Robert F. Mullen, PhD
Director/ReChanneling

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The distinction between social anxiety and social anxiety disorder is in severity. We are not all affected by the same symptoms or relentlessness. The characteristics and traits are equivalent. These conditions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior. While comorbidities dramatically benefit, the recovery methods identified are for social anxiety and social anxiety disorder, and reference to one includes the other.

Defense Mechanisms

Excerpts from our upcoming book, A Tough Love, Common Sense Approach to Recovery from Social Anxiety, currently in final editing.

The overwhelming thoughts and emotions caused by our condition can be challenging for our minds to manage. To cope, we develop defense mechanisms—unconscious strategies meant to protect our emotional health from threats.

We deny, avoid, or compensate for a problem rather than acknowledge it. We rationalize our actions, project them onto others, or displace them by kicking the dog.

When used temporarily, defense mechanisms offer an escape from situations that threaten our fragile self-image. Without these strategies, we can experience decompensation—a state where we cannot effectively handle stress, leading to a breakdown in our ability to function and maintain our mental health.

In simpler terms, decompensation is mental overload, where the stress becomes too much for us to handle, and we struggle with our daily tasks and our mental health.

Defense mechanisms are healthy when used to manage short-term trauma, but become problematic when we rely on them to avoid facing reality. Recovery involves examining and understanding how these strategies support our irrational thoughts and behaviors, helping us avoid conflicts with our fragile self-image.

Recognizing how we use defense mechanisms to bypass or avoid reality is a vital step toward recovery. It enables us to turn defense strategies into tools for growth and healing. It empowers us to take control of our mental well-being and navigate our recovery with confidence.

Psychologists have identified approximately thirty defense mechanisms to date. Eight are especially relevant to social anxiety:

1. avoidance (e.g., evading thoughts, feelings, or situations that cause anxiety or discomfort),
2. compensation (e.g., overachieving to hide feelings of inadequacy),
3. denial (e.g., refusing to acknowledge a problem),
4. displacement (e.g., taking frustrations out on others),
5. dissociation (e.g., mentally and emotionally distancing ourselves from unpleasant situations),
6. projection (e.g., attributing our flaws to others),
7. rationalization (e.g., justifying uncomfortable or inappropriate feelings or behaviors with seemingly logical explanations),
8. and the related triad of repression, suppression, and regression.

The thirteen cognitive distortions, also particularly relevant to our social anxiety, are also considered defense mechanisms—patterns of biased or distorted thinking that skew our perception of reality.

This post focuses on eight defense mechanisms germane to social anxiety.

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Avoidance

A primary SAD symptom is our intense fear or anxiety during social situations, causing us to avoid interacting with others. Human interconnectivity, however, is essential for emotional health. Turning down opportunities to socialize exacerbates our isolation and opportunities for intimacy and friendship.

This does not mean that we need to challenge every situation. There is a clear distinction between avoiding something out of fear and avoiding it for a good reason. Discretion about who and where we engage is essential, as is adhering to our established boundaries and avoiding situations that pose a threat to our physical well-being.

Avoidance can be a reasonable alternative.

Compensation

Compensation is a defense strategy we turn to when we try to excel in one area of our lives to hide perceived flaws in another. It helps us conceal or overcome struggles in one area by becoming skilled at something else. In simple terms, we overachieve in one part of our lives to make up for deficiencies or incapacity in another.

For example, a student might compensate for academic difficulties by excelling in sports or other extracurricular activities. Someone who feels intellectually inferior might become an artisan; a socially awkward person might become a performer; and someone with body dysmorphia may become a fitness enthusiast.

When used wisely, compensation can be a powerful tool for healing. We counteract our perceived flaws with positive, productive traits. We boost our self-esteem by reclaiming our character strengths, virtues, attributes, and achievements. And we replace negative thoughts with positive stimuli.

Overcompensation is common among those of us experiencing social anxiety. In fact, it is often part of our daily struggles. The term refers to an overreaction to feelings of inferiority, incompetence, or inadequacy, leading to overzealous attempts to overwhelm the feelings by striving for perfection or seeking validation from others.

