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Defense Mechanisms

By Denise • Originally published February 6, 2012 • Updated April 12, 2012

Defense mechanisms are the body’s unconscious ways of dealing with stressful situations.

Defense mechanisms are the body’s unconscious ways of dealing with stressful situations. There are eight main defense mechanisms.

  1. Repression - when the body makes a situation turn into an unconscious state of mind by excluding it.

  2. Projection - when a person turns an unwanted emotion to someone else.

  3. Reaction Formation - when the opposite emotion is expressed leaving the anxiety or impulse emotion repressed.

  4. Displacement - when a person uses a negative energy and takes it away from one object to a safer object.

  5. Regression - when a negative past experience causes a person to relive that experience or action in a negative way.

  6. Rationalization - when a person can explain a negative situation by turning it into something positive.

  7. Denial - when a person unconsciously ignores a bad feeling or situation because they do not want to consciously face the negative consequences.

  8. Identification - when a person incorporates qualities of another person.