Life has been very stressful these past few days to most of the people. Various forms of problems are arising. It may be about money, family and even breakups. These things usually produce stress in our lives. If we don’t know how to deal with these things, there may come a time that we would really give up and worse comes to worst, we going to finish our own life or commit suicide.
We may not be aware of it but there exist a thing in our life that most often prevent the worst thing mentioned above. We call them defense mechanisms. These things would allow us to keep our composure and face the problem courageously. Most of the common doesn’t know it but it really exists. You may be surprised upon reading the following and may somehow tell yourself that you can relate to it or even say that you are doing it.
These defense mechanisms come in two types, the healthy and unhealthy. The healthy ones has been used to compensate what we don’t have in moralistic and acceptable manner. However, the unhealthy one most often lead a person to be out of reality which would eventually lead to a mental disorder.
Healthy
Sublimation - healthy redirection of an emotion.
Example:
Instead of punching your boss when angry with him, you go to
the gym and punch a punching bag.
Turning the painful loss of a child into a campaign to increase
child safety laws
Compensation - a defense mechanism that conceals your undesirable shortcomings by
exaggerating desirable behaviors.
Example:
a physically unattractive adolescent becomes an expert dancer.
Substitution - the individual secures alternative or substitutive gratification comparable to
those that would have been employed
Example:
a student who originally wanted to be a physician decides to become a
nurse instead because of lack of money.
Unhealthy
Denial - Failing to recognize obvious implications or consequences of a thought, act, or
situation
Example:
A disabled person plans to return to former activities without planning a
realistic program of rehabilitation. Persons living near a volcano disregard the dangers involved.Displacement - shifting the emotional component from one object or idea to another
Example:
a man reprimanded by his boss in the office gets home very angry to his
households instead.
Introjection- blaming oneself for wrong things happened.
Projection- blaming other for wrong things happened.
Reaction Formation – hiding the true feeling felt.
Example:
You are very friendly to your boss whom you gossip having bad
attitude to your co-workers a while ago.
Suppression – you consciously forgets a thing
Example:
You don’t want to talk about your problems at home until you finish
your work.Repression – unconscious forgetting
Example -
you were able to forget the name of your ex-boyfriend who hurt you
so much.
