Common Defense Mechanism

Denial

Manner of Manisfestation:  Refusal to accept reality

Example:  Denying / Not accepting the loss of a loved one

Repression

Manner of Manifestation: Called ‘Motivated Forgetting’ where one refuses to remember something undesirable and avoids it consciously

Example:  Wanting to harm someone wrongly but pushing it away out of the conscious mind- comes out as other forms of stress like irritability, stress

Projection

Manner of Manifestation:  Called ‘Outward Displacement’ where the person makes it appear that the other person exhibits certain traits that they possess but refrains from accepting them

Example:  One partner in a relationship screams at the other, suggesting that the other person screams at them in any given situation.

Displacement

Manner of Manifestation:  Directing one’s impulses onto another subject and not the actual one because it may be unacceptable/impossible to do so

Example:  Very often, people lose their temper on pets and small children to release the stress they have with someone else

Regression

Manner of Manifestation:  Reverting or moving back in time to an earlier pattern of behaviour to respond to a stressful situation

Example:  Adults start to throw things when facing unmanageable stress or begin whimpering and cooing like a baby to attract attention in the face of stress

Conversion

Manner of Manifestation:    Transformation of psychological distress into physiological symptoms like blindness, loss of voice, and paralysis despite there being no clinical proof of it

Example: Due to extreme shock, she lost her voice

If you wish to learn more about this life coaching model, check out Cognitive Hypnotic Coaching model on our website.

Visit