defense mechanism

defense mechanism

n.

1. Biology A physiological reaction of an organism used in self-protection, as against infection.

2. Psychology Any of various usually unconscious mental processes, including denial, projection, rationalization, and repression, that protect the ego from shame, anxiety, conflict, loss of self-esteem, or other unacceptable feelings or thoughts.

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

defense mechanism - (psychiatry) an unconscious process that tries to reduce the anxiety associated with instinctive desires defence, defence mechanism, defence reaction, defense reaction, defense unconscious process, process - a mental process that you are not directly aware of; "the process of denial" psychiatry, psychological medicine, psychopathology - the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders compensation - (psychiatry) a defense mechanism that conceals your undesirable shortcomings by exaggerating desirable behaviors conversion - (psychiatry) a defense mechanism represses emotional conflicts which are then converted into physical symptoms that have no organic basis denial - (psychiatry) a defense mechanism that denies painful thoughts displacement - (psychiatry) a defense mechanism that transfers affect or reaction from the original object to some more acceptable one idealisation, idealization - (psychiatry) a defense mechanism that splits something you are ambivalent about into two representations--one good and one bad intellectualisation, intellectualization - (psychiatry) a defense mechanism that uses reasoning to block out emotional stress and conflict isolation - (psychiatry) a defense mechanism in which memory of an unacceptable act or impulse is separated from the emotion originally associated with it projection - (psychiatry) a defense mechanism by which your own traits and emotions are attributed to someone else psychoanalytic process - a process that is assumed to occur in psychoanalytic theory rationalisation, rationalization - (psychiatry) a defense mechanism by which your true motivation is concealed by explaining your actions and feelings in a way that is not threatening reaction formation - (psychiatry) a defense mechanism in which a person unconsciously develops attitudes and behavior that are the opposite of unacceptable repressed desires and impulses and serve to conceal them; "his strict morality is just a reaction formation to hide his sexual drive" regression - (psychiatry) a defense mechanism in which you flee from reality by assuming a more infantile state repression - (psychiatry) the classical defense mechanism that protects you from impulses or ideas that would cause anxiety by preventing them from becoming conscious