Sigmund Freud and Anna

freud’s
Defence Mechanisms
Submitted by:
Submitted to:
Kiran Singh, Piyush
Aditya Parihar
Masters in social work
Centre for social work
Centre for social work
Panjab University
Panjab university
Chandigarh
Chandigarh
 Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was a physiologist, medical doctor,

psychologist and influential thinker of the early twentieth century. Working
initially in close collaboration with Joseph Breuer, Freud elaborated the theory
that the mind is a complex energy-system, the structural investigation of which is
the proper province of psychology. He articulated and refined the concepts of the
unconscious, infantile sexuality and repression, and he proposed a tripartite
account of the mind’s structure—all as part of a radically new conceptual and
therapeutic frame of reference for the understanding of human psychological
development and the treatment of abnormal mental conditions. Notwithstanding
the multiple manifestations of psychoanalysis as it exists today, it can in almost
all fundamental respects be traced directly back to Freud’s original work.
 Anna Freud
Anna Freud was born in 1895 in Vienna, the sixth and youngest child of Sigmund Freud
and Martha Bernays. From early childhood, she did not get on with her mother and felt
very jealous of her immediately elder sister. She admired her father greatly and by the age of
fourteen already showed a real interest for psychoanalysis. In 1917 she started work as a
primary school teacher, a vocation she greatly enjoyed, but which was cut short when she
contracted tuberculosis. During her protracted recovery she read the writings of Freud and
his colleagues, which galvanised her determination to become a psychoanalyst.
In 1936, with ‘The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence’, her first major book, Anna Freud
greatly expands the existing ideas about defences. She discusses through describing various
mechanisms of defence how the ego attempts to protect itself from danger arising from both
inside the individual and outside him, especially to protect itself from being helplessly
overwhelmed. This book was very well received and remains a standard text today.
 Defence Mechanisms

• Defence mechanisms, in psychoanalytic theory, are any of a

group of mental processes that enables the mind to reach
compromise solutions to conflicts that it is unable to resolve.
• The process is usually unconscious, and the compromise
generally involves concealing from oneself internal drives or
feelings that threaten to lower self-esteem or provoke anxiety.
• The concept derives from the psychoanalytic hypothesis that there
are forces in the mind that oppose and battle against each other.
The term was first used in Sigmund Freud’s paper “The
Neuro-Psychoses of Defence” (1894).
 How do the defence Mechanisms work

• In Sigmund Freud's model of personality,

• The ego is the aspect of personality that deals with reality. While doing this, the ego also has to cope with the conflicting demands of
the id and the superego.
• The id is the part of personality that seeks to fulfil all wants, needs, and impulses. It is the most basic, primal part of our personalities
and does not consider things such as the social appropriateness, morality, or even reality of fulfilling our wants and needs.
• The superego tries to get the ego to act in an idealistic and moral manner. This part of personality is made up of all of the internalised
morals and values we acquire from our parents, other family members, religious influences, and society.
• In order to deal with anxiety, Freud believed that defence mechanisms helped shield the ego from the conflicts created by the id, superego,
and reality. According to Freud, anxiety is an unpleasant inner state that people seek to avoid. Anxiety acts as a signal to the ego that
things are not going the way they should. As a result, the ego then employs some sort of defence mechanism to help reduce these feelings of
anxiety.
 Types of anxiety

