How to Spot Common Defense Mechanisms

We’ve all encountered painful experiences in the past, most of them dating back to our earliest childhood memories. As newborns, with only the faintest awareness of our surroundings, we cry at every opportunity of discomfort.  Crying or aggression is a natural reaction to averse stimuli such as hunger, thirst, and tiredness.

Coping mechanisms, on the other hand, is a learned behavior that allows us as humans to self-regulate or temporarily soothe ourselves from repeated adverse events, such as trauma.

Take a look at the typical avoidant persona. Infant attachment theory explains how babies display different attachment styles as a result of the behavior of their mothers. Infants who don’t receive adequate attention or care from their parents, either display aggressive/panicked behavior or complete withdrawal.

In our older years, we subconsciously try to protect ourselves from things that could hurt us—whether it’s physical elements like fire, or mental elements, like rejection or loss. However, not allowing ourselves to feel and letting ourselves instead, slip time and time again into autopilot, can cause massive rifts in our interpersonal relationships. Most importantly, these feelings can accumulate deep inside our bodies like plaque.

Understanding that everyone has their default defense mechanism can help us make sense of why our partners, family members, or friends react in ways that might initially surprise us. Sometimes, they may appear strangely out of character—this is because defense mechanisms only arise when someone’s ego feels threatened. When we feel safe, we sit in more of a homeostasis state.

Here are some of the common signs that someone has stepped into defensive mode.

Tactless Aggression

Have you ever witnessed two guys getting into a physical fight at a bar? Or two girls in the locker room spit passive-aggressive remarks at each other?

These are both forms of aggression that arise when one or two individuals feel threatened in some way, and their default form of defense is retaliation.

The most common ways to tell are through tense body language and brute verbal communication

How can we de-escalate situations like this?

The answer is to pull the fire alarm.

If two guys are sitting in a cramped bar and the fire alarm goes off, do you think their instinctual response will be to continue fighting each other?

Likely not. Survival mechanisms and physical threats will always take precedence over lower-level threats, like our ego.

Bring up an immediate issue or an event that’s more significant than the issue at hand. For example, “Oh my god, did you hear about what happened last weekend with that fire?”

Direct the attention towards something that’s likely to raise significant interest from both parties.

Quiet Avoidance

We all know the concept of the “cold shoulder”. Although it’s a more silent form of retaliation, avoidance is still a type of aggression.

We deflect our anger or grief into a state of negligence and numbness. People who have avoidant tendencies may cease communication suddenly with the people close to them when something has upset them. They rarely like addressing their problems or explicitly talking about their emotions.

They always wear the “I’m fine mentality” and are prone to isolation, perceiving sharing their woes as a hindrance to others. They may take up other activities and go to the extreme to combat these negative feelings they have buried inside them (ie. intense cardio, religious dieting, work, alcohol, and drugs).

If you ever observe someone close to you act out of character (ie. go to the extreme with exercise or drinking all of a sudden), or quietly stop responding to messages, check up on them. Sometimes all avoidant people need is a gentle reminder that people do care about them and are there for them if they need to express what’s truly bothering them. They may even feel at times embarrassed to shed the shield, but don’t be afraid to prod them especially if you’re close to them.

Immediate Projection

Have you ever liked someone so much but projected that fondness onto a close friend? You might have even encouraged your friend to go for that person. You might be wondering why on earth would anyone do that? The fact is, people who are afraid of rejection tend to deflect their own interests in fear they’ll never obtain what they desire.

“I never wanted that anyways”

“Why is she always going on vacation, doesn’t she have a job?”

“I would hate working from home all the time.”

Projection usually takes the form of gossip or a negative statement. “Don’t, never, won’t, hate..etc you get the memo.

A way to combat projection and get someone out of their head is to pose a hypothetical scenario, that doesn’t really involve the person at their core.

“Do you think it’s positive for children to get exposure to different cultures early on through travel?”

“How much disposable income do you think someone needs to have in order to justify buying designer goods?”

When people have to think through a problem more logically or theoretically, they’re more able to take it out of their personal context and think of the problem from a more general perspective. This may help deflate their immediate need to project for the time being. However, be careful not to prod too much or projection may easily turn into aggression.

Comical Passiveness

Humor is a great way to diffuse tension, which is why it makes sense that some people (myself included) will find themselves bursting into laughter in the most inappropriate settings (ie. hearing of someone’s death). This is not because these individuals are psychopaths, but because their natural way to deescalate grieving or painful feelings may be to laugh or make fun of themselves in certain situations.

In these scenarios, it’s best to be empathetic and not call people out or embarrass those who can’t help these reactions. It’s almost like a twitch, you can’t stop someone from reacting the way they’re wired to. In these cases, people like this probably need more time on their own to process these difficult emotions.

Passiveness goes hand in hand with comedy because it sets someone up for neutrality even in an adverse event. Comedy deflects the painful feelings while remaining passive ensures that the person reverts to not having an opinion or an emotional reaction to the manner.

Conclusion

Defense mechanisms take on different forms for everyone and are almost unavoidable. That’s why it’s more practical to understand why they occur and how they’re displayed and accept, rather than torment others for the way they react to being hurt. For most, learning to self-regulate in a healthier way that doesn’t involve aggression or avoidance occurs at different stages of each individual’s personal growth journeys, so we shouldn’t judge others for not arriving at a certain place yet. Instead, normalizing the conversation about ego (for both men and women) and common defensive behaviors can help shift society forward to a place where people are willing to work on how to overcome their own defense mechanisms.

For more on how to regulate your emotions, I encourage you to check out my last post on emotional regulation.

Besides that, I hope you had a good takeaway from this conversation.

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