10 Defense Mechanisms the Mind Uses to Cope with Anxiety, Guilt, and Fear

What Are Defense Mechanisms in Psychology?

Defense mechanisms are unconscious psychological processes that protect the individual from overwhelming emotions such as anxiety, shame, guilt, and fear. They operate automatically, shaping how reality, internal impulses, or emotions are experienced. Rather than eliminating conflict, defense mechanisms manage it internally.

Hence, they hold a high importance in psychodynamic theory.

The concept originates in classical psychoanalysis, particularly in the structural theory of the mind presented by Sigmund Freud – one of the most influential psychologists of all time. To put it in a nutshell, the theory states that the id generates instinctual drives, the superego enforces moral standards, and the ego mediates between them. When conflict between these systems becomes threatening, the ego deploys defense mechanisms to preserve psychological stability – often in imperfect and (sometimes) extremely damaging manner.

This is why overreliance on defense mechanisms could lead to psychiatric disorders.

Contemporary psychology retains this core idea while reframing defenses as developmental emotion-regulation strategies rather than purely theoretical constructs.

How do Defense Mechanisms Develop?

Researchers such as Anna Freud, George Vaillant, and Paul Cramer have shown that defenses can develop because direct awareness of certain thoughts, impulses, or emotions would be psychologically destabilizing at particular stages of development.

Anna Freud first emphasized that children defend not only against instinctual impulses, but against external danger, loss of love, and punishment. Building on this, Paul Cramer (2006) demonstrated that defenses follow a developmental sequence, emerging as cognitive, emotional, and moral capacities mature.

Across psychodynamic research, defenses are understood as responses to:

• Anxiety arising from internal conflict
• Threats to self-esteem
• Shame and guilt produced by moral development
• Fear of rejection, punishment, or loss

In short, defenses develop to protect the continuity of the self in threatening circumstances.

Defense Mechanisms, Development, and the Brain

Modern research has begun linking psychoanalytic concepts of defense to neuroscience. A 2020

by Paradiso and colleagues found that individuals with reduced integration between the brain’s hemispheres relied more heavily on immature defenses such as denial, and less on more developmentally advanced defenses such as identification. This supports the long-standing psychodynamic claim that defenses mature alongside ego development.

Similarly, Georg Northoff (2006) argues that a coherent sense of self depends on integrated brain functioning. When this integration is strained, psychological strategies – including defense mechanisms – become crucial for maintaining emotional and narrative coherence. You can also check out how trauma effects the brain to get a clearer grasp on how psychology and neurology might affect each other.

These findings suggest that defenses are not arbitrary habits but are possibly neurologically assisted mechanisms to cope with anxiety.

This begs the question: are defense mechanisms coping mechanisms?

Based on Freudian theory, defenses are generally maladaptive. Coping mechanisms, on the other hand, are adaptive.

Now, I will move on to explain the different kinds of defense mechanisms that could show up.

First up, rationalization.

Is Rationalization a Defense Mechanism?

Yes. Rationalization is a well-established defense mechanism.

Rationalization involves constructing logical or socially acceptable explanations for behaviors or feelings that are actually driven by motives which are personal and could be socially unacceptable. This description follows Anna Freud’s original formulation and later clinical elaborations by Vaillant.

How and why rationalization develops

According to Cramer (2006), rationalization emerges in later childhood and adolescence as abstract reasoning and moral judgment mature. As the superego strengthens, the ego increasingly relies on meaning-based defenses rather than reality denial. This socially meaningful logic can only be achieved when the mind is able to grasp socially constructed concepts.

So, in effect, rationalization is the way by which an individual attempts to preserve their self-worth through a socially meaningful logic.

This helps the person defend themselves from guilt, shame, and moral anxiety.

I’ll try to explain through an example of a character I have analyzed. Walter White’s repeated reframing of domination as responsibility reflects rationalization as described in classic psychoanalytic literature. His assertion during an altercation with his wife where he exclaims “I am the one who knocks!” is one of the scenes in Breaking Bad where rationalization on White’s part seems to be in full swing.

