Understanding Your Ego's Defense System (Shadow Work Deep Dive)

Understanding Your Ego's Defense System (Shadow Work Deep Dive)

From Shadow Work After Dark by Jaclyn Proper

April 8, 2026 · 54 min

About this episode

This episode explores the various ego defense mechanisms and their role in shadow work.

Before you can do shadow work, you need to understand what happens when your psyche fights back. In this episode, I break down 20+ ego defense mechanisms — what they are, why they exist, and what they're actually trying to protect inside you. This isn't just theory. These defenses show up constantly in my 1:1 practice, in my own journey, and now in the comments of my viral videos (which... said a lot). We cover everything from repression and projection to intellectualization, splitting, proje...

People in this episode

Host: Jaclyn Proper

Topics covered

  • ego defense mechanisms
  • shadow work
  • psyche
  • self-protection
  • psychology

Keywords

  • ego
  • defense mechanisms
  • shadow work
  • repression
  • projection
  • intellectualization
  • psychology

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