#defense mechanism

• To delude oneself — To deliberately or unconsciously delude oneself, trying to believe a false, unreal, or favorable situation in order to avoid a painful reality, a disappointment, or an uncomfortable truth; to create empty illusions for oneself.
• Self-delusion — The act of deluding oneself or its result; a psychological process whereby a person conceals the truth from themselves and fosters their own illusions or false beliefs to protect themselves from emotional stress, a harsh reality, or a failure; self-deception.
• Self-deluded — Having deluded oneself, feeding on empty illusions or accepting a false situation as true in order to avoid facing a painful or uncomfortable reality; gripped by a harmful self-deception or a persistent illusion.
• To self-justify — To find or manufacture for oneself excuses, rational motives, or moral pretexts in order to defend, legitimize, and exculpate one's own mistakes, questionable decisions, or inappropriate behaviors; to reduce cognitive dissonance by justifying one's actions before one's own conscience or society. In clinical psychology, the verb describes a defensive mechanism of rationalization whereby the individual refuses to accept direct guilt, sugarcoating reality to keep self-esteem intact.
• Self-justification — The act, process, or tendency to find or construct for oneself arguments, excuses, or rational motives aimed at legitimizing, defending, or exculpating one's own actions, errors, or controversial decisions. In cognitive psychology, it represents an unconscious defensive strategy used to reduce cognitive dissonance, allowing an individual to align questionable behaviors with their positive self-image and avoid feelings of guilt.
• To self-mystify — To delude or deceive oneself; to deliberately or unconsciously create illusions, personal myths, or false convictions about one's own qualities, deeds, or external realities, rejecting objective truth. In depth psychology and existentialism, the verb describes a complex process of bad faith whereby the individual escapes responsibility and reality, constructing a fictional universe meant to protect their ego from anxiety and guilt.
• Self-mystification — The act, process, or tendency to delude or deceive oneself; the unconscious or deliberate construction of illusions, personal myths, or false scenarios aimed at masking the objective truth about one's own flaws, failures, or external realities. In cognitive psychology and existentialism, it represents a complex defensive mechanism associated with the concept of bad faith, through which an individual distorts their own consciousness to reduce anxiety, guilt, or cognitive dissonance without confronting real facts.
• To self-mutilate — To voluntarily, deliberately, and consciously inflict severe wounds, bodily injuries, amputations, or tissue destructions upon one's own body, without direct suicidal intent, but as a manifestation of a severe mental disorder. In clinical psychology and psychiatry, this reflexive behavior often represents a maladaptive mechanism for discharging intolerable anxiety, encountered in borderline personality disorder, severe psychoses, or non-suicidal self-injury episodes.
• Self-handicap — A barrier, difficulty, or impediment that an individual or a group creates or imposes upon themselves, consciously or unconsciously; a practical manifestation of the self-handicapping strategy. In the psychology of success, it represents a structural defensive mechanism whereby a person creates beforehand justifications or real obstacles (such as procrastination, lack of sleep, or overcommitting) to protect their self-esteem in case of an eventual failure.
• Autotomy — A reflex biological self-defense mechanism found in certain animals (such as lizards, crayfish, or insects), consisting of the spontaneous amputation or detachment of a body segment or limb caught or attacked by a predator. This structural reflex phenomenon distracts the aggressor and allows the animal to escape, with the lost limb being subsequently partially or fully regenerated through autonomous cell division.