In Defense Of Mechanisms

 A few months ago I made a blog entry about an Intro to Psychology class I took as a freshman in college, and how much of it I still remembered.  A good deal of what was taught in that class came from the research and writings of the most well-known psychological thinker of all-time, Sigmund Freud.

One of those Freudian items was his seven psychological defense mechanisms.  These are essentially ways the mind copes with itself, none of which are particularly appealing:

• Denial: Refusing to accept that something exists or happened, or perhaps simply altering the meaningfulness of an outcome to convince oneself it wasn't important.

• Intellectualization: Thinking about something logically or coldly and without emotion.  

• Projection: Attributing a threatening aspect of oneself to someone else, like accusing another of being angry with you when you in fact are angry with them.

• Rationalization: Creating an acceptable but incorrect explanation of a situation.

• Reaction formation: Doing the opposite of what you would really like to do, such as going out of the way to be nice to someone you really disliked.

• Regression: Returning to an earlier or more childlike form of behavior.

• Repression: Keeping a thought, feeling, or memory of an experience out of consciousness, often with an emotionally difficult situation.

(It's noteworthy that Denial also happens to be the first stage of grief, as I mentioned in that prior post.  It's the quickest and easiest defense mechanism to use, and also the worst one for our society.)  

I've been thinking about these defense mechanisms a lot lately, probably because their usage is way up.  Some of them have come to mind when observing the way people are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.  Others have been particularly applicable to politicians and political parties in this election year.  I'm not kidding when I say the current president will occasionally use all of these defense mechanisms in a single reply to a basic question.  (The possible exception is Intellectualization, because that implies logic is involved.)

The point of this all is, 1) I remember obscure things from this college class, and 2) recognizing these defense mechanisms -- not just unknowingly using them -- would enhance everyone's ability to cope with life.