Psychological Defense Mechanisms: Splitting, Projection, Denial in PDs

According to Freud and his followers, our psyche is a battlefield between instinctual urges and drives (the id), the constraints imposed by reality on the gratification of these impulses (the ego), and the norms of society (the superego). This constant infighting generates what Freud called "neurotic anxiety" (fear of losing control) and "moral anxiety" (guilt and shame).

But these are not the only types of anxiety. "Reality anxiety" is the fear of genuine threats and it combines with the other two to yield a morbid and surrealistic inner landscape.

These multiple, recurrent, "mini-panics" are potentially intolerable, overwhelming, and destructive. Hence the need to defend against them. There are dozens of defense mechanisms. The most common among them:

Acting Out

When an inner conflict (most often, frustration) translates into aggression. It involves acting with little or no insight or reflection and in order to attract attention and disrupt other people's cosy lives.

Denial

Perhaps the most primitive and best known defense mechanism. People simply ignore unpleasant facts, they filter out data and content that contravene their self-image, prejudices, and preconceived notions of others and of the world.

Devaluation

Attributing negative or inferior traits or qualifiers to self or others. This is done in order to punish the person devalued and to mitigate his or her impact on and importance to the devaluer. When the self is devalued, it is a self-defeating and self-destructive act.

Displacement

When we cannot confront the real sources of our frustration, pain, and envy, we tend to pick a fight with someone weaker or irrelevant and, thus, less menacing. Children often do it because they perceive conflicts with parents and caregivers as life-threatening. Instead, they go out and torment the cat or bully someone at school or lash out at their siblings.

Dissociation

Our mental existence is continuous. We maintain a seamless flow of memories, consciousness, perception, and representation of both inner and external worlds. When we face horrors and unbearable truths, we sometimes "disengage". We lose track of space, time, and the continuum of our identity. We become "someone else" with minimal awareness of our surroundings, of incoming information, and of circumstances. In extreme cases, some people develop a permanently rent personality and this is known as "Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)".

Dissonance

Not strictly a defense mechanism, it still exhibits many of the hallmarks of one.

Cognitive Dissonance: simultaneously harboring two or more conflicting pieces of information or contradictory thoughts.

Dissonance is intolerable. We resolve it by using a variety of, mostly alloplastic psychological defense mechanisms - like displacement or rationalization - and narrative solutions, such as reframing

We also tend to externalize the locus of control (and thus our agency, self-control, autonomy, or free will in the matter): It wasn't my fault, something or someone made me do it or inexorably and irresistibly led to what happened!

Cognitive dissonance is when someone holds simultaneously two conflicting views, values, or bits of information which call for diametrically opposed decisions or actions. This state of things generates an inner conflict and triggers several primitive (infantile) defense mechanisms such as denial, splitting, projection, and reaction formation.

One way to cope with this predicament - to transition from dissonance to consonance - is to come up with a reconciling narrative, a theory which seamlessly accommodates both conflicting points of view or data.

Such soothing fiction falls into several categories:

1. Temporal: A is true at one time and not-A is true at another period. Or: A is a transient state of affairs.

2. Reactive: A is the normal. Not-A happened because of some trigger, provocation, or change in circumstances or conditions. Not-A is abnormal, and, therefore, an aberration or a mere curiosity.

3. Inclusive: both A and Not-A are pieces of a bigger puzzle, picture, or theory. Their contradistinction is only apparent because we have no access to or awareness of the true and full picture, our knowledge or capacity to know are limited.

4. Denial: both A and Not-A are true and lead to the same conclusions. There is no contradiction. For example: he loves me. He beats me up. But his battering just proves that he loves me, it is his way of showing that he loves me.

5. Defensive: both A and not-A are valid. But only A applies to me while not-A may apply to others (splitting). Not-A is bad (projection) and should be eradicated in others in order to restore A to its rightful place as the sole viable and ethical alternative (reaction formation).

