Suresh Babu G
Assistant Professor
CTE CPAS Paippad , Kottayam

Defence Mechanism
(Adjustment Mechanism)
 A defence mechanism is an unconscious
psychological strategy adopted by individual to
tackle a frustrating situation.
 It may be defined as any habitual method of
overcoming blocks, reaching goals, satisfying
motives, relieving frustration and maintaining
equilibrium.
 Defence mechanisms are protective
devices which an individual may
resort for safeguarding him
against psychological dangers and distress.

Aggression refers to forceful attacking activity that
can be in the form of physical, verbal or symbolic
or all the three. It arises from frustration.
There are two type of aggression
 Extrapunitive – individual aggressively attitudes
frustration to another person or object.
 Intropunitive - individual attitudes frustration to
himself

 Teacher should not repress all hostile and
aggressive feelings of the child as it lead to
anxiety and neurosis.
 Help the child to adopt socially acceptable
channels such as athletic contests, finger painting,
dramatic plays etc.
 Give importance to
smile , empathy etc

 This is a mechanism in which an individual tries to
balance or cover-up his deficiency in one field by
exhibiting his strength in another field.
 It is a process of substitution of achievement.
 Eg: A boy who fails in academic subject may save
his self-esteem by distinguishing himself in
athletics.

 Help pupils to find activities in which they can
excel and thus compensate for weakness they
may possesses
 Help for select socially approved compensation.
 Academic pursuit may be encouraged as a
compensatory device.
 Provide Co-curricular
activities

 Identification consists of adopting the feelings,
attitudes and achievements of others as one’s own.
 Here an individual seeks satisfaction in associating
himself in some way with the success of others.
 Eg: Children often identify
themselves with parents,
film stars, cricket players or
political leaders.

 Teacher should provide worthwhile models.
 The teacher himself should be an exemplary
model of socially approved behavior.
 Direct the identifying behavior towards success of
children.
 Should watch the adolescents,
they are not exploited by
any anti-social group

 Projection is the mechanism through which the
individual perceives in others , the undesirable
motives and traits which he himself possess.
 Here the individual judges others by himself
 Eg: a dishonest person assumes that all others
are dishonest.

 Learn to take responsibilities
 Give group activities and give responsibility for
each
 Train to not to blame others

 This is a face-saving device by which the
individual justifies his short-comings , failure and
incompetence by giving false reasons. This
reduce his guilt feeling and restores his ego.
 It is of mainly two forms
1. Sour grapism
2. Sweet lemonism

 Give proper situation to realize the reality
 Give opportunity to do enjoyable work without
rationalization
 Avoid situations

 Negativism is a type of defiant behavior in which
there is active refusal to carry out requests.
 This is a mechanism by which an individual draws
the attention of others.
 Such people do not oppose, but they do resist
suggestion by others.
I resist
your
suggestion

 Avoid situations that are known to produce
conflict.
 Do not make issues of minor sources of
disagreement.
 Reward positive behavior when it occurs.
 The should change his own behavior and attitude
based on challenges.

 It means retreating from situations which cause
difficulties or refusing to face problems to avoid
the danger of failure and hence the possible
frustration.
 Day-dreaming, becoming sleepy or drowsy, using
narcotics etc are examples

 Give hope of success to students.
 To make students able to tolerate failure
 Try to encage students which they show
withdrawal tendency.
 Give praise in each success.

It is defined as unconscious back tracking, either
in memory or behavior, which might have been
successful in the past.
Slipping to an earlier stage of development when
face with stress
It is a mechanism of escape from reality by
returning to behavior appropriate at an earlier age.
Eg: an adolescent girl
who has been frustrated
her needs may cry like a
child

 Give emotional control.
 Give task based on age
of student.
 Give leadership training etc.

 It is a mental mechanism by which an individual
forgets by pushing down into the unconscious any
thoughts that arouse anxiety.
 It is an unconscious process wherein painful
experience, shameful thoughts, guilt-laden
memories or unfulfilled
wishes are removed
from conscious mind
to unconscious mind.

 Give freedom in school to express students
feelings
 Give proper guidance
 Emotional control

 It is also called reversal formation.
It is to substitute opposite reaction formation,
which causes anxiety.
The boy frightened by graveyard, whistles happily,
an extremely aggressive man, afraid of his own
destructive impulses, acts humble.

 It is a sort of imagination which can provide an
escape from frustration by giving us imaginary
satisfaction
 Fantasy is a mechanism
of wishful thinking and
important for
creative thinking

 Give creativity enabling works
 Co-curricular activity
 Bring him from dream to reality

 Sublimation involves a process of redirecting the
socially unacceptable desires along desirable
channels.
 It means acceptance of socially approved
substitute goal for a drive whose channel of
expression is blocked.
 Eg: an unmarried woman
interested in children may
give expression to her
repressed maternal urges
by becoming a nurse

 Co-curricular activities in school
 Encourage for work
together and find
the desirable goals
 Help for reach the goal

 Lying
 Stealing
 Temper Tantrums
 Aggression
 Withdrawal
 Shyness
 Truancy