Defence mechanisms and some notes on their relevance for the caring professions

Freud's concept of defence mechanisms means a perceptual, emotional or cognitive distortion of the inner or outer reality. The opposite of defence mechanisms is coping mechanisms. The adaptiveness/maladaptiveness of defences are disputed. Various fields of research have given evidence to their maladaptiveness as ways of dealing with threatening stimuli. It has been found that defences can lead to insensitivity to danger signals, lowered coping capacity to life stresses with increased vulnerability to "psychosomatic diseases", delay in seeking help for somatic symptoms, denial of death in dying patients, their relatives and medical attendants, and delayed or complicated grief reactions.