Defense Mechanisms as a Result

of Childhood Trauma
Maddie O’Connell
HED 487
 What are Defense Mechanisms?
1. Defense mechanisms are unconscious ways people distance
themselves from the reality of unpleasant thoughts, feelings and
behaviors.
2. Common in people who have suffered trauma or stress
3. Healthy development depends upon a consistent, secure, and loving
bond between a child and their caregiver. Without this, the sense of self
cannot properly develop.
4. Defense Mechanisms are unconscious and some are less detrimental to
functioning than others.
Common Defense Mechanisms
a. Denial - Ignoring the problem
b. Regression - Reverting back to inappropriate behavior for age
c. Dissociation - Going to another place in the mind to get through a
moment
d. Compartmentalization - Keeping certain thoughts and memories
separate within the mind
e. Projection - seeing one’s own faults in others around them
f. Repression - burying unconscious thoughts, feelings, and
memories
g. Displacement - placing blame on the wrong people
 Dissociative Identity Disorder
● DSM 5 defines DID as: “the presence of two or more personalities or an experience
of a distinct alternative personality taking possession of an individual.”
● About 71% of clients with DID have experienced childhood physical abuse and 74%
sexual abuse
● Women make up about 90% - Disorder is not particularly common, affecting about
1 in 10,000 people in the population.
● Identities can have different mannerisms, dialects, voices, postures...etc. They are
observably different from one another. Usually, one of the “altars” has the sole
purpose of protecting the identities from being integrated or dissolved.
 Treatment
● Although the mind uses defense mechanisms to protect the human psyche from stress
and further trauma, some of these mechanisms can be harmful to functioning and
relationships.
● Many defense mechanisms can be treated with psychotherapy - DID patients often use
hypnosis to “integrate” their altars into the dominant personality.
● Integration -
○ Therapists often need to meet with patient over long periods of time in order to
speak with each “altar” and interview them to determine their purpose.
○ The patient and therapist will work to uncover the traumatic event being concealed
within the mind, and determine how to move forward without disassociating.
○ Medications can be used in some cases
 Case Study - Jackie
2010
1. Experienced Severe child sexual abuse by her Father and Mother
2. Decided to seek therapy for symptoms of depression and “strange
happenings”
3. Through years of talk therapy, discovered 8 “altars” within her mind
4. Jackie, Lucy, The Magistrate, Carla, Cassie, D, Olga, Baby
5. Each altar had a significant purpose in her mind for working through the
trauma
6. Jackie was able to integrate her personalities, but mourned the loss of “them”
 Activity - Let’s Dissociate!
1. Get in pairs of 2
2. Take out a piece of paper and a pencil/pen
3. Partner 1 - close your eyes, and hold the pencil over the sheet of paper
4. Partner 2 - please place your hand on the pencil in partner 1’s hand, and
draw whatever you’d like for 30 seconds
5. Do not open your eyes until the time is up

After doing this activity - do you think people with DID should be
held responsible for the actions they carry out while under a
dissociative state?
 References
Baker, K. (2010). From 'it's not me' to 'it was me, after all': A case presentation of a patient diagnosed with Dissociative
Identity Disorder. Psychoanalytic Social Work, 17(2), 79-98. doi:10.1080/15228878.2010.512263

Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder). (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://my.clevelandclinic.org/services/neurological_institute/center-for-behavioral-health/disease-conditions/hic-dissociative-
identity-disorder

Grohol, J. (2016). 15 Common Defense Mechanisms. Psych Central. Retrieved on October 13, 2016, from
http://psychcentral.com/lib/15-common-defense-mechanisms/

Jacobson, L., Fox, J., Bell, H., Zeligman, M., & Graham, J. (2015). Survivors with Dissociative Identity Disorder: Perspectives
on the counseling process. Journal Of Mental Health Counseling, 37(4), 308-322. doi:10.17744/mehc.31.4.03

Swartz, A. (2001, December 10). Dissociative Identity Disorder. Retrieved from http://allpsych.com/journal/did/