Defense Mechanisms: Projection Identification

(This blog was originally posted on September 22, 2014)

          Defense mechanisms are strategies to cope with a stressful situation in our lives. Furthermore, at some point in our lives almost everyone uses one to ameliorate an undesirable reaction to an unpleasant circumstance. However, these defense mechanisms provide us only a temporary perception of control over the environment. Eventually, we have to deal with and resolve the primary issue that has triggered the defense mechanism in order to achieve personal growth.

A common defense mechanism for handling a distressing situation is to direct our attention and project blame for our emotions about the stressful situation onto other people. For example, an individual may accuse a colleague of “hating” her for no reason when the accuser is the person who actually holds the negative feelings toward that other woman (projection). Or, a man who is tempted to be unfaithful in a relationship may suspect or even blame his spouse of infidelity (projection identification). Why go to these extremes and just admit the truth?

       These (and all other) defense mechanisms share four common traits: 1) they are unconscious; 2) they are self-deceptive; 3) they contain elements of denial; 4) they distort reality through thoughts and action. Their primarily role is to protect the subconscious mind from what it perceives as a threat or “pain.” In this case, the pain would be caused by our peers negatively judging our attitudes or behavior that contradicts acceptable beliefs or behaviors: e.g., unethical behavior or unacceptable feelings toward others. Rather than risk this negative response, accusing someone else of engaging in the undesirable behavior not only protects us but may even attract further (and deeper) acceptance and support from our social group.

      According to John Kappas, Ph.D.’s Theory of Mind, we are all subconsciously motivated to maintain and/or restore a known physical and emotional status of comfort and security. In this case, social acceptance represents pleasure, whereas criticism and potential rejection from our peers are pain. Since the subconscious mind is motivated and even programmed to seek the pleasure stimuli, we may adopt these defense mechanisms to literally “defend” against potential social rejection (pain). By creating an imagined scenario such as perceived persecution by a peer or spousal infidelity, the SCM enables us to railing against an imagined threat to help control the unwanted emotions we feel at that moment.

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

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