Defense Mechanisms, How They Help Us Survive

He was a large man, tall and muscular from the physical labor he did every day as a framing contractor. At first he tried to suppress the tears, but they got the better of him and ended up streaming down his face. Just minutes earlier he was so filled with rage he was punching his fist on his thigh with such force I was worried he would hurt himself. Here's why. He was convinced his wife of eight years, the dark-haired, petite mother of three who sat across from him in my office almost 10 years ago, was having an affair. She was pleading with him, and me, when would she have time for an affair, she worked full time and was raising three children? He knew where she was every minute, and frankly, she was getting a little tired of having to report to him, and being accused of infidelity every time she went to buy groceries.

Here's the interesting thing, I knew that she was faithful, and that HE was the one who was attracted to another woman, a waitress he met in a cafe he frequently visited. What he was doing was classic psychology according to Freud. Freud? That old timer? --- Yep.

Today, Sigmond Freud is not the be all and end all of modern psychology, but his basic constructs have been expanded, improved and updated to more accurately reflect current thinking. He was a genius, and his brilliant idea of Defense Mechanisms, describes my former client accurately. According to Freud, a Defense Mechanism is a distortion of reality, something we do unconsciously to protect ourselves. He had a whole slug of them, some that make sense in the year 2000 and some that don't seem to apply. I'll share my favorites with you, and you can see which ones you use to keep yourself safe. Don't even start to think that you don't use defense mechanisms because we all do at one time or another.

My favorite is Projection, the idea is that we take our own unacceptable feelings or impulses and attribute them to others. My former client did not want to acknowledge that he found someone else attractive, it was too scary for him, so he unconsciously projected those feelings onto his wife. I don't like to get angry, and I usually know that I am because I keep thinking that my husband Bob is angry. "Feeling a little grumpy today Bob?"

My next favorite is Rationalization, and I bet you've heard of that. It means explaining away actions in a seemingly logical way to avoid uncomfortable feelings, especially shame and guilt. "Everyone cheats on their taxes" and "Just one more cigarette won't hurt" are both examples of a rationalization. Do you have a favorite?

The ability to keep dangerous or threatening thoughts from even entering our consciousness is called Repression. How can an eight year old manage to go to third grade after watching her drunken father beat her mother ... again? Simple, she represses the memory, goes to school and learns long division. Just for the record, I don't necessarily think that all repressed memories need to be retrieved. For example, when I was 27 I was in a horrible car accident and the man driving the car was killed. I remember very little, and I know several people who could help me get to those memories in a responsible way, but why? My day to day functioning is not hindered because I cannot remember that trauma. On the other hand, if our eight-year-old friend described above grows up and finds it impossible to have breakfast with her husband without becoming filled with anxiety, she may want to examine her situation further.

Another great lifesaver is Denial. Here we protect ourselves from unpleasant realities by refusing to perceive them. For example, the wife who doesn't notice her husband working late each night, coming home smelling like Chanel #5, and losing interest in sex with her, would find the idea of his affair to hard to face, so she protects herself by simply failing to notice the signs.

The truth about Defense Mechanisms is that they help us survive. They protect us form the hard aspects of life so that we can manage our daily living. The trouble begins when we use them so much that we miss out on the reality of our day to day lives. So you can look at this situation in one of two ways; like Cyril Connolly who said

"We must select the illusion which appeals to our temperament, and embrace it with passion, if we want to be happy."

"The important thing is not to stop questioning."

My preference is a little bit of both.