1. **Definition**: Subconscious mental process to protect oneself from anxiety, unpleasant emotions, or to provide a refuge from a situation with which one cannot currently cope. 1. They often appear unconsciously. 2. They tend to distort, transform, or otherwise falsify reality. 2. Type of Defense Mechanisms 1. **Displacement**: Unconscious shift of emotion, affect, or desire from the original object to a more acceptable, less threatening substitute. 2. **Denial**: Refusal to accept external reality because it is too threatening. 1. **Minimization**: Sometimes one will appear to have accepted it but in a diluted form. 3. **Rationalization**: Subconsciously justifying actions that otherwise would be unacceptable. 4. **Compensation**: Psychologically counterbalancing perceived weakness by emphasizing strength in other areas. 5. **Projection**: Places their own unacceptable impulses onto someone else, relegates the blame to others. 6. **Reaction Formation**: One fakes a belief opposite to the true belief (fact / what has happened). 7. **Fantasy**: Engages in daydreams about how things should be rather than doing anything about how things are. 8. **Repression**: One places uncomfortable thoughts into inaccessible ares of the unconscious mind. ## Example | Name | Example | | ------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Displacement | A student get frustrated during learning how to program a G1000 for an approach in a simulator and treats simulator with excessive force out of frustration. | | Denial | The airplane student took on a solo flight was left untied on the ramp. When you point it out to the student, they denies it or try to minimize and say "well, the airplane is still there." | | Rationalization | A student failed their knowledge exam and instead of admitting to failing to spend adequate time and doing practice tests, they attribute it to a bad luck: "the question happened to be all in my weak areas." | | Compensation | A student just flew a terrible departure procedure, and instead of reflecting on it, they started to talk about how good they are at approaches. | | Projection | A student just failed their checkride. | | Reaction Formation | "Left turn heading 270" you said but the student started to doing a right turn. Instead of admitting they hear it wrong, they think you must have said it wrong. | | Fantasy | A student with a goal of becoming an airline pilot felt frustrated that they're not making progress, instead of focusing on getting over the plateau, they start to talk about how the airline pilot's life is going to be. | | Repression | Some students has repressed fear of flying and while they don't talk about it, it might inhibits their ability to take control of the situation. Such as freezing during stalls, landing, etc. | #foi