The following terms are used more or less interchangeably in normal speech, but do in fact have important differences in meaning:

• defense-mechanism
• defense reaction
• ego-defense
• psychological defense
• defense strategy
• coping strategy
• coping mechanism

1. Any behaviour pattern which protects the psyche from anxiety, shame, or guilt.¹⁾

1. Any enduring structure of the psyche that enables a person to avoid awareness of the unpleasant or anxiety-arousing.
2. Defense reaction: this usage, while very common, blurs the distinction between the action and the mechanism for the action. ²⁾

1. Any action in which the individual interacts with the environment for the purpose of accomplishing something.

1. Action that enables one to adjust to the environmental circumstances, to get something done.

1. The utilisation of psychic energy arising from the id in order to protect the ego.

1. The retraining or sublimating or symbolic alteration of id impulses in order to protect the integrity of the ego.
2. Protecting the ego by effecting harmony between id and superego.

“At particular periods in life and according to its own specific structure, the individual ego selects now one defensive method, now another … and these it can employ both in its conflict with the instincts and in its defense against the liberation of affects.”³⁾

1. Any psychological instrumentality by which a person automatically protects his self or ego against unpleasantness, shame, anxiety, or loss of self-esteem.
2. The defense is usually (if not always) fully unconscious—that is, it is not intentionally acquired, and it operates automatically, without voluntary inception or control and without a conscious signal that it is operating.
3. Its presence is betrayed by an otherwise unexplainable lack of relation between the circumstances and the behaviour.

“Love, longing, jealousy, mortification, pain, and mourning accompany sexual wishes; hatred, anger, and rage accompany the impulses of aggression; if the instinctual demands with which they are associated are to be warded off, these affects must submit to all the various measures to which the ego resorts in its efforts to master them, i.e. they must undergo a metamorphosis.”

Defense mechanisms preserve “a sense of self-esteem in the face of shame and narcissistic vulnerability, ensuring a sense of safety when one feels dangerously threatened by abandonment or other perils, and insulating oneself from external dangers.” ⁴⁾

Perhaps the most famous defense, denial is literally that: you deny that something is true. This is sometimes trivial, like denying one made an embarassing slip-of-the-tongue, but it can also be more serious, as in the alcoholic who denies their addiction.

Denial also plays out through overlooking unpleasant details of a larger phenomenon. For example, the person who expresses happiness at unseasonably warm autumn weather while making no comment on the potentially disastrous climate change which is its cause.

Rationalisation is the trick of coming up with reasons to justify doing or not doing things. Often we rationalise not doing things we don’t want to do, but we are actually far better at coming up with “sensible” sounding reasons for doing short-sighted, stupid, or harmful things we do want to do.

When we invent plausible reasons for our actions, we protect ourselves from the guilt and shame of active impulsively and doing things we know we shouldn’t want to do. By rationalising, we convince ourselves that we really have thought the action through and thereby “prove” that we’re not simply doing whatever we want just because we want to.

Rationalisations often involve complex chains of reasoning, but they can also be as simple as “but he hit me first!”

1. If I work really hard at school, I’ll get good grades and get a good job. Then I’ll have enough money to buy whatever I want.
2. I can’t quit smoking right now, I’m under too much stress already.
3. I know I have a kitchen full of gadgets I never use, but I really need an air fryer because it will help me eat healthier.
4. Everyone else has Air Jordans, I need them to fit in.
5. I didn’t mean what I said, I was drunk/high/angry.

The most elaborate rationalising structure I can think of is the legal code. While The Law is supposedly intended to protect innocent people from bad people’s bad behaviour, it is very often manipulated to justify bad behaviour. Especially in business and finance, bad actors frequently campaign to have new laws added that legalise harmful business practices or that create loopholes and legal justifications for harmful actions.

“Whatever roused his anxiety became an object of ridicule and, since everything around him was a source of anxiety, the whole world took on an aspect of absurdity.” Anna Freud.⁵⁾

The impulse to make a joke out of a negative experience is a way to ward off the discomfort of an unpleasant situation, thought, or feeling.

Used appropriately, humour is an effective way of dissipating tension and making emotionally charged opinions more palatable. This is partly why one of the very few places where societal taboos can be openly spoken about is in stand-up comedy.

When we rely humourisation too heavily, it easily becomes a way of avoiding real problems by making them appear ridiculous and beneath consideration. This allows problems to be tolerated for longer than they should be, which allows them to become far more serious than they really should have.

On an interpersonal level, cracking jokes all the time makes us difficult to connect with emotionally. It’s healthy to be able to “laugh things off,” but making a joke of everything comes across as flippant and dismissive, which other people often find hurtful, especially if they don’t share your sense of humour.

Please see the List of Ego Defenses.

Defense is a term that has been adopted by different branches of psychology and used in subtly different ways. English & English differentiate, for example, between a psychological defense proper and a defense mechansim. A defense would be a specific defense like reaction formation, and a defense mechanism is the emotional response circuit that assesses the current situation for emotional risk and then deploys the specific defense. It is also possible to differentiate between a psychological defense and an ego-defense, though the two are often used interchangeably.

