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.