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Defenses

Self-Assertion

Self-assertion is saying what you feel, think, or want, plainly and to the person it concerns, at a moment when that is hard to do. It isn’t the same as winning. It means putting your side on the table without bullying, hinting, or maneuvering, and living with the answer.

In the Defense Mechanism Rating Scales, the person “deals with emotional conflicts, or internal or external stressors, by expressing one’s feelings and thoughts directly to achieve goals” (Di Giuseppe & Perry, 2021). Self-assertion “is not coercive or indirect and manipulative,” and its purpose is usually made clear to everyone it affects.

It relieves the tension that builds when feelings go unspoken, and the shame or guilt of not standing up for yourself. It can work even when it fails as a tactic: self-assertion “does not require that the individual get his or her own way to be successful.” The DMRS adds that the cost of staying silent is greater when the block comes from “internal prohibitions” rather than from outside pressure alone, such as a domineering person. What self-assertion asks in return is the risk of disapproval.

Where It Sits

Self-assertion belongs to Level 7, the High-Adaptive Defense Level, within the Mature Defensive Category. At this level, stressors are “fully perceived without distortion,” and the person takes responsibility for adapting to them. The DSM-IV’s Defensive Functioning Scale places self-assertion at the same high adaptive level.

Compared with its neighbors:

How It Shows Up

Common signs, adapted from the items raters use to identify self-assertion:

Examples

Elizabeth Bennet and Lady Catherine

In Jane Austen’s novel, Lady Catherine de Bourgh arrives uninvited to demand that Elizabeth promise never to become engaged to her nephew, Mr. Darcy, and insults her family in the process. Elizabeth refuses, answers each argument, and says plainly, “I am not to be intimidated into anything so wholly unreasonable.” She will act in the way that will “constitute my happiness, without reference to you.” Lady Catherine leaves “most seriously displeased,” with no apology. The fictional scene is a clear example of standing up for yourself even when the other person’s attitude doesn’t change.

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813), ch. 56

Jane Eyre speaks her mind

Jane, a governess, believes her employer, Mr. Rochester, is about to marry someone else and is sending her to a post in Ireland. After struggling to hold her feelings back, she tells him directly: “Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!” The speech is heated, not a model of calm, but it is direct, and she is clear that she will leave. Afterward she says, “I have spoken my mind, and can go anywhere now,” a fictional picture of the relief that comes when held-back feelings are finally expressed.

Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847), ch. 23

How It Differs From Look-Alikes

Passive aggression
The DMRS describes passive aggression as expressing aggression “indirectly and unassertively,” often behind a show of going along, typically by someone who expects punishment for speaking up to a person with power over them. Self-assertion says it to that person directly.
Devaluation of other’s image
Putting someone down can feel like standing up to them. But devaluation uses derogatory or sarcastic remarks to prop up self-esteem, while self-assertion disagrees without being overly hostile or belittling.
Assertiveness as a skill
Outside psychoanalysis, assertiveness is studied as a learnable social skill, usually framed as “a preferred alternative to aggression” and passivity (Yoshinaga & Cooper, 2025). The overlap is large. The DMRS adds a function: speaking up counts as a defense when it is how the person handles a particular emotional conflict.

In Personality Styles

The personality style pages describe self-assertion as a strength or a healthier expression in the sadistic style.

Developing it is described as a growth goal for people with the masochistic and dependent styles.

History

As a named defense, self-assertion is fairly new. It is not among the adaptive mechanisms George Vaillant featured in his 1977 book Adaptation to Life: sublimation, suppression, anticipation, altruism, and humor. In a 1992 guide to defense research edited by Vaillant, self-assertion was one of several terms noted as “defined only by Perry,” that is, by J. Christopher Perry’s Defense Mechanism Rating Scales.

The idea had a parallel life in behavior therapy. Andrew Salter’s Conditioned Reflex Therapy (1949) aimed to reduce “inhibition-based anxiety” through honest expression of thoughts and feelings, and Joseph Wolpe formalized “assertion training” in the 1950s as a way to reduce anxiety (Yoshinaga & Cooper, 2025). The DMRS makes a similar point in psychodynamic language.

Self-assertion was included in the DSM-IV’s Defensive Functioning Scale (1994) at the high adaptive level, and the DMRS Q-sort describes it with five items (Di Giuseppe & Perry, 2021). Metzger (2014) reviewed the high-adaptive defenses with case material, arguing that they often go beyond warding off anxiety to create new meanings and ways of relating. Research on self-assertion itself is still thin. In a small study of 28 depressed patients, Tanzilli and colleagues (2021) found that a stronger capacity to reflect on mental states went along with more mature defenses, and in discussing their results they singled out self-observation, self-assertion, and suppression.

Sources