Freuds Defense Mechanisims

In addition to the aforementioned theories, other notorious defense mechanisms developed by Freud include projection, intellectualization and denial. Like most of Freud’s psychoanalytical explanations for human behavior, these are incorporated and used in the daily lives of human beings on a regular basis. Moreover, psychologists, psychiatrists and other experts use these blueprints in their clinical analysis. Not only experts are familiar with these terminologies as ordinary citizens use them in order to explain their inadequacies. For example, a habitual drug user may say, “ I’ve got this under control as I still take care of all my responsibilities.” Eventually, when his drug use causes him to lose his job, a typical friend’s analysis would be, “you were in denial for a long time.”

Projection can be defined as the misattribution of ones thoughts or impulses onto another person who does not have those feelings (John Grohol). This is especially true when the thoughts are unacceptable for the person to express or they may be uncomfortable with them. Basically, you are projecting your shameful thoughts onto someone else, thereby condoning your own thoughts or feelings. For example a spouse may be angry at their counterpart for not listening, when in fact it is the angry spouse who never pays attention. This can be associated with an inability to accept the fact that they are in the wrong and the guilt spills over onto others.

The underlined reasoning behind the concept of intellectualization is the overemphasis of focus someone gives to an unacceptable impulse, situation, or behavior (John Grohol). Instead of dealing with the problem at hand, a person may use intellectualization to distance their thoughts from the painful impulse by over thinking and over analyzing the situation so that they don’t have deal with the emotional stress or pain. For example a person who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer spends all their time on researching useless...