Purpose Many work conditions require manipulators to open cabinet doors and then gain access to the desired workspace. However, after opening, the unlocked doors can easily close, interrupt a task and potentially break the operating end-effectors. This paper aims to address a manipulator's behavior planning problem for responding to a dynamic workspace released by door opening. Design/methodology/approach A dynamic model of the restricted workspace released by an unlocked door is established. As a whole system to treat, the interactions between the workspace and robot are analyzed by using a partially observable Markov decision process. A self-protective policy decision executed as a belief tree is proposed. To respond to the policy, this study has designed three types of actions: stay on guard in the workspace, using an elbow joint to defense the door and linear escape out of the workspace for self-protection by observing collision risk levels to trigger them. Finally, this study proposes self-protective motion controllers based on risk time optimization to act to the planned actions. Findings The elbow defense could balance robotic safety and work efficiency by interrupting the end-effector's work and using the elbow joint to prevent the door-closing in an active collision way. Compared with the stay and escape action, the advantage of the elbow defense is having a predictable performance to quick callback the interrupted work after the risk was relieved. Originality/value This work provides guidance for the safe operation of a class of robot operations and the upgrade of motion planning.