What is a defense mechanism?
Defense mechanisms are mental processes that enable the mind to reach compromise solutions to conflicts that are difficult to resolve, and to thus reduce the anxiety caused by said conflicts. This anxiety may be generated by unacceptable or negative impulses. The process is usually unconscious, and the compromise generally involves concealing from oneself internal drives or feelings that threaten to lower self-esteem or provoke anxiety."When these make conflicting demands upon the poor ego, it is understandable if you feel threatened, fell overwhelmed, feel as if it were about to collapse under the weight of it all. This feeling is called anxiety, and it serves as a signal to the ego that its survival, and with it the survival of the whole organism, is in jeopardy.In order to deal with conflict and problems in life, Freud stated that the ego employs a range of defense mechanisms. defense mechanisms operate at an unconscious level and help ward off unpleasant feelings (i.e. anxiety) or make good things feel better for the individual." - Defense MechanismsExamples:- Denial: "I don't have a drinking problem."- Projection: "I don't like Mike. I know the dude hates me, I know it."- Displacement: "I feel so angry I'd kick anyone."- Reaction Formation: "I want love so bad- actually... I hate love. I don't need it. I'm asexual."- Compensation: "Damn. I'm so weak... I'm going to read this pile of books to compensate for different lack."- Acting out: Temper tantrums. - and many more. These defense mechanisms are often unconscious, non-voluntary, and arise when we feel psychologically highly under-demand or threatened, or have come against a stressful situation in life.I have piled to an album and written about other defense mechanisms on my page in Defense Mechanisms | Facebook
When it comes to ego defense mechanisms, what in the human psyche decides which mechanism to use?
Defensive moves are the result of many parts of the brain communicating with each other at between 690 to 810 inched per second. Bold lettering identifies the part of the brain and its function involved in a defensive action.The main functions of the cerebrum include:Interpreting sensations such as vision, hearing, touch, and smellControlling our feelings and emotionsThinking, problem-solving and adapting our behaviorsLearning and rememberingUnderstanding and using language to communicatePerceiving the space around usBody movementThe thalamus is the “central hub” of the brain. It receives outside information – all the senses except smell – and forwards it to other areas of the brain. It also helps manage motor and cognitive functions.The functions of the cerebellum include:LearningCoordinating movement and balanceFine tuning thoughts, emotions, touch, and other senses.The brain stem runs from under the cerebrum to the spinal cord. It controls all the body’s automatic functions. Except for the nerve that controls smell, the brain stem connects to 11 other cranial nerves in the head.The functions of the brain stem, the oldest part of the brain, are essential to maintaining life:BreathingHeart rate and blood pressureDigestionBody temperature
Why haven't plant or animals evolved a defense mechanism against fire?
But they have.Plants have a defence mechanism called “not being very combustible”. It’s actually quite hard to make a fresh plant catch fire, even a tree—it’s full of sap and stuff, and will only start to burn if there is already plenty of fire going on around it. In addition, they have seeds (and sometimes roots) that survive the fire just fine. Remember, it’s not about survival of the individual, it’s about survival of the genes. If the individual has to be sacrificed for the benefit of the genes, they do. Always. If you look at an area that has been devastated by a forest fire, then ten years after the fire, you can hardly see that there’s anything odd about it (except that there are no very large trees around). The individual trees died, the forest goes on just fine.Animals have an even more clever mechanism called “running away”. It’s not foolproof, but efficient enough so that no other mechanism is really needed. It’s about energy expenditure needed to preserve the defensive trait, versus the risk that the bad thing happens in the first place. A more complex way of avoiding fires would be costly, in terms of the amount of food needed to support it, and hardly any animal would ever have any use for it. Any mutation giving them a flame retardant in the bloodstream would mean they got out-competed by their brethren who lacked that adaptation; they would need less food and be nearly as safe from forest fires anyway.
Why is that most of our natural instincts serve against our best interest?
I’d have to say that instincts work in favor of our best interests in some cases, and against us in others. However there are various opinions about what instincts exist in humans.A spider for example, instinctively knows how to build a web. A human does not instinctively know how to build a shelter. Language acquisition seems to be instinctual, yet still requires a great deal of learning.The ‘fight or flight’ instinct can be counter-productive in modern society, requiring complicated, learned skills in substitution in order to avoid a self-defeating action. Some would say however, that a behavior which can be modified or suppressed is not an instinct.I like the theory that we have psychological defense mechanisms, such as repression, displacement, projection, etc, that allow us to override certain other instincts.For example, a verbal threat would typically evoke anger and defensive behavior, but these reactions can actually be repressed, to the point that we don’t even realize how angry we are, until for example, we get to safety (like home) and find ourselves either yelling at a partner for no good reason, or even stricken with anxiety or pain (headache, back or neck pain, many others).Physical symptoms can indicate a more problematic response pattern, requiring more determined efforts to eliminate. And unfortunately, most medical practitioners prescribe analgesics or anti-anxiety drugs which don’t eliminate the problematic patterns, but treat only symptoms, leading to drug addiction, relationship problems, and many other harmful side effects.
Why do people repress or forget traumatic events that clearly have negatively impacted their lives?
People are not really good at consciously "deleting" memories. Go ahead and try to forget something you know. Like the Streisand effect, you will only end up strengthening that memory by simply thinking about it again. Any such repression or 'editing' is more often done unconsciously. [1]Confabulation is a memory disturbance, defined as the production of fabricated, distorted or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world, without the conscious intention to deceiveThat being said, memory itself is almost always not the true account of the past. It is dependent on both how you constructed or encoded those events and the reconstruction process. Eyewitnesses often tell contradicting versions of the same event because of different personal experiences.[2]In case of traumatic memories, there are some different theories why they are forgotten. Some of them are:Forgetting becomes an adaptive response important for survival to avoid stress.Stress levels, emotional arousal and altered attention focusing during the experience prevent proper encoding.The traumatic experience sometimes causes global impairment that is people fail to construct an accurate memory of their present and past events.[3]The human mind does not completely forget these memories. Retrieval of memories after traumatic experiences like natural calamities, concentration camps etc. is well studied. Psychiatrists have also studied extensively on how to remember repressed memories. Traumatic memories are retrieved, at least at first, in the form of dissociated mental imprints of the affective and sensory elements of the traumatic experience. Clients have reported the slow emergence of a personal narrative that can be considered explicit (conscious) memory.I would like to end with this quote from a Vietnam veteran:"I do not want to take drugs for my nightmares,because I must remain a memorial to my dead friends"Links[1] Confabulation[2] Reconstructive memory[3] Repressed memoryTraumatic memoriesBooksTraumaTrauma, Memory, And Dissociation