Defence
Mechanisms

If tension among these components is not reduced and equilibrium reclaimed, anxiety and conflict result. Some are short-term and others, long-term.
Defence mechanisms – unconscious techniques applied to resolve conflict and reduce tension.
There are a large number of defense mechanisms; the main ones are summarized below:

1. Repression – motivated forgetting of an anxiety-producing event.

2. Sublimation – repression of sexual/aggressive impulses and channeling them into appropriate behaviors.

3. Denial – involves blocking external events from awareness. If a situation is just too much to handle, the person just refuses to experience it.

4. Rationalization – is the cognitive distortion of "the facts" to make an event or an impulse less threatening.

5. Fantasy – daydreaming or imagination as a reaction to stress and anxiety.

6. Projection – this involves individuals attributing their own thoughts, feeling and motives to another person.

7. Regression – this is a movement back in psychological time when one is faced with stress. When we are troubled or frightened, our behaviors often become more childish or primitive.

8. Displacement – the redirection of an impulse onto a powerless substitute target.

9. Reaction Formation – this is where a person goes beyond denial and behaves in the opposite way to which they think or feel, by using RF the id is satisfied while keeping the ego in ignorance of the true motives.

10. Identification with the Aggressor – a focus on negative or feared traits. If you are afraid of someone, you can practically conquer that fear by becoming more like them.
(An extreme example is the Stockholm Syndrome, where hostages identify with terrorists)