Next, we’ll move over to a similar defense mechanism.

Is Intellectualization a Defense Mechanism?

Yes. Intellectualization is classified as a neurotic-level (not to be confused with neuroticism, a personality trait) defense mechanism.

The conceptualization used here follows Anna Freud and later systematization in the Defense Mechanism Rating Scales (DMRS). Intellectualization allows awareness of ideas while isolating them from affect. This is, what Nietzsche would call it, conducting a dissection of possible reasons for the anxiety to the point of removing all emotional content from the anxiety-giving thoughts.

How and why intellectualization develops

Cramer’s developmental research suggests that intellectualization appears once cognitive abilities outpace emotional tolerance. Individuals learn to manage anxiety by shifting into abstraction and analysis. Thus, intellectualization is more common in later adolescence and beyond, where the person’s cognitive ability develops to the point of holding multiple abstract constructs at the same time.

Take, for example, how a student who’s failed an exam could react to his anxiety of having to explain his failure. He might bring up multiple reasons for why he failed; from a lack of studying to the examiner’s personal mood while checking the paper. Entertaining these possibilities all at once could thus push back the actual experience of anxiety without accepting it for what it is – simply not doing well on the exam. (Interestingly, the student might even be entertaining that possibility as well.)

I believe that this is one of the reasons why Light Yagami (the anti-hero of the popular anime, Death Note) is able to stay somewhat calm in high stakes situations – simply because he thinks through all possibilities repeatedly.

This process helps guard the individual from feeling the full brunt of negative emotions including anxiety, fear, grief, and shame.

Is Sublimation a Defense Mechanism?

Yes. Sublimation is widely regarded as one of the most mature defense mechanisms.

This formulation originates with Sigmund Freud and is supported by later outcome-based research by Georg Vaillant, who associated sublimation with psychological health and adaptive functioning. The basic outcome of sublimation is to reduce anxiety caused by an excess of libido (as experienced by the id) into creative endeavors. According to Freud, science and art are the outcome of sublimation.

How and why sublimation develops

Sublimation requires symbolic thought and strong ego integration. According to Cramer, it tends to appear later in development and is associated with emotional flexibility rather than repression. Particularly, the psychosexual stage of latency is relevant here as individuals generally tend to use libidinal energy into activities such as learning, playing sports or any other academic or physical actions which are prolonged and require significant cognitive directives.

As to what motivates sublimation, this defense mechanism occurs in response instinctual anxiety and guilt that arises when libidinal energy is not immediately satisfied – or it is not possible for the id to be satisfied immediately.

An example of sublimation is how some people – who have experienced failures in relationships – often focus their energies into a productive activity like going to the gym or financial or academic endeavors.

Is Dissociation a Defense Mechanism?

Whether dissociation qualifies as a defense mechanism depends on how narrowly the term defense is defined. In classical psychoanalytic theory, dissociation was not formally conceptualized as an ego defense. Freud’s model emphasized repression and related mechanisms as ego-mediated responses to internal conflict, whereas dissociation was treated as a disturbance of consciousness rather than a defensive strategy (Freud, 1915; Freud, 1923).

Robert Counts (1990) explicitly addresses this ambiguity. He argues that dissociation should not be understood as a symbolic or conflict-negotiating defense like repression or displacement. Instead, dissociation represents a failure of integrative functioning, particularly under conditions of overwhelming affect. In this sense, dissociation protects the individual not by managing conflict, but by fracturing experience itself.

This distinction is critical. Classical defenses preserve ego cohesion while distorting or redirecting mental content. Dissociation, by contrast, compromises cohesion.

However, Brad Bowins (2004) adopts a broader evolutionary and functional definition of defense mechanisms. From this perspective, dissociation can be understood as defensive in function, insofar as it reduces psychological pain, arousal, or threat. Bowins emphasizes that defenses need not be symbolic or sophisticated to be adaptive; they only need to reduce distress. Under this definition, dissociation qualifies as a protective response, particularly in extreme circumstances.

