Ghost in armor. What you need to know about the defense mechanisms of the psyche.

[Brother]

Even the most mentally healthy person cannot avoid internal conflicts - conflicting emotions, desires, attitudes and environmental influences constantly pull us in different directions. So that life is not perceived as complete chaos, there are certain limitations in our minds - psychic protection

Crush, split

The first question about mental protection was raised by Sigmund Freud in 1894. Best of all, he managed to study the repression mechanism, which fit perfectly into the three-component model of personality ("Id" - instinctive drives, "Ego" - the conscious part of the psyche and behavior control, "Super-Ego" - self-observation and moral assessment). Destructive, from the point of view of the individual's conscience, desires, according to Freud, are, as it were, "squeezed" from the conscious part of the psyche into the unconscious, so that they do not affect behavior and lead to unpleasant consequences.

The psychiatrist came up with a convenient analogy: the normal work of the psyche is a lecture, an unwanted impulse is a bully student who makes noise and interferes. The lecturer - consciousness - drives the intruder out of the audience. After that, it becomes easier to lecture (or maintain mental balance), but usually it is not possible to keep the bully outside the door for a long time without consequences - if the repression mechanism is used too often or if the repressed desires are very strong, tension builds up and leads to neuroses.

Freud's youngest daughter Anna became the first who tried to compile a "census" of basic mental health protection. In addition, she developed the concept itself in more detail. In particular, Anna drew attention to the fact that different defenses arise at different stages of the development of the psyche - some begin to work from early childhood (say, denial, projection and repression), while others develop in accordance with a change in our picture of the world and ideas about morality and, accordingly, are considered more "mature" (eg rationalization and intellectualization).

Many points of Freud's theory are now considered outdated and untrue (for example, penis envy, psychosexual stages of development, and sexuality in general as the main "engine" of the psyche), but the existence of defense mechanisms in one form or another is recognized by most areas of psychology, although their classification has been repeatedly rethought.

Psychological protection can neither be tracked on a tomograph, nor experimentally proved their existence, this is only a convenient explanatory model. But it works well in therapeutic practice - the experience of specialists shows that patients exhibit approximately the same typical "bugs" to varying degrees, no matter how you call them.

For example, in Gestalt therapy, psychic protection is called contact interruption mechanisms, because this school determines the healthy functioning of the psyche through the connection of the individual with the environment. And the cognitive-behavioral direction of psychotherapy (CBT), the most distant from psychoanalysis and so far the most effective from the point of view of evidence-based medicine, offers its analogue of psycho-protection - dysfunctional cognitive schemes that appear as a side effect of our experience and attempts to adapt to the environment. It's like a conditioned reflex, fixed in an emotional situation, something like "having burnt myself on milk, now I blow on the water."

In addition, it is now believed that defenses are directed not only against forbidden desires, but also against stress, cognitive dissonance (inconsistency of new information with an established picture of the world) and negative emotions in general. A set of psychic protection typical for a person to some extent forms his character, and in case of significant distortions, it contributes to the occurrence of mental disorders. Psychological protection that is often out of control requires study in therapy, but in any case, it is useful to know about their existence and learn to notice them behind you - this allows you to look more objectively at the crisis situation and understand how to change it for the better.

List of common psychic protections

Almighty control - a person perceives himself as the cause of everything that happens, even if he really could not influence it in any way (because it is easier to accept than the fact that the world around him cannot be controlled). A classic example: Young children with divorced parents often take the blame for the breakdown of the family.

Dissociation is the separation of oneself from one's unpleasant experiences, as a result of which they begin to be perceived as happening to someone else. It is believed that this psychic protection lies at the heart of dissociative disorder - what is popularly called "split personality": in an attempt to cope with serious mental trauma, a person creates a new "I" for himself, which may have a different character, nationality, age, gender and even intelligence level.

Introjection is the unconscious inclusion of points of view, motives and attitudes perceived from outside into your inner world. Our views on what is right and wrong are often determined by our upbringing and culture: for example, a woman who grew up in a patriarchal society may deep down not want children, but be sure that it is impossible to take place in life without becoming a mother.

Denial is a complete refusal to be aware of unpleasant information. A typical reaction to shocking news (for example, a fatal diagnosis) is that the person simply does not want to believe it and continues to behave as if nothing happened. This is often quite an adaptive strategy (denial allows the psyche to gradually get used to severe grief, avoiding sudden overloads), but it can become dangerous when immediate action is required to prevent an even greater catastrophe.

Projection is the erroneous perception of one's internal processes as occurring from the outside. For example, a person who deep down feels guilty of some kind of offense may begin to imagine that everyone around him condemns him, even if they do not care.

Somatization is the tendency to translate psychological stress into bodily sensations: people who actively use this psychic protection may have a fever from anxiety or mysterious pains in the head, back and other parts of the body may begin. However, they may not understand the underlying cause and seek help from ordinary doctors. Sometimes even a mental disorder can take this form - for example, there is a "masked" version of depression, when a person does not feel a depression at all, but all the time complains of poor health.

Repression - motivated forgetting of events or feelings associated with stress and internal conflicts. For example, an experience of violence that the victim cannot later recall (in fact, he does not want to remember, because it is too painful or contradicts the victim's picture of the world - say, if the violence was from a close relative or friend ).

Substitution is the unconscious transfer of an impulse or feeling from an original object to another. A classic example: an employee is scolded by the boss, and he breaks off the irritation at his own subordinate or at the child (because yelling at the boss in response is dangerous).

Intellectualization is an unconscious desire to control emotions and impulses through rational interpretation "from the outside." This psychic protection allows you to behave rationally and calmly in a tense situation, "keep your face" and control yourself well, which is often useful, but there is also a downside: people who go too far with intellectualization cannot afford direct expression of emotions , even when it is beneficial (for example, during a declaration of love or when clarifying relationships with loved ones).

Autoaggression is the redirection of negative emotions, initially dedicated to some external object, to oneself. This is because, for some reason, there is an internal prohibition on aggression towards the primary source. For example, this is the child's anger at the parents (not possible, because the child depends on them) or the unkind feelings of the mother towards the child (not, because it is strongly condemned by society).

Rationalization is the desire to feel in control of your behavior through the search for rational reasons or benefits. Two common options are "I didn't really want to" when something doesn't work out, or "this has its advantages" when things don't go as expected. This is an effective way to come to terms with reality and not harass yourself about things that cannot be changed, but, carried away by rationalization, you can believe that you are in control of yourself, even when emotions push you to reckless actions.

Regression is a return to infantile patterns of behavior that is characteristic of both older children and many adults with severe stress, anxiety, fatigue and physical exhaustion. All of us from time to time feel like "on the hands", and there is nothing terrible if a person does not lose the ability to take responsibility when he finds himself in a critical situation.

Sublimation is the redirection of impulses into socially acceptable activities. Even those who have never been interested in psychology have heard something about this psychic protection: in the philistine idea it is something like "if an artist has little sex, this makes the picture better." In fact, there is no strong scientific evidence that abstinence will improve your creativity in any way. Rather, the opposite: a more eventful life in general will help to come to terms with the lack of sex. Moreover, even in psychoanalytic theory, sublimation is not always associated with sexual impulses. For example, you can redirect aggression (a lot of anger and you want to fight - it's time to play Mortal Combat or write a story with vivid scenes of violence).