Managing Emotions: Step Two
Defense Mechanisms
Sometimes when we don’t have skills and strategies to effectively manage our emotions, we avoid dealing with them by turning to defense mechanisms. Some defense mechanisms are conscious and seem obvious to us after the fact. Others seem involuntary or subconscious. Awareness of the different defense mechanisms allows a person to more healthfully assess how he is reacting to stressful situations or basic needs and to express his emotions appropriately.
Read the following chart, and think of times when you might have used some of these defense mechanisms. Do any of them seem familiar?
Click on the different defense mechanisms to reveal their examples.
After reviewing the chart, complete the matching game to review the new information you have learned.
Defense Mechanism |
Definition |
Example |
| Most common defense mechanism. The involuntary pushing of unpleasant feelings out of conscious thought. | A person experiences physical symptoms of illness and wonders if he/she has an illness; refuses to go to a doctor for fear of hearing an undesirable diagnosis. |
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| Conscious, intentional pushing of unpleasant feelings out of conscious thought. | Not telling spouse about diagnosis of illness.
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| A person unconsciously attributes his/her unacceptable feelings to others. | An aide dislikes a particular patient. This is unacceptable to her so she says that the patient does not like her.
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| Unconscious lack of acknowledgment of something that is obvious to others. | A patient diagnosed with late stage cancer tells friends and family that she’s having a hard time getting over the flu this season.
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| Reverting to childish or childlike behaviors to recapture a time when there weren’t so many responsibilities. | A patient makes childish demands and becomes dependent upon the nurse for care that she could do for herself.
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| Making excuses to explain a situation or behavior, instead of taking responsibility for it. | A student drops out of school because the teachers are boring.
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| Excelling in one area to make up for feelings of failure in another. | A student devotes an extraordinary amount of time to playing a sport to avoid doing homework for a class he is failing.
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| Redirecting negative impulses into positive behavior. | A student volunteers to paint a mural at the library instead of creating graffiti when he or she is mad.
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| Imagining pleasant things that take your mind off the unpleasant reality. | A student daydreams in detention about what it will be like when you graduate and when teachers can't tell you what to do.
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| Shifting feelings about one person or situation to another person or situation. |
Yelling at your family when you are angry at your teacher.
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| Copying someone you think highly of because you don't feel good about who you are. | Copying the clothing and appearance of a famous person.
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Activity: Health Defense Mechanisms
