Question

You have romantic/sexual feelings for your best friend's partner. Name and describe three defence mechanisms, and explain how you would use them in this context.

Defence Mechanisms:

1. Reaction Formation

2. Isolation

3. Denial

4. Undoing

5. Projection

6. Displacement

7. Sublimation

8. Repression

9. Rationalization

Answer 1

The defence mechanisms to be used in this case would be:

1. Denial: Better is to not acknowledge a feeling, that would make a person vulnerable to be hurt. Here, the people who might be hurt by these feelings of mine would be me, my best friend and to some extent her partner, as they would be trusting me. It would help all three of us for me to not accept the fact.
2. Repression: in this mechanism, I would tend to block my thoughts unconsciously, so that I would not act on my feelings.
3. Rationalisation: where I might want to redirect my thoughts looking at them through a different perception, such that I was having romantic feelings since maybe even I want a romantic partner, so that my thoughts towards my best friends partner could be mitigated.