Q. Defense mechanisms used in Diabetes Mellitus?

Defense mechanisms are the strategies to cope with the real situation and to maintain self-image. Healthy persons normally use different defense mechanisms throughout life.

A conflict is a struggle of thoughts within an individual, which produces anxiety. Anxiety is a state of tension, a feeling of helplessness created within the individual during an unseen or difficult moment.

Fear is an emotional response of an individual during a present danger. Once the danger is eliminated, the fear disappears. A healthy person is capable of coping with everyday situations, with moderate stress through task oriented behaviours and the use of defense mechanisms.

Task Oriented behaviours are:

• Attach behaviour: acting to remove or overcome a source of stress.
• Withdrawal behaviour: removing oneself physically or emotionally from the source of stress.
• Compromise behaviour: substituting goals or changing the goal is a usual method to avoid stress.
• Confrontation: facing a stressful situation by acknowledging oneself to the problem in sight for which a solution must be found. This may call for the change in the individual, or change of the situation.

Defense mechanisms are:

• Denial: The individual refuses to acknowledge that any painful event has occurred.
• Regression: The individual adopts childhood behaviour to avoid the problem.
• Conversion: The individual resorts to convert the emotional stress into some physical symptom like pain.
• Displacement: The individual transfers the emotional stressful situation to a less anxiety producing substitute.

In daily life, you will find that human beings use the above behaviors and defence mechanisms. You may discuss with your peers and counsellors about examples of such behaviors.