Personally, I think of an individual defense as part of a larger defense mechanism. In other words, the defense is the shield, and the mechanism is the arm, shoulder, and nervous system which causes the shield to raise (or not) when a person feels under attack. In the psychological sense, the “attacks” are mostly emotional, but a defense mechanism can also protect from physical illness, pain, and abuse.

Note: Anything to do with the concept ego is almost by definition unclear and confusing (see It, Me, Over-Me for more). This is because different people use ego differently, which creates overlapping conceptual boundaries that make any discussion of the theme quite messy.

The term ego-defense is almost synonymous with psychological defense, with one important difference. A psychological defense is usually used against some unwanted or unpleasant external stimulus, and an ego-defense blocks the awareness of internal stimuli.

In other words, external psychological defenses block out the things that other people do, and internal ego-defenses block out our own thoughts and impulses, particularly if they are hurtful to others, or culturally unacceptable.

As Anna Freud points out, the individual person will rely most heavily on one or two of their preferred ego-defenses. However, which exactly is employed depends on context, and the preference itself shifts naturally over time.

People are generally very consistent in their choice of defences and when they use them. In fact, if you think about it, this is what we actually mean when we talk about someone’s “personality.” We define others by how they respond to events, and how they respond to events is governed by their defence mechanisms…

The main thing to remember is that all defenses are a means of preventing unpleasant emotions. The cause of that emotion can be internal or external, real or perceived, and the method of prevention can be direct or indirect, and subtle or or very unsubtle indeed.

Some defenses simply block emotion or the impulses/perceptions that threaten to cause them, but others will instead deflect the impulse towards a more acceptable target, or transform an unacceptable emotional response into an acceptable one.

For example, a family situation with an abusive parent:

1. Denial: The abused child might simply deny that any abuse has taken place. This might be because their mind has blocked out the memory of the abuse, or because talking about the abuse will only lead them to be abused again.
2. Deflection: The abused child might be very angry about being mistreated, but experience has taught them that direct confrontation with the more powerful parent will only lead to more abuse. They might therefore displace their anger onto a younger sibling by being cruel or physically violent towards them, or they might become a bully towards other children at school.
3. Transformation: The abused child might be in fact very angry, but respond instead with tears. This might simply be an expression of overwhelming helplessness, but it can also be a way of transforming their powerful anger into a form they can express without provoking further abuse. These are not false “crocodile tears,” rather an indirect way of expressing dangerous and unacceptable feelings.

Above all it’s important not to dismiss someone’s behaviour as “just a defense mechanism.” The fact that they need the defense means that they are feeling vulnerable and are doing their best to protect themselves from emotional pain.

Even though this self protection can be hurtful to others (and even harmful, as in bullying), it is important also not to try and “break down” someone’s defenses. Doing so would leave them utterly exposed and push them directly towards a panic reaction and perhaps complete mental breakdown. This, obviously, is counter-productive to the aims of therapy.

Maladaptive or problematic defenses must be replaced rather than erased. This is done by consciously building up resistance to the problem defense and encouraging more effective ego-defenses, defense mechanisms, and coping strategies. The process is never quick, but it often takes on a natural momentum of its own once the person sees that their new defences actually work, and in fact work better than the old ones.

The terms “coping” and “defense” come out of different sects of psychological orthodoxy, Behaviorism and Psychodynamics respectively. These two sects believe in their respective doctrines with a religious fervour which has generated a long history of bitter, unproductive, and, frankly, childish squabbling.

The essential difference between the two quasi-religious groups is simple. Behaviourists believe either that thoughts and emotions don’t exist, or they are irrelevant when trying to change human behaviour. The psychodynamic view is the opposite, that behaviour is mostly irrelevant, and what matters are the thoughts and emotions which motivate them.

Personally, I have no patience for this squabbling because to me they are simply describing the same thing from different perspectives. Namely, the coping behavior is what the observer sees from the outside and the defense-mechanisms are what the behaving person feels on the inside.

You can see this perspective difference very clearly in the definitions I quote above. The Behaviourist concept, “coping,” is about “getting something done.” On the other hand the Psychoanalytic “defence” is about protecting the ego from pain. To me, these are not mutually exclusive, and it is foolish and irrational to ignore one just because you happen to like Skinner better than Freud, or vice versa.

However, there is an important difference between coping and defense which can help us better understand the nature of our own feelings and actions. The Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual points out that,

“In contrast to”coping” mechanisms, defenses operate in a mostly automatic manner, partially or wholly out of awareness.”[^5]

In other words, the main difference between coping and defense is whether or not we know we’re doing it.

So here’s one way of understanding the difference between coping and defense:

• Coping is a conscious, intentional process, where you know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.
• Defense is automatic and unthinking; you often don’t notice that you’re doing it, and when somebody points it out, you still deny that it’s happening.

To me, this explains why the average person (and many therapists!) use the terms interchangeably. Functionally speaking, they’re different layers of the same psychological process.

The primary goal of all psychotherapy is to become more emotionally aware and develop healthy, conscious coping strategies (aka. mature ego-defenses). The result is that we will rely less on the more “primitive” ones like denial, splitting, and projection, and instead reach for anticipation and sublimation (aka. delayed gratification and creative productivity, aka. art, work, and sport).