The 12 Most Common Defense Mechanisms

Denial

“Denial is a familiar friend”

Almost all of us are familiar with this ego defense mechanism, as it is one of the most commonly used. Denial happened when a person treats a stressor as something that doesn’t stress them out, or it doesn’t exist altogether. This type of ego defense mechanism helps keep that kind of consistency for a little while by barring the impending cognitive dissonance that might happen if the person would recognize the stressor as a stressor in general. Like for example, a man caught his girlfriend kissing someone else. If he were to use denial, he would think that maybe his girlfriend had just greeted a relative or a really close friend, instead of thinking that she was cheating on him.