconscious mind. The second one is psychic determinism.

Nothing is truly random. We talked about that in previous videos. So, slips of the tongue, dreams, even accidents can

reveal unconscious wishes. So you need to be very careful and know anything I'm doing has a base in my end consciousness

and I need to know what is this base that will help you understand your yourself better and understand your life

better. Early childhood shapes adult life. Don't say oh forget about my childhood. No

how we relate to caregivers forms templates for adults relationships. What happened in childhood is going to affect

my life as an adult. Trauma, neglect, early loss leave lasting and conscious imprints. So we need to really know that

and say okay I'm not going to like leave my childhood aside and think about the future only. We going to think about the

future. But you have to resolve the matters in the childhood first. Then understand your defense mechanism. The

ego uses defenses like repression, denial, projection to manage anxiety and conflict. Therapy, whether it's done by

a professional or if you sit down every day, by the end of the day, you walk through your day, you walk about your uh

uh uh you walk inside your maladaptive defenses and you work through them and you try or decide to make better

defenses. Next day, you're actually coaching yourself to do better. The centrality of relationships, human

development and psychopathology are deeply rooted in relationships. The therapeutic relationship itself becomes

a key vehicle for changes. Insight as curative gaining awareness of unconscious motives, conflict and

pattern fosters symptom relief and personality growth. So here's the good news. You can work with this knowledge.

Notice what you feel and ask why now. Connect it to your past experiences. Identify which defense mechanism you're

using. Swap unhealthy defenses for healthier ones like sublimation, humor, or altruism. And if it feels too hard to

do alone, that's where therapy can help. And remember, you can be your own therapist. But if you feel stuck,

professional help can guide you. Now, we're going to show videos about several defense mechanisms. Try to guess

them. And at the end of the short video, we'll mention what kind was that. Smoking isn't harmful. My grandfather

smoked and lived to 90. [Music] I know you think I am hostile. You are

the hostiles one and not me. [Music] I said Mr. Jones was awesome yesterday.

He is awful. I don't know how his wife deals with him. [Music]

[Music] [Applause] I have a legitimate belly pain and

you're telling me that everything is negative. Hey, hey, hey. [Music]

[Music] He was driving a big car. We clashed. He had some severe injuries. He has broken

bones and he may not be able to walk again. I failed at this task. I did not do my

job well anyway. [Music] [Music]

[Music] Spilled coffee. Classic Monday move, right? But hey, instead of stressing

out, you crack a joke. I guess my shirt needs some flavor. Suddenly, everyone's laughing. That

little accident brings you all closer. Humor. Kindness. Turning life's messes into moments that

actually make your day better. [Music]