How and why dissociation develops

Counts (1990) locates the development of dissociation in early, overwhelming stress, especially when the individual lacks the psychological capacity to regulate affect through more organized defenses. Dissociation emerges when anxiety exceeds the ego’s ability to process experience coherently.

This sharply differentiates dissociation from repression. Repression excludes specific mental content from awareness while maintaining a unified self. Dissociation occurs when integration itself collapses, leading to compartmentalization of memory, perception, or identity.

Cramer’s developmental model supports this distinction indirectly. Dissociation does not appear in her normative hierarchy of defenses (denial, projection, identification), suggesting that it reflects disrupted defensive development, not a developmentally sequenced ego defense.

So, as per psychoanalytic theory, dissociation is not a defense mechanism; however, to treat it similarly as a defense mechanism can be very helpful for a person in therapy.

Additional Defense Mechanisms (Developmentally Explained)

The following explanations draw primarily from Anna Freud (1936), Paul Cramer (2006), and contemporary psychodynamic classification systems.

Denial

Denial is one of the earliest and most fundamental defense mechanisms. It involves refusing to perceive or accept aspects of external reality that are too threatening to acknowledge.

How and why denial develops

According to Paul Cramer’s developmental model, denial appears in early childhood, when the ego is still fragile and lacks the cognitive and emotional capacity to symbolically process threat. At this stage, the child cannot yet reframe meaning or redirect impulses. Instead, the ego protects itself by excluding the threatening reality altogether.

Anna Freud emphasized that denial is not a distortion of meaning, but a rejection of perception itself. When fear or anxiety exceeds what the young ego can tolerate, reality is temporarily disowned. There is also evidence that individuals with reduced neural integration rely more heavily on denial. This suggests that denial compensates for limited capacity to integrate emotional information.

Denial primarily defends against overwhelming fear and anxiety, particularly fear of loss, danger, or annihilation. Later in life, it may also defend against shame or traumatic threat.

Basically, the conscious mind simply blocks reality from entering awareness. This makes denial effective in the short term, but developmentally limited.

A person who engages in denial could outrightly refuse to admit doing something that he did. For example, some people who have gone through sexual trauma might attempt to deny that they have any trauma associated with the painful event – or they might even deny that the incident even occurred.

Projection

Projection is a defense mechanism in which an individual attributes their own unacceptable thoughts, impulses, or emotions to someone else. Rather than experiencing the impulse as originating from the self, it is perceived as belonging to the outside world.

How and why projection develops

According to Anna Freud and later elaborated by Paul Cramer, projection emerges in early to middle childhood, once the child has developed a basic distinction between self and other. At this stage, the ego can no longer simply deny internal impulses, but it is still unable to tolerate them as part of the self.

Projection allows the ego to manage internal conflict by relocating the threatening impulse outward. This preserves self-esteem while maintaining psychological distance from impulses that would otherwise evoke distress.

Instead of repressing the distressful mental incident, the ego externalizes it, allowing the individual to experience it as if it comes from others rather than from within. Cramer’s developmental research shows that projection becomes less dominant as more mature defenses develop.

Projection primarily defends against shame and guilt, particularly those associated with aggression, envy, hostility, or forbidden desire. By seeing these qualities in others, the individual avoids acknowledging them in the self.

For example, in the workplace, if a team fails at a project, one of the members might place the blame of their own bad decisions on the other members.

Identification

Identification is a defense mechanism in which an individual adopts the characteristics, values, attitudes, or behaviors of another person in order to feel safer, stronger, or more worthy. Instead of denying reality or displacing impulses, the ego changes the self by incorporating aspects of someone perceived as powerful, admired, or protective.

How and why identification develops

Identification typically emerges from middle childhood onward, when the ego has developed enough stability to recognize the self as distinct from others, yet still experiences vulnerability and dependency. According to Freud and Anna Freud, children use identification to cope with feelings of fear, helplessness, or inadequacy – particularly in relation to authority figures or caregivers.

Cramer places identification after denial and projection because it requires a more cohesive ego. The child must not only perceive another person accurately, but also symbolically internalize their qualities. This marks a shift from defensive exclusion (denial) or externalization (projection) to internal strengthening.

