Life is obviously full of sad events, angering situations, and times of stress. Sometimes, these bad components blur together and it becomes too much for people to keep their stability without implementing subconscious mental defense mechanism to cope. There are too many mental defense mechanism to talk about in this blog alone, so instead I will focus on the 3 that I deem most common, interesting and used by myself.
First, and the most common, is denial. Most people have heard the phrase, “You’re in denial”, and that is because most people use this mechanism to cope with troubling times. The premise of denial is simple, don’t think about what is troubling you. For example, if a family members passes away, instead of thinking about memories spent with them, people will attempt to remove them from memory as this may be less painful than thinking about them only to realize they are gone. This is the reason some people may choose to skip a funeral of a family member, as this tradition may legitimize the fact that the person is no longer living, thus amplifying the pain of the grieving.
Second, and to me the most interesting is displacement. Displacement is when someone redirects their sadness, anger or stress towards another person. I find this defense mechanism strange because it provides no relief to the person. For example, if a student is angry about getting a poor grade on their exam, they may go back to their dorm and take out this anger on their roomate. Small things that are usually not an issue may result in an argument. My roommate did this to me once as he came back from Pollock testing center to find a few of my notebooks on his desk. Normally, this would be no big deal but the result of his exam caused him to shift his anger from his to grade towards me. However, unlike denial, displacement did not provide emotional protection from his grade, nor did it help him restore a sense of calmness like the next mechanism, sublimation.
Sublimation is the mental defense mechanism I find myself subconsciously implementing most often. Sublimation is redirecting emotions into an activity that is comfortable and safe. I find that this usually helps restore confidence and allows me to clear my head before I determine how I want to proceed with the problem. For an example, if someone has gone through a break up, a person using denial would attempt to erase them from memory, a person using displacement would become resentful towards their friends, a person using sublimation would engage in activities they enjoy to help stabilize themselves adjust to the change happening in their life. I personally think this is best method as it is a positive mechanic, using consistent activities to cope with a changing life unlike negative mechanics such as denial and displacement. So, next time you are feeling sad, angry or stressed, think about doing things you enjoy to clear your head before you decide how to proceed with handling a situation as opposed to going into denial or taking out your emotions on others, your friends, family and mind will thank you for it.
Good post I liked learning the different methods of defense. It was interesting to see the different things that I do or that my roommate even does to me too. I found the denial one very relatable and I also found it interesting about doing activities to replace things. I’d be interested to read about more defense mechanisms as well.
It’s awesome that you did choose to go with psychology, there’s so much to learn about our brains and how weird they can make us act. You were able to make these concepts easy to understand, even more when you gave your personal example with your roommate.