We tend to overcompensate for our perceived shortcomings, going to extremes to make up for imagined deficiencies, and setting unrealistically high expectations we cannot meet.

Perfectionism closely resembles the characteristics of social anxiety. Understanding this connection helps us recognize the role of perfectionism in our condition. Perfectionism isn’t just about wanting to do well; it’s an obsessive need to be flawless, with anything less being unacceptable.

As perfectionists, we harshly criticize ourselves when we fall short of our standards. We worry excessively about our behavior before and during social situations, ruminating on these worries long afterward. When things don’t go as planned, we find it hard to move forward.

Social Anxiety and Perfectionism

Social anxiety and perfectionism are closely linked. Both tend to involve higher anxiety levels and lower psychological well-being.

People with SAD often see situations in extremes. To a perfectionist, anything less than perfect is disastrous. We view others as either supporting us or opposing us. The world appears black-and-white, with no middle ground or room for compromise. We see ourselves as either exceptional or failures.

This mindset fuels cognitive distortions such as the need to be always right, personalization, and polarized thinking.

Perfectionists and those with SAD tend to avoid situations that might lead to disaster, disappointment, or embarrassment. We fear saying or doing the wrong thing. We dread criticism and ridicule. These worries intensify our self-criticism and defensiveness.

Our perfectionism pushes us to set unreasonable expectations, like performing flawlessly, never making mistakes, and being in complete control. When we can’t meet these expectations, we become disappointed and feel even more incompetent and inadequate.

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Denial

Denial is a defense strategy that induces us to refuse to accept facts or recognize reality to avoid facing certain truths. It protects us from thoughts and emotions we cannot manage emotionally. It shields us from potentially destructive stimuli by blocking our conscious awareness of the harmful or threatening elements of our memories, experiences, and environment.

We can also be in denial about something we’re not ready to reveal or something that challenges our core beliefs and deeply held convictions.

Denial is a common way to avoid taking responsibility for our behaviors. Many individuals experiencing drug or alcohol addiction deny their habit. Trauma victims often deny that the disturbing experience ever occurred to avoid emotional confrontation. 

While denial can offer temporary respite from things our minds find unmanageable, its persistent use can impede our ability to face our fears and control our lives. Freud called it the ostrich effect because denial is simply burying our problems in the sand.

Individuals denying their social anxiety is a pervasive problem. The inability or unwillingness to accept the personal impact of our condition is patently hostile to recovery. Even worse is the number of individuals who know they are affected but resist recovery. This reticence is rooted in our core beliefs of hopelessness and worthlessness, which preclude us from making the effort.

We must be fully aware (recognize, comprehend, and accept) of our social anxiety to recover from it. Denying it is like Blanche complaining that Baby Jane wouldn’t abuse her if Blanche weren’t confined to a wheelchair. ‘But you are, Blanche! You are in that chair.’

We cannot allow ourselves the luxury of ignorance.

Displacement

Displacement is a defense strategy where we redirect negative or hostile emotions to a less threatening or more acceptable target. Our minds find a safer outlet for triggers that are challenging or dangerous. Displacement allows us to cope with unmanageable feelings by transferring them onto something or someone else.

By displacing negative emotions or distressing experiences, we momentarily alleviate the anxiety associated with the source of distress. In common vernacular, we take our frustrations out on someone else.

Unleashing our unmanageable feelings onto those who pose a limited threat, such as a roommate, sibling, or associate, has obvious repercussions. A chastised worker might go home, shout at his wife, run the lawnmower into the flowerbed, and upend the cat. Each recipient of their displacement is adversely affected.

Examples of displacement include the student, upset about poor grades, who bullies someone on the playground during recess, and the wife, frustrated by her husband’s lack of attention, who seeks another sexual outlet to quash her feelings of rejection.

Another form of displacement is sublimation, where we redirect unacceptable urges into socially acceptable activities, such as the woman who sublimates her self-sabotaging desires by working out at the gym or the man who frequents the local tavern.