By internalizing the attributes of significant figures, one’s conscious mind gains structure, stability, and self-regulatory capacity. This means that identification helps a person borrow strength from external sources, gradually making that strength their own.

Unlike projection, which relocates conflict outward, identification resolves conflict by bringing valued qualities inward.

Identification primarily defends against fear, helplessness, and threats to self-esteem. When the individual feels small, powerless, or devalued, becoming psychologically aligned with a stronger figure reduces vulnerability and restores a sense of worth.

Reaction Formation

Reaction formation is a defense mechanism in which an individual transforms an unacceptable impulse, desire, or emotion into its opposite. Rather than expressing the forbidden feeling, the ego exaggerates its contrary, creating a rigid and often moralized stance.

For example, hostility may appear as excessive friendliness, or forbidden desire may manifest as overt moral condemnation.

How and why reaction formation develops

Reaction formation develops as the superego consolidates, typically after early childhood. At this stage, the individual has internalized moral standards and prohibitions strongly enough that certain impulses no longer feel merely dangerous, but morally unacceptable.

According to Anna Freud, when repression alone is insufficient to manage these impulses, the ego adopts a more active strategy: it not only blocks the impulse, but replaces it with its opposite. This allows the individual to remain aligned with the superego while keeping the forbidden desire out of awareness.

Developmentally, reaction formation becomes less dominant as more flexible defenses – such as intellectualization or sublimation – become available. In psychologically healthy development, it may appear temporarily during periods of moral conflict or identity formation, particularly in adolescence.

Reaction formation is therefore a defense that requires a more developed ego and superego than denial or projection, but is still relatively rigid. Thus, it is less about reality distortion and more about moral overcompensation.

Primarily, reaction formation defends against guilt and forbidden desire. The exaggerated opposite behavior reduces conscious guilt by signaling to the self and others that the unacceptable impulse is not only absent, but actively rejected.

Because the original impulse remains unconscious, the defense often carries a sense of rigidity or emotional intensity.

Displacement

Displacement is a defense mechanism in which an emotional response – typically anger, fear, or frustration – is redirected from its original, threatening source to a safer or more acceptable substitute. The emotion itself is not denied or transformed; only its target is changed.

For example, anger toward an authority figure may be redirected toward a subordinate or an inanimate object.

How and why displacement develops

Displacement emerges once the ego has developed sufficient impulse control and reality testing to recognize that direct expression of emotion would be dangerous or costly. Unlike denial or projection, displacement assumes that the individual can perceive both the emotion and its true source – but chooses an alternative outlet.

Freud viewed displacement as evidence of a more sophisticated ego than that seen in primitive defenses. George Vaillant later placed displacement among the neurotic-level defenses, noting that it allows emotional discharge without gross distortion of reality.

Developmentally, displacement appears after early childhood, when the child learns that certain figures (parents, teachers, authority figures) cannot be safely confronted.

Link to Freudian structural theory

Within Freud’s structural model, displacement represents a compromise formation. The id’s impulse (often aggressive or fearful) is allowed expression, but the ego redirects it in a way that minimizes conflict with both external reality and the superego.

Similar (and yet distinct) to other defense mechanisms, the conscious mind alters its object of anxiety – preserving emotional release while superficially reducing stress.

Displacement guards the psyche against anxiety and fear, especially fear of punishment, retaliation, or loss of attachment. It allows the individual to relieve emotional tension while avoiding direct confrontation with the true source of threat.

Because the original emotion remains intact, displaced reactions often feel disproportionate or puzzling to both the individual and observers.

From a developmental standpoint, displacement requires greater emotional integration than denial or projection. The individual must tolerate awareness of the emotion without being overwhelmed by it. The Frontiers in Psychology (2020) findings indirectly support this hierarchy, showing that greater neural integration is associated with reduced reliance on more primitive defenses and greater use of reality-preserving strategies like displacement.

Repression

Repression is the defense mechanism by which distressing thoughts, impulses, or wishes are kept out of conscious awareness. Unlike denial, which rejects external reality, repression operates on internal mental content, preventing it from entering consciousness.

