Primary defenses
Typically, defenses regarded as primary, immature, primitive, or “lower order” defenses are those that deal with the boundary between the self and the outside world. Primitive defense always contains two qualities associated with the pre-verbal stage of development: insufficient connection with the reality principle and insufficient consideration of the separation and constancy of objects outside one's own “I”. It is customary to classify primitive defenses as isolation, denial, omnipotent control, primitive idealization and depreciation, projective and introjective identification.Insulation
allows you to block unpleasant emotions, so that the connection between an event and its emotional coloring does not appear in the consciousness of an individual. This is the most versatile protection that allows you to put yourself in a "straitjacket". The payment for the suppression of unpleasant emotions is a loss of naturalness of feelings, a weakening of intuition, and ultimately - self-alienation of the “I” and the emergence of a schizoid complex.Refusal to accept the existence of troubles
Is another early way to deal with them. A person for whom denial is a fundamental defense always insists that "everything is fine and everything is for the best." Most of us resort to denial to some degree with the worthy goal of making life less unpleasant, and many people have specific areas where this defense prevails over others. The defense mechanism of denial allows one to partially or completely ignore information that is incompatible with the prevailing ideas about oneself.Almighty control
The feeling that you have the power, are able to influence the world, is undoubtedly a prerequisite for self-esteem, which originates in infantile and unrealistic, but at a certain stage of development, normal fantasies of omnipotence. Some healthy remnant of this infantile sense of omnipotence persists in all of us and maintains a sense of competence and success in life. When we carry out our intention effectively, we have a feeling of emotional uplift.Primitive idealization and depreciation
For many people, the need to idealize remains more or less unchanged from infancy. Their behavior shows signs of archaic desperate efforts to counter the inner panic terror with the belief that someone to whom they are attached is omnipotent, omniscient and infinitely benevolent, and psychological fusion with this supernatural other provides them with safety. They also hope to free themselves from shame: a byproduct of idealization and the associated belief in perfection is that their own imperfections are particularly painful to bear; merging with the idealized object is a natural remedy in this situation. Primitive depreciation is the inevitable downside of the need for idealization. Since nothing is perfect in human life, archaic ways of idealization inevitably lead to disappointment. The more an object is idealized, the more radical devaluation awaits it; the more illusions there are, the harder their collapse is experienced.Projection, introjection and projective identification
Projection is a process by which the inside is mistakenly perceived as coming from the outside. It can be understood as an unconscious rejection of one's own unacceptable thoughts, attitudes or desires and attributing them to other people in order to shift responsibility for what happens inside the “I” to the world around us. Introjection is a process by which something coming from the outside is mistakenly perceived as coming from within. Its everyday synonyms are suggestibility, "weathering". It is a tendency to appropriate the beliefs, feelings and attitudes of others without criticism, without trying to change them and make them "your own." As a result, the border between "I" and the environment moves deep inside the "I", and the individual is so busy assimilating other people 'Secondary protections
Defenses ranked as secondary - more mature, more developed, or to defenses of the "higher order", "work" with internal boundaries - between the Ego, the super-ego and the id, or between the observing and experiencing parts of the ego ... Higher-order defenses include: repression (repression), isolation, intellectualization, rationalization, moralization, compartmentalization (separate thinking), annulment, turning against oneself, identification.Repression (displacement)
it is motivated forgetting or ignoring thoughts, memories, experiences. The defense mechanism of repression usually allows you to avoid internal conflict by actively excluding from consciousness (forgetting) not information about some act or event as a whole, but only the true, but unacceptable motive of your behavior. Repression is aimed at what was previously realized, at least partially, but became forbidden for the second time and therefore is not retained in memory.Intellectualization
is called a variant of a higher level of isolation of emotion from the intellect than just isolation. The person using isolation usually says that they have no feelings, while the person using intellectualization talks about feelings, but in such a way that the listener is left with the impression of no emotion. Intellectualization suppresses the usual overflow of emotions in the same way that isolation suppresses traumatic overstimulation.Rationalization
it is protection associated with the awareness and use in thinking of only that part of the perceived information, thanks to which one's own behavior appears as well controlled and does not contradict objective circumstances. In this case, the unacceptable part of the situation is removed from consciousness, is transformed in a special way, and after that it is realized, but in a changed form. Rationalization may contradict facts and the laws of logic, but it doesn't have to. In this case, its irrationality lies only in the fact that the declared motive of the activity is not genuine. For example, sometimes a person claims that his professional incompetence stems from physical ailment: "If I got rid of my headaches, I would focus on work." In this case, advice to heal, not overload, relax, obviously, will not help,Moralization
is a close relative of rationalization. When a person rationalizes, he unconsciously looks for reasonable justifications for the chosen decision. When he moralizes, it means that he is looking for ways in order to feel: he is obliged to follow in this direction. Rationalization shifts what a person wants into the language of reason, moralization directs these desires into the realm of justifications or moral obligations. Where the innovator says “thank you for the science” (which leads to some confusion), the moralizer will insist that this is “character-building”.Compartmentalization (separate thinking) -
another intellectual defense, closer to dissociative processes than to rationalization and moralization, although rationalization often serves to support this defense. Its function is to allow two conflicting states to coexist without conscious confusion, guilt, shame, or anxiety. While isolation implies a gap between thoughts and emotions, separate thinking means a gap between incompatible mental attitudes. When a person uses compartmentalization, he adheres to two or more ideas, relationships or behaviors that conflict with each other, without realizing this contradiction. For the non-psychologically thinking observer, separate thinking is no different from hypocrisy.Cancellation
can be seen as the natural successor to omnipotent control. Cancellation is the term for an unconscious attempt to balance a negative emotion (usually guilt or shame) with an attitude or behavior that magically destroys that emotion. A prime example of a cancellation is when a spouse returns home with a gift designed to offset the previous night's outburst of anger. If the motive is recognized, we technically cannot call it annulment. But if the annihilator is unaware of the feelings of shame or guilt and, therefore, cannot be aware of his own desire to redeem them, we can apply this concept.Retroflection (turning against oneself)
shifts the border between the personality and the environment closer to the center of "I", and the retroflexing person begins to relate to himself as he himself relates to other people or objects. If his first attempt to satisfy his need meets strong opposition, then instead of directing energy to change the environment, he directs it to himself. The retroflexing person develops an attitude towards himself as a foreign object. The initial conflict between "I" and others turns into a conflict within the "I". A “speech”, grammatical indicator of retroflection is the use of a reflexive pronoun when a person says: “I have to control myself; I have to force myself to do the job; I am ashamed of myself ”, which indicates a clear separation of“ I ”as a subject and“ I ”as an object of action.Identification
this is a kind of projection associated with an unconscious identification of oneself with another person, the transfer of desired feelings and qualities to oneself. It is raising oneself to another by expanding the boundaries of the “I”. Identification is associated with a process in which a person, as if including another in his "I", borrows his thoughts, feelings and actions.Source: © Malkina-Pykh IG "Techniques of positive therapy and NLP"
