But, what Anna Freud called "defenses," I would call coping styles. Rather than a series of ego conflicts to resolve, I think children are born with temperaments and these temperaments develop into coping styles. Take for example, regression. Regression is common behavior in children and teens. A preschooler who loses a nanny may return to wetting his bed. A young adult struggling for independence may return to live with parents several times before becoming fully self-reliant. How about denial? Teens are experts at denial. They deny their very mortality. When I was a teen, I never thought I would get in a car accident. That only happened to other people. Teens also think they don't need contraception or won't get STD's. Many of my college students told me that they don't even talk about protection or STDs with their partners. They just assume this won't happen.

Withdrawal and avoidance effectively reduce social anxiety, at least in the short term. For many shy teens, it is much easier to interact with the computer than to go to a party. By rationalizing things, teens can explain away anything. It used to be that the dog ate the home work. Today homework goes undone because the printer broke. Displacement is a great way of blaming others for one's own behavior. Teenagers are always angry at their parents. Everything that is wrong in the world is their parents fault, e.g. war, poverty, injustice. After being blamed for all of the world's injustices, I simply told my son, "I wish I was that important or that powerful. I am just one small person." Asceticism is probably my favorite. This monk-like behavior is especially common in college students. Ascetics have no physical needs. They can stay up all night studying and never need to sleep or eat.

Not all coping styles are maladaptive. In fact, some are very adaptive. Take sublimation, for example, channeling anger into a basketball game may be a very effective coping mechanism. And each coping style is only maladaptive when impairing social or occupational functioning. Everyone feels like being alone sometimes. But, one client was so shy she withdrew from school, shut herself up in her room, became school phobic, stopped going to school and developed a bad case of colitis. Now, as an adult, she can't leave the house to go to the grocery store. So, how does a professional determine when a coping style has become maladaptive? One way is when withdrawing to the bedroom is interfering with daily life, like going to school. Another way to judge the clinical severity of a symptom, is to assess frequency, intensity, and duration. How often does it happen? How strong is the problem behavior? And, how long has it been going on? Obviously, staying home with Ben and Jerry's on an occasional Friday night is very different than daily sobbing oneself to sleep.

To wrap up, teens cope in some interesting ways that are similar to what Anna Freud called defense mechanisms: regression, denial, withdrawal, rationalization, displacement, asceticism, and sublimation. Based on many years experience, I think that these coping styles evolve from inborn temperaments rather than ego conflicts. Shy children tend to withdraw. But, coping styles are neither life sentences nor necessarily maladaptive. A shy child can become a confident adult.

That's it for today. I took on Freudian defenses from a developmental and social psychological perspective. Next time, I will take on the Freudian concept of catharsis. Is catharsis real? Stay tuned.

Freud, A. (1958). The ego and mechanisms of defense. New York: International Universities Press.