api: YAML JSON TOON Database
version: 1.0.0
format: json
dataset:
  slug: defense-mechanisms
  title: Defense Mechanisms
  description: Psychological strategies used to manage internal conflict.
  summary: "Defense mechanisms as described in the psychodynamic tradition that began with Freud and was systematized by Anna Freud and later clinicians: unconscious strategies for managing anxiety and conflict. Each entry is a short description of the move."
  use_when:
    - You are explaining psychodynamic vocabulary or reading clinical or literary material that uses it.
    - You want a consistent set of named patterns when discussing coping behavior in plain language.
  caveats:
    - This is an interpretive framework from clinical practice, not a list of experimentally isolated mechanisms; it is hard to falsify an individual attribution.
    - Labeling a specific person's behavior with one of these terms is an inference, not an observation.
  related:
    - attachment-styles
    - cognitive-biases
  category: Psychology
  category_slug: psychology
  tags: psychology,defense,psychoanalysis
  view_count: 0
  entry_count: 20
  fields:
    - section: data
      field: mechanism
      type: string
      example: Repression
    - section: data
      field: description
      type: string
      example: Keeping threatening thoughts from awareness.
data:
  - mechanism: Repression
    description: Keeping threatening thoughts from awareness.
  - mechanism: Denial
    description: Refusing to accept reality or facts.
  - mechanism: Projection
    description: Attributing one's own unacceptable impulses to others.
  - mechanism: Displacement
    description: Redirecting emotions from a threatening target to a safer one.
  - mechanism: Sublimation
    description: Channeling unacceptable impulses into socially acceptable actions.
  - mechanism: Rationalization
    description: Creating logical explanations to justify behavior.
  - mechanism: Reaction Formation
    description: Acting opposite to one's true feelings.
  - mechanism: Regression
    description: Reverting to behavior typical of an earlier developmental stage under stress.
  - mechanism: Intellectualization
    description: Dealing with an emotional situation through abstract analysis that avoids feeling it.
  - mechanism: Isolation of Affect
    description: Recalling an event accurately while detaching the emotion that belongs with it.
  - mechanism: Undoing
    description: Trying to cancel out a perceived wrong with a symbolic act or its opposite.
  - mechanism: Compensation
    description: Overachieving in one area to offset a perceived weakness in another.
  - mechanism: Identification
    description: Adopting the qualities of a person or group, often an admired or feared one, to relieve anxiety.
  - mechanism: Splitting
    description: Seeing people or situations as entirely good or entirely bad, without integrating both.
  - mechanism: Suppression
    description: Consciously deciding to put a distressing thought aside for later, in contrast to unconscious repression.
  - mechanism: Humor
    description: Expressing a painful or uncomfortable idea in a way that allows distance and shared relief.
  - mechanism: Altruism
    description: Meeting one's own needs indirectly by helping others, usually regarded as a mature defense.
  - mechanism: Dissociation
    description: A temporary disruption in the integration of consciousness, memory or identity under overwhelming stress.
  - mechanism: Acting Out
    description: Expressing an unconscious conflict through action instead of words or reflection.
  - mechanism: Passive Aggression
    description: Expressing hostility indirectly through procrastination, sulking or intentional inefficiency.