Defense mechanisms are blocks generated by the mind to block access to repressed content in the unconscious, preventing the patient from discovering the traumatic motives that generate the symptoms. This article addresses the perception about the functioning of defense mechanisms in Psychoanalysis.

The psychoanalyst must always be attentive to identify the various defense mechanisms used by the individual that, through the unconscious part of the ego, will help reduce internal psychic tensions, protecting the psyche, during the analysis sessions, as well as being aware of the chystes and the various types of failed acts.

What are defense mechanisms in Psychoanalysis?

Defense mechanisms are the ego's strategy, in an unconscious way, to protect the personality against what it considers a threat. They are also, the various types of psychic processes, whose purpose is to remove the event that generates suffering, from conscious perception.

They are mobilized in the face of a danger signal and triggered to prevent the experience of painful facts, which the

This is yet another function of analysis, to prepare the individual to endure such painful events.

Some of main defense mechanisms :

1. recalcification or repression

Recalcitrance arises from the conflict between the demands of the Id and the censorship of the Superego. It is the mechanism that prevents threatening impulses, desires, painful thoughts and feelings, and all painful contents from reaching consciousness.

Through Repression, the hysteric causes the cause of his disorder to sink into the unconscious. The repressed becomes symptomatized, transferring the pains of the unconscious to his own organism, or transforms them into dreams or some neurotic symptom. The unconscious processes become conscious, through dreams or neuroses.

Recalcitrance is an unconscious defense for the difficulty in accepting painful ideas. It is a process that aims to protect the individual, keeping in the unconscious the ideas and representations of the impulses that would affect the psychic balance.

Recalcitrance is a continuous pressure force, which lowers the subject's psychic energy. Recalcitrance can appear in the form of symptoms. And psychoanalytic treatment aims at the recognition of the repressed desire. And the end of symptoms is a consequence of the process of analysis.

2. denial

It is a defense mechanism that consists of denying external reality and replacing it by another fictitious reality. It has the ability to deny parts of reality that are unpleasant and undesirable, by the fantasy of satisfying desires or by behavior. Denial is an essential condition for the onset of a psychosis.

3. regression

It is the retreat of the ego, fleeing from current conflictive situations, to the previous stage. An example is when an adult returns to a childish model where he felt happier. Another example is when a sibling is born and the child regresses by using a pacifier or urinating in bed, as a defense.

4. displacement

When the feelings (usually anger) are projected away from the person who is the target, and usually to a more harmless victim. When you shift the feelings from their original anxiety-provoking source, to whomever you perceive is less likely to cause you harm.

5. projection

It is a type of primitive defense. It is the process where the subject expels from himself and locates in the other or in something,

qualities, desires, feelings that he is unaware of or refuses in him. It is often seen in paranoia.

6. insulation

It is the typical defense mechanism of obsessive neuroses. It acts in such a way as to isolate a thought or behavior, causing other connections with self-knowledge or with other thoughts to be interrupted. Thus, the other thoughts and behaviors are excluded from consciousness.

7. sublimation

Sublimation only exists if a repression precedes it. It is the process by which the libido moves away from the object of

The result of sublimation is the change of libidinal energy from the object of destiny to other areas, such as cultural achievements, for example. Sublimation, for Freud, is a very positive defense mechanism for society, because most of the artists, great scientists, great personalities and great achievements were only possible thanks toFor instead of manifesting their instincts as they were, they sublimated the selfish instincts and transformed these forces into social achievements of great value.

8. reactive training

It occurs when the subject feels the desire to say or do something, but does the opposite. It arises as a defense against reactions

Extreme patterns of reactive shaping are found in paranoia and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), when the person locks himself into a cycle of repeating behavior that he knows, at a deep level, is wrong.

How does the psychoanalyst act in relation to defense mechanisms?

The psychoanalyst must be attentive and prepared to perceive the manifestations of the ego's defense mechanisms, which arise from the tension between the Id and the Superego, and the ego, under pressure from both, defends itself through some mechanisms.

I want information to enroll in the Psychoanalysis Course .

The increase in this pressure, reflected in the form of fear, increases greatly and this creates a threat to the ego's stability, hence it makes use of certain mechanisms to defend itself or to adjust. Such as the mechanisms of

defense can also falsify the person's internal perception, the psychoanalyst must be attentive to perceive the facts, since what is presented is only a deformed representation of reality.

About the Author: Karla Oliveira (Rio de Janeiro - RJ). Psychotherapist. Psychoanalyst graduated from the IBPC Training Course in Clinical Psychoanalysis. Rio de Janeiro. [email protected]