Final answer:
Sigmund and Anna Freud described psychological defense mechanisms as unconscious behaviors that reduce anxiety by managing conflicts between innate desires and societal expectations, which are part of Freud's broader psychoanalytic theory.
Step-by-step explanation:
Sigmund and Anna Freud described psychological defense mechanisms as strategies that the mind develops to protect itself from anxiety-provoking desires, thoughts, and memories. These are unconscious protective behaviors that work to reduce anxiety. According to Freud, our mind does this to mediate conflicts between our biological drives and our internalized social controls over these drives, encompassing the id, ego, and superego. Freud, through his work in psychoanalysis, recognized that much of our mental life is unconscious, and defense mechanisms serve to protect the ego from being overwhelmed by anxiety.
There are several types of defense mechanisms, including repression, where overwhelming memories are pushed out of conscious awareness, similar to turning up the radio to ignore the noise of a car problem as an analogy. Freud's psychoanalytic theory emphasized the role of unconscious processes and psychosexual stages in personality development, where the use of defense mechanisms is a natural part of this process. However, Freud also suggested that an overreliance on these mechanisms could lead to issues such as unhappiness and alienation in later life.