Volitional Dissonance is when we act in ways which we perceive to be akratic, immoral, or antisocial, rather than phronetic. When we perceive our actions to have been the outcomes of akrasia (weak willed misbehavior contrary to our best judgment) and not of phronesis (good judgment, excellence of character, habits conducive to eudaimonia - a good life - and practical virtue)

Other dissonances include:

Emotional Dissonance (aka ambivalence): experiencing two opposing emotions (such as love and hate) which are elicited by the same object;

Axiological Dissonance occurs when two dearly upheld and deeply felt values are incompatible;

Deontic Dissonance is a subspecies of this dissonance: when one has two irreconcilable duties or obligations;

Attitudinal Dissonance is an inner conflict between two contradictory internalized beliefs, attitudes, statements or propositions held to be true.

Executive Dissonance is an inner conflict between two mutually obviating or mutually exclusive psychological functions held to be necessary and desirable.

Fantasy

Everyone fantasizes now and then. It helps to fend off the dreariness and drabness of everyday life and to plan for an uncertain future. But when fantasy becomes a central feature of grappling with conflict, it is pathological. Seeking gratification - the satisfaction of drives or desires - mainly by fantasizing is an unhealthy defense. Narcissists, for instance, often indulge in grandiose fantasies which are incommensurate with their accomplishments and abilities. Such fantasy life retards personal growth and development because it substitutes for true coping.

Fantasy is a psychological defense mechanism: "One day I will (divorce my spouse, make millions, move to live in ...)". Fantasy has many functions: to avoid a painful or disagreeable (ego-dystonic) reality; to rehearse, plan, and prepare for possible futures founded on strong wishes or desires (including of a sexual nature); to escape into imaginative daydreaming and render life more pleasant; to act as an organizing principle with explanatory power; to compensate for lacks and deficiencies in oneself (narcissistic compensatory fantasy) or in one's life; and so on.

It is generally true that fantasy is a substitute for action. He who fantasizes rarely acts and she who acts rarely talks. To fantasize is to procrastinate and fantasies often include elements of unattainable perfectionism and unrealistic goals, narratives, and scenarios precisely in order to justify and account for such inaction. Often people conjure up conditional fantasies: "I will (do that or be there) IF (certain usually difficult or impossible conditions) are met." The conditions thus imposed ascertain that the fantasy can never be realized.

Some people have made fantasy their main realm of existence and their overriding preoccupation. Society affords such individuals socially-sanctioned outlets: they can write fiction or make films. But the majority of fantasists lose touch with reality and rapidly descend and degenerate into psychopathological states such as narcissism or paranoia. Some people fantasize precisely in order to transcend or flee social inhibitions, constraints, or mores. Some paraphilias - such as pedophilia and fetishism - and some sexual practices emanate from powerful conscious fantasies.

Idealization

Another defense mechanism in the arsenal of the narcissist (and, to lesser degree, the Borderline and Histrionic) is the attribution of positive, glowing, and superior traits to self and (more commonly) to others. Again, what differentiates the healthy from the pathological is the reality test. Imputing positive characteristics to self or others is good, but only if the attributed qualities are real and grounded in a firm grasp of what's true and what's not.

Isolation of Affect

Cognition (thoughts, concepts, ideas) is never divorced from emotion. Conflict can be avoided by separating the cognitive content (for instance, a disturbing or depressing idea) from its emotional correlate. The subject is fully aware of the facts or of the intellectual dimensions of a problematic situation but feels numb. Casting away threatening and discomfiting feelings is a potent way of coping with conflict in the short-term. It is only when it become habitual that it rendered self-defeating.

Omnipotence

When one has a pervading sense and image of oneself as incredibly powerful, superior, irresistible, intelligent, or influential. This is not an adopted affectation but an ingrained, ineradicable inner conviction which borders on magical thinking. It is intended to fend off expected hurt in having to acknowledge one's shortcomings, inadequacies, or limitations.