Individuals experiencing social anxiety are prone to displacement and sublimation as a relief from their continual self-doubt, isolation, and negative self-appraisal. For example, when we become overwhelmed by unresolved fears at the company convention, we might displace our anger and self-disappointment onto someone we dislike or sublimate them by getting out on the dance floor.

It is crucial to recognize that, like all defense mechanisms, the relief from displacement is temporary. It tells us that we must become more conscious of our emotional processes and the need for more productive coping strategies.

Dissociation

An essential component of our recovery is distancing ourselves from our condition—to step outside the bullseye, as it were. As long as we remain entwined with our social anxiety disorder, we tend to see ourselves as helpless, hopeless, and worthless. These are core beliefs that contribute to our social anxiety and depression, as identified by the pioneer of cognitive-behavioral therapy, Dr. Aaron Beck.

The concept of undesirability, characterized by the feeling of being unwanted or unattractive, is a common manifestation in our workshops, where we discuss and address negative self-appraisal.

Traditionally, dissociation is an unconscious disconnection from reality. It allows individuals to mitigate the effects of trauma by severing specific mental connections. Theoretically, our mind unconsciously blocks memories, emotions, thoughts, and impulses that are hazardous to our emotional well-being.

For instance, a person who has experienced a traumatic event might dissociate themselves from triggers that might rekindle the trauma, effectively ‘shutting off’ the emotions and memories related to the event.

Dissociation can present itself as depersonalization (self-detachment) or derealization (environmental detachment). The broad spectrum of dissociation ranges from listening to music to a total disconnect from reality.

Daydreaming or streaming television to avoid conflict is a harmless form of dissociation, while morphing into multiple personalities is a psychosis called DID (dissociative identity disorder) that requires specialized treatment.

Our first exercise in this book was to begin dissociating ourselves from our social anxiety. We redefine ourselves by our character assets, such as kindness, intelligence, creativity, and resilience, rather than by the symptoms of our condition. We’re not our social anxiety. We are intelligent and resilient individuals experiencing the reparable symptoms of social anxiety.

This shift in self-appraisal enables us to take control of our condition, which significantly weakens it.

Uncoupling ourselves from our condition enables us to objectively analyze our negative thoughts and behaviors, allowing us to respond rationally and productively. By consciously disassociating, we gain the power to deactivate the self-destructive aspects of our condition and activate our strengths, virtues, attributes, and accomplishments. This encourages us to focus on the positive aspects of our character, overriding the negative self-appraisals triggered by our social anxiety.

We are not our social anxiety. When we break a leg, we don’t become the broken limb; we experience the discomfort of a broken bone. The same logic applies to our condition. We are not our symptoms and traits. We are individuals experiencing the distress of a devious and powerful mental health condition. This understanding liberates us from the shackles of our condition, enabling us to thrive.

Projection

Projection is a psychological defense strategy in which we attribute our undesirable thoughts, feelings, impulses, or behaviors to another person or group to avoid confronting and dealing with them.

When we project, we subconsciously deny certain negative character traits but recognize or create them in others. For example, we might project our fears of negative evaluation by ridiculing someone else’s inept attempt at socializing. Or if we carry repressed anger to a company event, we might perceive others as belligerent and aggressive rather than acknowledging our hostility.

Projection acts as a protective shield for our emotional well-being, providing relief from anxiety-provoking thoughts or feelings. By attributing our problems to someone or something else, we create a safe distance from what we find distressing within ourselves.

For instance someone who is dishonest might constantly suspect others of lying, or the bar patron on his fifth scotch, might criticize the obvious inebriation of the person at the other table.

Often, when we instinctively dislike or avoid someone, we unconsciously project our disagreeable traits and impulses onto them. 

Psychological projection occurs when we are unable or unwilling to take responsibility for our fears, anxieties, prejudices, and irrational thoughts and behaviors. It is easier to recognize negative emotions in others than it is to acknowledge them in ourselves.