How and why repression develops

Freud described repression as the foundational defense mechanism, emerging when the ego learns that certain instinctual impulses reliably produce anxiety. According to Anna Freud, repression develops as the ego becomes capable of managing internal danger rather than merely reacting to external threat. In Cramer’s model, repression is not age-bound but becomes more organized as cognitive and emotional regulation mature.

Northoff (2006) similarly suggests that repressed material remains active but inaccessible due to disrupted integration between affect and self-related processing.

Basically, one’s psyche excludes threatening impulses from awareness while allowing psychological functioning to continue. By this way, the thoughts or beliefs or even memories that cause stress are pushed into the unconscious.

Basically, one does not remember stressful beliefs or experiences. The feelings of stress remain, but their source is pushed back to temporarily guard one’s ego.

As a default, repression attempts to push back anxiety arising from internal conflict, particularly conflict involving forbidden desire or moral condemnation.

Undoing

Undoing is a defense mechanism in which an individual attempts to symbolically reverse or neutralize an unacceptable thought, impulse, or action. Rather than denying the impulse or displacing it, the ego engages in mental or behavioral “repair” to cancel out the perceived wrongdoing.

How and why does undoing develop?

Undoing develops alongside moral awareness, when the individual becomes capable of experiencing guilt and shame. According to Anna Freud, once impulses are recognized as morally problematic, the ego may attempt to negate them through corrective actions – apologies, rituals, or compensatory behaviors – without fully confronting the underlying impulse.

For example, in an attempt to let go of someone (common in death and/or divorce or breakups), the individual begins to think of the other person as bad or selfish – basically undoing the associated love itself.

Undoing primarily defends against guilt and shame, particularly those arising from aggressive, sexual, or forbidden wishes that conflict with internalized moral standards.

Developmental perspective

Developmentally, undoing appears later than denial or projection because it requires awareness of moral rules and responsibility. As more flexible defenses develop, reliance on undoing typically decreases.

Are Defense Mechanisms Healthy or Unhealthy?

Defense mechanisms are neither good nor bad in themselves. Their adaptiveness depends on flexibility, developmental appropriateness, and impact on functioning. Research consistently shows that mature defenses are associated with better psychological adjustment, while rigid reliance on immature defenses may contribute to psychopathology.

Why Defense Mechanisms Matter

Defense mechanisms reveal how the mind protects itself when emotional truth feels intolerable. Across psychoanalytic, developmental, and neuroscientific research, defenses are consistently shown to support psychological survival by preserving meaning, identity, and emotional equilibrium.

While Freud provided the original framework, later researchers – particularly Anna Freud, Paul Cramer, George Vaillant, and contemporary neuroscientists – have demonstrated that defenses are developmental, adaptive, and empirically observable.

Understanding defense mechanisms allows us to move beyond surface behavior and ask a deeper question:

What emotional threat is the ego trying to manage – and why?

References

• Bowins, B. (2004). Psychological defense mechanisms: A new perspective. The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 64(1), 1-26.
• Counts, R. M. (1990). The concept of dissociation. Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, 18(3), 460-479.
• Cramer, P. (2015). Understanding defense mechanisms. Psychodynamic psychiatry, 43(4), 523-552.
• Freud, A. (1936). The ego and the mechanisms of defence. Routledge.
• Freud, S. (1923). The Ego and the Id. SE, 29-77.
• Northoff, G., Heinzel, A., De Greck, M., Bermpohl, F., Dobrowolny, H., & Panksepp, J. (2006). Self-referential processing in our brain—a meta-analysis of imaging studies on the self. Neuroimage, 31(1), 440-457.
• Paradiso, S., Brown, W. S., Porcerelli, J. H., Tranel, D., Adolphs, R., & Paul, L. K. (2020). Integration between cerebral hemispheres contributes to defense mechanisms. Frontiers in psychology, 11, 1534.
• Vaillant, G. E. (1992). Ego mechanisms of defense: a guide for clinicans and researchers. American Psychiatric Pub.