DEFENSIVE COPING

NIDHI DEWANGAN
BA-III YEAR
 WHAT IS COPING?
• It refers to efforts to master, reduce, or tolerate the
demands created by stress.

• It is process-orientated rather than trait-orientated.

• Individuals have their own style of coping.

• It is flexible as situations are often unstable.

• Coping strategies vary in their adaptive values.

 DEFENSIVE COPING

• It is associated with anxiety and guilt resulting from some threat to self-
esteem.

• It uses defense mechanisms as protection against the unpleasant emotions

such as anger, guilt and dejection.

• It is based on Psychoanalytic theory developed by Sigmund Freud according

to which anxiety arises from unconscious fight between id and super ego.

• According to Anna Freud (1966), defense mechanisms are the ways in which
the ego wards off anxiety and exercises control over impulsive behaviors,
affects, and instincts.
 DEFENSE MECHANISM

• They work through self-deception.

• Accomplish the goals by distorting reality so it

does not appear threatening, temporally fending
off feelings of anxiety.

• It operates on varying levels of awareness and can

be conscious and unconscious reaction.
 Freudian Defense Mechanisms
Rationalization Involves creating false but plausible excuses to justify
unacceptable behaviour

Repression Keeping distressing thoughts and feelings buried in the

unconscious

Projection Attributing one’s own thoughts, feelings or motives to another

person

Displacement Diverting emotional feelings (unusually anger) from their

original source to a substitute target

Reaction Formation Behaving in a way that is exactly the opposite of one’s true
feeling

Regression Reversion to immature patterns of behaviour

Identification Bolstering self-esteem by forming an imaginary or real alliance

with some person or group
 Other Common Defense
Denial of Reality
Mechanisms
Protecting oneself from unpleasant reality by refusing
to perceive it or face it

Fantasy Gratifying frustrated desires by imaging achievements

Intellectualization Cutting off emotion from hurtful situations or

separating incompatible attitudes in logic tight
compartments

Undoing Atoning for or trying to magically dispel unacceptable

desires or acts

Overcompensation Covering up felt weakness by emphasizing some

desirable characteristics, or making up for frustration
in one area by over gratification in another
 LIMITATIONS
• It is an avoidance strategy and rarely provides a genuine
solution to problems.

• Defenses such as Denial, Fantasy and Projection represent

wishful thinking which is likely to accomplish little.

• Repressive coping style has been related to poor health.

• Adaptive level of defensive coping tends to be less then

optimal, it depends upon the situation.
THANK YOU