Anxiety Defense Mechanisms

Everyone in the entire world has a different mechanism for dealing with anxiety. There are many strategies and things people do in order to reduce their anxiety. Each day people in the world get into situations where their anxiety might rise and their ego feels like it might lose control. The ego unconsciously fights anxiety during these situations and uses different techniques in order to do so. There are many different defense mechanisms used by everybody. Some of these defense mechanisms are healthy, but some are toxic. Defense mechanism are an important function in peoples’ lives whether they know it is occurring it or not. The basic defensive mechanism against anxiety is repression. Repression automatically pushes conscious anxiety thoughts …show more content…
Some defense mechanisms will result in negative effects. These effects can be bad for the person’s health using the mechanisms, and it can also have negative effects for their friends and family. Defense mechanisms that can have negative effects are displacement, denial, and repression. Denial is a harmful way to cope with anxiety. A person using denial might enjoy completely believing the opposite of their anxiety, but in the long run it will have negative effects on them. When a drug addict completely believes that they do not have a problem. Then, using denial to help their anxiety in this situation is horrible. The drug addict will keep using drugs and keep believing that he has no issues. This will be terrible for their physical and psychological health in their future. Using repression is just as bad as using denial. When a child completely represses their memories of being bullied by other kids, it will have negative effects in the future. Since the child never dealt with the anxiety of being bullied, he might have trouble meeting new friends or forming relationships with new people. The thought of forming relationships with new people could scare them because they never dealt with the thought of being bullied. Not being able to form relationships with others will have terrible effects on their life. Forming new relationships and meeting new people is a huge part of a person’s life when they grow up. Although …show more content…
Defense mechanisms deal with problems in a way that creates an easier situation for people. Defense mechanisms are also completely ordinary and it would be unnatural for a person to not have any type of defense mechanism to deal with anxiety. When people run into problems in their lives, defense mechanism burst into action to make the problems easier to deal with. Many people do not even have to try and fight against their anxiety when stressful situations occur because defense mechanisms occur unconsciously. It is amazing that the ego unconsciously defends the body against stress and anxiety. Since stressful situations can have an effect on peoples’ personalities, it is important that the body deals with them in the right way. Without these defense mechanisms people would not know how to handle so much stress. If the ego did not protect itself from too much anxiety, a person’s personality could be negatively affected. Good defense mechanisms protect people from having mental health issues and helps people live in a world that has many problems. Defense mechanism occur unconsciously and are hard to change because of this. Practice and support from others, such as family, friends, or a therapist, will help benefit anyone’s