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Remember, defense mechanisms are most often learned behaviors, most of which we learned during childhood. That’s a good
thing, because it means that, as an adult, you can choose to learn some new behaviors and new defense mechanisms that may be more
beneficial to you in your life. Many psychotherapists will help you work on these things, if you’d like. But even becoming more aware of
when you’re using one of the less primitive types of defense mechanisms above can be helpful in identifying behaviors you’d like
to reduce. Additionally, their purpose is to protect the mind self ego from anxiety, social sanction or to provide a refuge from a situation
whit which one cannot currently cope.
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D. Fear or Anxiety
Fear is one of the most basic human emotions. It is programmed into the nervous system and works like an instinct. From the time we are infants,
we are equipped with the survival instincts necessary to respond with fear when we sense danger or feel unsafe.
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Many psychological experiences can function as defenses, even when not formally defined as such. For example, fear of intimacy fear of emotional
involvement with another human being is often an effective defense against learning about our own psychological wounds because it keeps us at an
46
http:www.britanni .comDefense Mechanism —Britannica online Encyclopedia,
Accessed on 12 December 2013
47
Anley Rachman. The Meaning of Fear, Great Britain: C. Nicholls Company Ltd, 1974. P.13
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emotional distance in relationships most likely to bring those wounds to the surface: relationships with lover, spouses, offspring, and best friends. Of
course sometimes our defenses momentarily break down, and this is when we experience anxiety. Anxiety can be important experience because it can reveal
our core issues.
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All of us, at one time or another, experience anxiety, a feeling of apprehension or tension, in reaction in stressful situation. There is nothing
wrong with such anxiety everyone feels it to some degree, and usually it is reaction to stress that helps, rather than hinders, our daily functioning.
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According to Freud, anxiety is an unpleasant inner state that people seek to avoid. Anxiety acts as a signal to the ego that things are not going right. As a
result, the ego then employs a defense mechanism to help reduce these feelings of anxiety.
Freud
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identified three types of anxiety: 1.
Neurotic anxiety is the unconscious worry that we will lose control of the ids urges, resulting in punishment for inappropriate behavior.
2. Reality anxiety is fear of real-world events. The cause of this anxiety is
usually easily identified. For example, a person might fear receiving a dog bite when they are near a menacing dog. The most common way of
reducing this anxiety is to avoid the threatening object. 3.
Moral anxiety involves a fear of violating our own moral principles.
48
Op. cit, Lois Tyson, p.16.
49
Robert S. Feldman, Elements of Psychology McGraw-Hill, inc, 1992, p. 423.
50
Loc. Cit. Theories of Personality
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Freud considered anxiety as a consciously painful experience, which arose from excitation of the internal organs of the body.
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In order to deal with this anxiety, Freud believed that defense mechanisms helped shield the
ego from the conflicts created by the id, superego, and reality.
51
Robert W. Lundin, Personality A Behavior Analysis London, the Mac Millan CompanyvCollier Mac Millan Limited, 1969, p. 291.