• Not all types of anxiety are created equal. Nor do these anxieties stem from the same sources. Freud identified three
types of anxiety:
• Neurotic anxiety is the unconscious worry that we will lose control of the id's urges, resulting in punishment for
inappropriate behaviour.
• Reality anxiety is fear of real-world events. The cause of this anxiety is usually easily identified. For example, a
person might fear receiving a dog bite when they are near a menacing dog. The most common way of reducing this
anxiety is to avoid the threatening object.
• Moral anxiety involves a fear of violating our own moral principles.
 Types of defence mechanisms
-Displacement:
Have ever had a really bad day at work and then gone home and taken out your frustration on family and friends? Then you have experienced the ego defense mechanism of displacement.
Displacement involves taking out our frustrations, feelings, and impulses on people or objects that are less threatening.
Displaced aggression is a common example of this defence mechanism. Rather than express our anger in ways that could lead to negative consequences (like arguing with our boss), we instead express our anger towards a
person or object that poses no threat (such as our spouse, children, or pets).
-Denial:
Denial is probably one of the best-known defence mechanisms, used often to describe situations in which people seem unable to face reality or admit an obvious truth (i.e. "He's in denial."). Denial is an outright refusal to
admit or recognise that something has occurred or is currently occurring. Drug addicts or alcoholics often deny that they have a problem, while victims of traumatic events may deny that the event ever occurred.
Denial functions to protect the ego from things with which the individual cannot cope. While this may save us from anxiety or pain, denial also requires a substantial investment of energy. Because of this, other defences are
also used to keep these unacceptable feelings from conscious awareness.
In many cases, there might be overwhelming evidence that something is true, yet the person will continue to deny its existence or truth because it is too uncomfortable to face.
Denial can involve a flat out rejection of the existence of a fact or reality. In other cases, it might involve admitting that something is true, but minimising its importance. Sometimes people will accept reality and the
seriousness of the fact, but they will deny their own responsibility and instead blame other people or other outside forces.
Addiction is one of the best-known examples of denial. People who are suffering from a substance abuse problem will often flat-out deny that their behaviour is problematic. In other cases, they might admit that they do use
drugs or alcohol, but will claim that this substance abuse is not a problem.
-Repression and Suppression:
Repression is another well-known defense mechanism. Repression acts to keep information out of conscious awareness. However, these memories don't just
disappear; they continue to influence our behavior. For example, a person who has repressed memories of abuse suffered as a child may later have
difficulty forming relationships.
Sometimes we do this consciously by forcing the unwanted information out of our awareness, which is known as suppression. In most cases, however, this
removal of anxiety-provoking memories from our awareness is believed to occur unconsciously.
-Sublimation:
Sublimation is a defense mechanism that allows us to act out unacceptable impulses by converting these behaviors into a more acceptable form. For example,
a person experiencing extreme anger might take up kick-boxing as a means of venting frustration. Freud believed that sublimation was a sign of maturity
that allows people to function normally in socially acceptable ways.
-Projection:
Projection is a defense mechanism that involves taking our own unacceptable qualities or feelings and ascribing them to other people. For example, if you
have a strong dislike for someone, you might instead believe that he or she does not like you. Projection works by allowing the expression of the desire or
impulse, but in a way that the ego cannot recognize, therefore reducing anxiety.
-Intellectualisation
Intellectualisation works to reduce anxiety by thinking about events in a cold, clinical way. This defence mechanism allows us to
avoid thinking about the stressful, emotional aspect of the situation and instead focus only on the intellectual component. For
example, a person who has just been diagnosed with a terminal illness might focus on learning everything about the disease in order
to avoid distress and remain distant from the reality of the situation.
-Rationalisation
Rationalisation is a defence mechanism that involves explaining an unacceptable behaviour or feeling in a rational or logical
manner, avoiding the true reasons for the behaviour. For example, a person who is turned down for a date might rationalize the
situation by saying they were not attracted to the other person anyway. A student might blame a poor exam score on the instructor
rather than his or her lack of preparation.
Rationalisation not only prevents anxiety, it may also protect self-esteem and self-concept. When confronted by success or failure,
people tend to attribute achievement to their own qualities and skills while failures are blamed on other people or outside forces.
-Regression
When confronted by stressful events, people sometimes abandon coping strategies and revert to patterns of behaviour used earlier in development.
Anna Freud called this defence mechanism regression, suggesting that people act out behaviours from the stage of psychosexual development in
which they are fixated. For example, an individual fixated at an earlier developmental stage might cry or sulk upon hearing unpleasant
news.
Behaviours associated with regression can vary greatly depending upon which stage at which the person is fixated. An individual fixated at
the oral stage might begin eating or smoking excessively, or might become very verbally aggressive. A fixation at the anal stage might result in
excessive tidiness or messiness.
-Reaction Formation
Reaction formation reduces anxiety by taking up the opposite feeling, impulse, or behaviour. An example of reaction formation would be
treating someone you strongly dislike in an excessively friendly manner in order to hide your true feelings. Why do people behave this way?
According to Freud, they are using reaction formation as a defence mechanism to hide their true feelings by behaving in the exact opposite
manner.
Other Defense Mechanisms
Since Freud first described the original defence mechanisms, other researchers have continued to describe other methods of reducing anxiety. Some of these defence
mechanisms include:
-Acting Out: In this type of defence, the individual copes with stress by engaging in actions rather than reflecting upon internal feelings.
-Affiliation: This involves turning to other people for support.
Aim Inhibition: In this type of defence, the individual accepts a modified form of their original goal (i.e. becoming a high school basketball coach rather than a
professional athlete.)
-Altruism: Satisfying internal needs through helping others.
-Avoidance: Refusing to deal with or encounter unpleasant objects or situations.
-Compensation: Overachieving in one area to compensate for failures in another.
-Humour: Pointing out the funny or ironic aspects of a situation.
-Passive-aggression: Indirectly expressing anger.
-Fantasy: Avoiding reality by retreating to a safe place within one's mind.
-Undoing: This involves trying to make up for what one feels are inappropriate thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. If you hurt someone's feelings, you might offer to do
something nice in for them in order to assuage your anxiety.