Like many defense mechanisms, projecting may be healthy in the short term; however, recovery compels us to address the causes of our projection.

The long-term effects of persistent anxiety projection are detrimental to our health and may aggravate traditional symptoms of our social anxiety, including chronic stress, the constant influx of fear- and anxiety-provoking chemical hormones, and decreased or static self-esteem.

Anxiety Projection

Anxiety projection is particularly relevant to our condition. Unconsciously projecting our anxious thoughts, feelings, or impulses onto others or external situations helps us cope with emotions that threaten our emotional stability. Rather than acknowledging our fears or insecurities, we deny them by attributing them to external sources.

The traits that lead to anxiety projection are not uncommon in social anxiety. They include social avoidance, overthinking, perfectionism, porous emotional boundaries, and codependency. Recognizing these traits can help us better understand and manage our condition, knowing that we are not alone in this struggle.

Socially, projected anxiety can create a cycle of misunderstanding and conflict. For instance, a person projecting their insecurities might accuse their partner of being unfaithful without evidence, which can easily lead to relationship conflicts. We tend to avoid companionship and intimacy in anticipation of rejection. Projecting these fears allows us to evade responsibility.

Practical strategies for managing anxiety projection are within our reach. They focus on increasing self-awareness, challenging cognitive distortions, and reframing our fears and self-appraisals. By implementing these strategies, we learn to manage our issues rather than projecting them onto some unsuspecting external source.

Rationalization

Rationalization is not the same as rational thought or rational coping statements. Which are logical, self-affirming responses to our automatic negative and intrusive thoughts and other irrational and destructive self-appraisals that threaten our emotional well-being.

Rationalization is a defense strategy in which we justify uncomfortable or errant feelings or behaviors with allegedly logical explanations rather than acknowledging the actual reason behind them.

In essence, we deny or distort reality to reduce our emotional discomfort​ and self-disappointment by inventing a plausible excuse to disguise the real explanation for our behavior or feelings. For example, if we are rejected socially, we might say that the person is already in a relationship. If our presentation is substandard, we blame the lighting and tech.

These excuses protect us from self-recrimination and disappointment.

Rationalization allows us to reframe our actions or feelings in a more socially and personally acceptable manner, protecting our self-esteem and avoiding emotions that challenge our self-image. Psychologists consider defense mechanisms like rationalization and projection, unconscious strategies that protect us from threats to our self-esteem​.

Although rationalizations misrepresent our true motivations, they protect us from the feelings of shame, guilt, or anxiety we might experience when we fail to fulfill our true intentions. Rationalization plays a crucial role in maintaining our emotional stability by revising our interpretations of outcomes.

We rationalize our thoughts and behaviors to make them more acceptable, which shields us from negative self-appraisal and helps us maintain a positive self-image. This reassurance is a key function of rationalization.

We rationalize to protect our self-esteem and maintain a positive outlook, and in the short term, this provides comforting relief. It allows us to alleviate stress until we are better equipped to process our motivations.

However, excessive use of rationalization can lead to further problems. Denying, ignoring, or subordinating the truth of a traumatic situation, consciously or unconsciously, prevents us from honestly evaluating our reactions and responses and making positive changes.

Deflecting Responsibility

When we experience anxiety or guilt about our actions, rationalization offers an emotional escape. It replaces discomfort with emotionally acceptable explanations, but it also enables us to evade responsibility for the outcome, a crucial aspect to consider.

An excellent example of rationalization would be the dieter who opts out of the recommended exercises because they are too time-consuming and have failed them in the past —so what’s the point?

Rationalization versus Lying

It’s important to distinguish between rationalization and deception. While lying is a deliberate attempt to mislead, rationalization is a partly or primarily unconscious strategy. Both conceal the truth and disguise our real motives.

Rationalization, in its various forms—such as minimizing, deflecting, blaming, and attacking—is a common human experience. We’ve all been in situations where we downplay the importance of a task, shift blame to others, or make excuses for our actions. It’s a natural defense strategy that prevents us from taking responsibility and shields us from feelings that could challenge our self-esteem.

