(Psychiatry) an unconscious process that tries to reduce the anxiety associated with instinctive desires.
Unconscious psychological mechanism that reduces anxiety arising from unacceptable or potentially harmful stimuli.
1Some of these metabolites play important roles in the plant's defence mechanism.
2Did he avoid pining to be free as a kind of defence mechanism?
3Narcissism is fundamentally an evolved version of the splitting defence mechanism.
4I have this defence mechanism, this survival tactic of playing dumb.
5Sigmund Freud described it as a primitive defence mechanism used to resolve emotional conflict.
6This is a well known defence mechanism in nations peripheral.
7It may be an instinct, a kind of defence mechanism for dealing with shock.'
8We do not talk about it, it's a defence mechanism, we lock it away.
9But the female supplies the eggs with a defence mechanism.
10A defence mechanism, that's what the big bloke had been shouting about, wasn't it.
11Rihanna had an acceptance speech where she talked about how fashion was her defence mechanism.
12It's partly a defence mechanism against the fannish hysteria that increasingly attends his every move.
13She was the model for the island's self- defence mechanism.
14The target's inner self- defence mechanism will always spot this.
15Thus, type 2 immunity can be mobilized as an effective tissue-level defence mechanism against cancer.
16Newt did so with a thumbs-up gesture, still employing selective silence as a defence mechanism.
Translations for defence mechanism