Types of Anxiety & Defense Mechanisms

• Repression - pushung or moving thoughts that make us uncomfortable into our subconscious.
• Sublimation - coverting unacceptable behavior into a more acceptable form.
• Regression - reverting back to childlike behavior.
• Denial - refusing to admit or recognize that something is occuring or has occured.
• Displacement - taking one's feeling or frustations out on something or someone else that is les threatening.
• Intellectualization - involves a person using reason and logic to avoid uncomfortable or anxiety-provoking emotions.
• Projection - unwanted feelings are displaces onto another person, where they then appear as a threat from the external world.
• Rationalization - people justify difficult or unacceptable feelings with seemingly logical reasons and explanations.
• Reaction Formation - people express the opposite of their true feelings sometimes to an exaggerated extent.
• Suppresion - consciously choosing to block ideas or impulses that are undesirable as opposed to repression, a subconscious process. This defense mechanism may be present in someone who has intrusive thoughts about a traumatic event but pushes these thoughts out of their mind.
• Altruism - Satisfying internal needs through helping others.
• Avoidance - Refusing to deal with or encounter unpleasant objects or situations.
• Dissociation - Becoming separated or removed from your experience.
• Humor - Pointing out the funny or ironic aspects of a situation.
• Passive-aggression - Pointing out the funny or ironic aspects of a situation.
• Moral Anxiety - A fear of violating our own moral principles
• Neurotic Anxiety - The unconscious worry that we will lose control of the id's urges, resulting in punishment for inappropriate behavior
• Reality Anxiety - Fear of real-world events. The cause of this anxiety is usually easily identified. The most common way of reducing this anxiety is to avoid the threatening object.