“In some areas of psychology (especially in psychodynamic theory), psychologists talk about “defense mechanisms” or manners in which we behave or think in certain ways to better protect or “defend” ourselves. Defense mechanisms are one way of looking at how people distance themselves from a full awareness of unpleasant thoughts, feelings and behaviors.
Psychologists have categorized defense mechanisms based upon how primitive they are. The more primitive a defense mechanism, the less effective it works for a person over the long-term. However, more primitive defense mechanisms are usually very effective short-term, and hence are favored by many people and children especially (when such primitive defense mechanisms are first learned). Adults who don’t learn better ways of coping with stress or traumatic events in their lives will often resort to such primitive defense mechanisms as well.
Most defense mechanisms are fairly unconscious – that means most of us don’t realize we’re using them in the moment. Some types of psychotherapy can help a person become aware of what defense mechanisms they are using, how effective they are, and how to use less primitive and more effective mechanisms in the future.”
Here is the article: 15 Common Defense Mechanisms /psychcentral.com (click the blue title)
Image: chrisroll /freedigitalphotos.net
I should title my response 15 defence mechanisms I have tried. Good article I enjoyed that you shared it.
Thanks
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Thank you for the feedback. 🙂 I´m glad that psychology (& related) is becoming more and more a practical self help tool for everyday life and a tool for gaining self awareness and understanding of our humanness in general rather than being something that is taken into account only then when needing help from the specialists.
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so true, actually we all heal ourselves once we see the problem and know some actions we take. This used to be someone near us, now it is someone we pay that we don”t know.
Your site helps this.
good post.
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