While it defends against distressing thoughts, erratic behaviors, and failed outcomes, rationalization avoids the deeper problems that require attention.

Repression, Suppression, Regression

Repression operates at the deepest level of our unconscious mind. It’s a process where we unknowingly suppress traumatic memories or thoughts that our minds find too challenging to handle. In psychology, repression refers to the process by which we prevent specific thoughts, memories, or feelings from surfacing into conscious awareness.

While repression may shield us from immediate distress, it’s crucial to understand that it can lead to enduring psychological issues. These memories, buried in our unconscious, subtly shape our thoughts and actions. For instance, a repressed memory of a past failure could breed self-doubt in similar situations, or a buried traumatic event might steer us from specific triggers without our conscious knowledge.

These occurrences can stir up anxiety, stress, and depression, underscoring the profound and potentially long-term implications of repression on our mental health. It’s essential to address these issues to prevent them from developing into enduring psychological problems.

Suppression

Suppression is a voluntary form of repression. It’s a conscious choice to subdue painful thoughts and memories to deal with them at a more appropriate time. This conscious control over our thoughts and emotions is a powerful tool in recovery. It allows us to resolve the issues that we have temporarily suppressed.

The distinction between suppression and dissociation in recovery is also essential to understand. Suppression is a conscious choice to postpone dealing with specific distressing thoughts and behaviors. Dissociation, as used in recovery, is a conscious decision to mentally separate ourselves from the symptoms of our condition to address them dispassionately and objectively.

Understanding these nuances can provide a deeper insight into our psychological processes during recovery. Making us more knowledgeable and better equipped to handle our emotional issues.

Repression is often confused with the defense strategy, denial, in which we refuse to admit to unacceptable thoughts and behaviors, even with evidence to the contrary. Denial involves a conscious refusal to accept the truth. For example, a person in denial about their addiction may refuse to acknowledge their problem despite clear evidence. Repression, on the other hand, involves unconscious mental dismissal. It’s like the mind’s way of protecting us from overwhelming trauma by pushing it out of conscious awareness.

Regression

We also sometimes conflate regression with repression. Regression is reverting to an earlier or less mature stage of psychological development, where we feel safe from emotional conflict. Repression is a psychological attempt to unconsciously forget or block distressing memories, thoughts, or desires.

Both are psychological attempts to unconsciously forget or block distressing memories, thoughts, or desires. However, regression is a severe psychological issue that requires more specialized treatment, something a traditional recovery program does not provide.

A primary objective of a treatment program is to unblock these memories and emotions to address the root causes of our unconscious unwillingness or inability to confront certain distressing or traumatic events or situations.

Certain aspects of our person are broken. It is impossible to fix something that is broken unless we have a clear understanding of its causes. It’s like a novice attempting to rebuild a transmission without knowing the basics of engine operation.

How do we identify the defense strategy we use to avoid dealing with an uncomfortable or unmanageable issue? It’s like recognizing a familiar face in a crowd. You may not be able to explain precisely how you know, but you do. Similarly, we often recognize our defense mechanisms when we see them in action. This underscores the importance of self-awareness in identifying, understanding, and accepting why we use certain defense mechanisms to avoid facing the true nature of our traumatic thoughts and experiences.

This suggests, correctly, that increased self-awareness is necessary to identify, comprehend, and accept our use of defense mechanisms to avoid facing the true nature of our traumatic thoughts and experiences. It’s important to note that during the recovery process, we learn specific coping strategies that help reduce our emotional reliance on defense mechanisms.

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INDIVIDUAL RECOVERY. The symptoms of social anxiety make it challenging for some to participate in a collective workshop. Dr. Mullen works one-on-one with a select group of individuals uneasy in a group setting. ReChanneling offers scholarships to accommodate the costs. What is absent in group activities is provided in our monthly Graduate Recovery Group. In this supportive community, graduates interact with others who have completed the program.  Contact ‘rmullenphd@gmail.com’.

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