This document defines ego defense mechanisms and lists common types. Ego defense mechanisms are unconscious strategies the ego uses to reduce anxiety and defend against conflicts between the id, ego, and superego. They involve denying or distorting reality. The document categorizes defenses as primitive, less primitive/neurotic, or mature, and provides examples for each type, including denial, repression, rationalization, and sublimation. It concludes that defenses are always operating to some extent to reduce anxiety from internal conflicts.

1. Ego Defense Mechanisms
MARY ANNE PORTUGUEZ
MP-IP-1

2. Ego Defense Mechanism Definition
• The utilization of psychic energy arising from the
id in order to protect the ego .
• Strategies the ego uses to defend itself against
the anxiety provoked by conflicts of everyday
life. Defense mechanisms involve denials or
distortions of reality.
• It is used by the ego to resolve intrapsychic
conflict.
• It is adopted when direct expression of the id
impulse is unacceptable by the superego or
dangerous in the real world.

3. Characteristics of Defense Mechanism
(1) They are denials or distortions of reality—
necessary ones, but distortions nonetheless
(2) They operate unconsciously. We are unaware
of them, which means that on the conscious
level we hold distorted or unreal images of our
world and ourselves.

4. LIST OF SOME EGO DEFENSE MECHANISMS
Divided into three parts:
• Primitive Defense Mechanisms (Developed in
infancy)
• Less Primitive (Neurotic)
• Mature Defenses (Developed later in life)

5. Primitive Defense Mechanisms (Developed in
infancy)
• Denial
It is a primitive defense mechanism in which an individual does not
acknowledge some painful or anxiety-provoking aspect of reality or
the self. Ex. A person may deny that smoking is contributing to his or
her health problems despite supporting evidences by physicians.
• Regression
Return to earlier levels of development; Moving backwards; It is a
defense mechanism that attempts to return to earlier functioning to
avoid tension at current level. Ex. A completely weaned child may
regress to demanding a bottle or nipple when a baby brother or sister
is born.
• Identification
It is a process of borrowing or merging one’s identity with that of
someone else. Ex. The abused child identifies himself with an abuser.

6. Primitive Defense Mechanisms (Developed in
infancy)
• Acting Out
Carrying into action repressed impulses, which are brought to a
conscious level in the course of analysis. Often the manifest
behavior of a symbolic or an earlier behavior pattern. Ex.
Transference is a symbolic acting out of his earlier Oedipal
attachment for the parent, tantrums.
• Dissociation
Drastically modifies personal identity or character to avoid
emotional distress. Ex. DID, drug highs, some state in amnesia.
• Projection
The person’s own unacceptable impulse is instead thought to
belong to someone else. Ex. A man who is tempted to steal but
whose strong ethical sense (superego) will not allow him to even
think stealing may project his unacceptable impulse onto another
person.

7. Less Primitive (Neurotic)
• Repression
The forceful ejection from consciousness of impulses,
memories, or experiences that are painful or shameful
and generate a high level of anxiety; Also occurs when
arise through the necessity of ridding the consciousness
of extremely painful experiences. Ex. Removing the
painful experience of sexual assault.
• Displacement
Distorts the object of the drive. It is less primitive than
projection because the impulse is correctly seen as
belonging to the individual; only the object is distorted.
Ex. A child who is angry may not consciously aware of
his anger toward his father because of fear of retaliation
and guilt. The aggressive impulse, then, may be
disguised by directing it to his brother.

8. Less Primitive (Neurotic)
• Intellectualization
Avoiding affective expression, experience, relationship.
Attends to external reality to avoid feelings, and details
to avoid whole. It is a defense mechanism that respond
to a problem in purely intellectual terms. Ex.
Intellectually convincing ourselves that we didn’t want
what we can’t have, a person who overeats may give a
reason: “I need more vitamins due to stress.”
• Isolation
Thoughts related to some unpleasant occurrence are
dissociated from other thinking and thus do not come to
mind. In addition, emotions that would ordinarily be
connected with the thoughts are gone. Ex. A person who
has lost a loved one through death may isolate the
experience, no thinking of the loved one to avoid the
grief.

9. Less Primitive (Neurotic)
• Rationalization
Giving plausible, but false, reasons for an action
to disguise the true motives. Ex. A parent might
rationalize spanking a child by saying it will teach
the child to be more obedient, though the true
motives may be the parent resents the child.
• Reaction Formation
An unacceptable impulse is repressed and its
opposite is developed in exaggerated form. Ex. A
woman who deeply resented her mother but
shows love.

10. Mature Defenses (Developed later in Life)
• Sublimation
The most desirable and healthy way of dealing with
unacceptable impulses. It occurs when an individual
finds a socially acceptable aim and object for the
expression of an unacceptable impulse. Ex. It occurs
when a soldier transform his aggression by protecting
the country.
• Suppression
A conscious inhibition of impulses or ideas those are
incompatible with the individual’s evaluation of himself
according to his ego ideal. Ex. Choosing not to think of
the bad events to avoid distress

11. Mature Defenses (Developed later in Life)
• Humor
Permits overt expression of feelings and thoughts
without personal discomfort or immobilization and does
not produce unpleasant effects on others. Ex. Making
jokes about the upcoming exam.
• Altruism
Experiences vicarious pleasure by serving others
constructively and instinctually. Guilty feelings relieved
by unsolicited generosity toward others. Ex. A syndicate
making donations to charity.

12. ITS IMPORTANCE
Anxiety is a signal that impending danger, a threat to the ego,
must be counteracted or avoided. The ego must reduce the
conflict between the demands of the id and the strictures of
society or the superego. According to Freud, this conflict is
ever present because the instincts are always pressing for
satisfaction, and the taboos of society are always working to
limit such satisfaction. Freud believed that the defenses must,
to some extent, always be in operation. Just as all behaviors
are motivated by instincts, so all behavior is defensive in the
sense of defending against anxiety. The intensity of the battle
within the personality may fluctuate, but it never ceases.

13. REFERENCES
• Chaplin, J.P. (1986). Dictionary of psychology. Bantam Dell:
Canada.
• Schultz, D. & Schultz, S. (2005). Theories of personality.
Wadsworth: United States of America.
• Feist, G. & Feist G. (2004). Theories of personality. McGraw-Hill
Companies Inc.: USA.
• http://www.sba.pdx.edu/faculty/mblake/448/DefensesChart.pdf