The most prominent psychological defense mechanisms, including repression, denial, idealization, splitting and projection. This is the category for you.
The precocious development of verbal thought can function as a defense against unbearable emotional chaos; in later life, this kind of “thinking” often takes on a life of its own, can feel persecutory and underlies problems with insomnia.
Defense Mechanisms IV: “Thinking” Read More »
In addition to ridding the self of painful experience, projection may also defuse internal conflict between opposing impulses or ideas. People who use projection in this way often provoke behavior in others than appears to “validate” the projection.
Defense Mechanisms III: Further Uses for Projection Read More »
Like all defense mechanisms, denial has its normal and constructive uses: by denying the awareness of unavoidable death, for instance, we’re able to continue with our daily lives.
Defense Mechanisms II: Denial Read More »
Splitting (along with its companion defense, projection) is one of the primary defense mechanisms; it’s also an indispensable part of everyday mental processes, enabling us to make distinctions and evolve meaning out of our experience.
Defense Mechanisms I: Splitting Read More »
The experience of helplessness in the face of trauma plays a central role in post traumatic stress disorder and the development of ptsd symptoms, but also has an impact on the genesis of other psychological disorders and maladaptive character traits.
The Role of Helplessness in PTSD Symptoms and Other Disorders Read More »
Though we tend to talk about grief and the grieving process as a unique category of experience, it also involves painful feelings akin to other kinds of suffering, and we will mobilize our habitual defenses against such pain when it becomes unbearable.
Psychological Obstacles to Grief and the Grieving Process Read More »
Sexual excitement, while crucial for the early stages of a romance, can be abused as a way to avoid true intimacy.
The Misuses of Sexual Excitement Read More »
Charlie Sheen’s rant on The Alex Jones Show and how it demonstrates the characteristic defenses against shame, including features of pathological narcissism.
Charlie Sheen’s Rant and the Power of Destructive Narcissism Read More »
Knowing how to identify when we’re projecting is extremely difficult, but an overly intense focus upon the behavior or attributes of another person may be a sign.
How to Tell if You’re Projecting Read More »
Psychological defenses are deeply etched neural pathways, like deep ruts in a well-traveled road, impossible to remove. Under psychological and emotional pressure, they will always come automatically and feel like the easiest, most natural response.
The Tenacity of Defenses Read More »