Being the concept of psychology, the protective mechanisms of the personality are unconscious mental processes aimed at reducing negative experiences, and underlie the development of resistance.
This concept was first introduced by Z. Freud. He named the techniques that one of the personality structures uses to exercise control over desires, which can lead to emotional feelings and anxiety. Then it was about the efforts that require a large expenditure of energy and forces aimed at protecting your inner world.
The protective mechanisms of personality were later developed by A. Freud. She described the complexity and diversity of these processes and proved that protection is directed against everything that brings experiences, pain, anxiety and causes stress, and at different ages, people use different psychological defensive techniques.
Thus, a catalog of defenses was compiled with a detailed description of them, which have the ability to maintain the normal human psyche. Let's consider this list in detail.
1. Denial - is a mechanism by which the past negative experience, which brings suffering, as well as impulses and aspects of the character of the subject, is denied. Moreover, a person does not perceive any information that contradicts his settings.
2. Repression or suppression - the protective mechanisms of the personality, through which negative experience is blocked by forgetting its stimulus and all objects associated with it. Thus, unwanted aspirations, drives and desires are eliminated from consciousness. However, over time, they all manifest in phobias and fears, so this technique is the most ineffective.
3. Projection - a mechanism by which negative qualities, thoughts and feelings are attributed to people around, which is the basis of their rejection. Against this background, egoism, pride, hostility, isolation, and other negative qualities develop.
4. Regression - a mechanism for avoiding anxiety through a return to early immature forms of behavior.
5. Substitution or displaced aggression - mechanisms of psychological protection of the person, with the help of which tension is removed by transferring aggression from the source of anger to a more accessible and weak object or to oneself.
6. Rationalization - the mechanism of irrational interpretation by the subject of his own actions and aspirations, which are caused by those reasons, the recognition of which threatens the loss of self-esteem. A person in frequent cases explains his failure not by his own powerlessness, but by the influence of external circumstances or the poor attitude of other people to himself.
7. Intellectualization is a defense mechanism by which the senses are replaced by logic in order to achieve complete control over the situation.
8. Compensation - a mechanism for replacing the object that causes negative feelings and feelings, as well as feelings of loss by fantasizing or appropriating someone else's virtues, character traits or behavior.
There are psychological defenses of the personality, such as reactive formations, which are often identified with hypercompensation. At the same time, a person prevents the expression of unpleasant or negative thoughts through the development of opposing ones. For example, pity may be the reactive formation of unconscious cruelty.
The psychological protective mechanisms of personality are investigated using the test questionnaire, which was developed by R. Plutchik, G. Kellerman and H.R. Contom. This technique allows you to evaluate the use by a person of eight protective techniques, which are recognized as the main ones (described above).