I USE WHATEVER I CAN
to escape my fears
PREVIOUS: Enneagram Humor #4
REVIEW posts: “Abandonment Pain“
SITE: Defense Mechanisms Quiz
BOOK:”In sheep’s Clothing” (re. manipulative people) go to slide 50 ++
DEF: Unconscious & conscious processes to defend against or escape from conflicts, frustration & depression, so that the person can make useful adjustments to be able to live in their society.
REMINDER – as such, defenses are NOT bad. They’re needed to cope with life’s difficulties, as when we use humor to lighten our mood or altruism to lighten someone else’s load.
At best – most are delaying tactics, giving us breathing room to take a break & re-group.
The problem comes when any one of them become ‘land-locked’, so deeply ingrained that it can’t be given up easily, so rigid that it’s used like a hammer on every problem, regardless of size or importance.
• In that case they become “Negative Benefits” – used to avoid childhood or other trauma which the person does not want to deal face. To better understand what these are, we need to know about Defense Mechanisms, which were first identified by Freud, & then added to over the years by others.
He noted that people have wishes, desired & impulses that are either unacceptable to their society, religion or family – or their own sense of self (CHART)
• The fact that the impulses don’t go away, but are usually hidden in our unconscious, leaves a residue (like at the bottom of a bottle) of anxiety*.
Keeping the impulses pushed out of awareness takes a lot of energy – which is exhausting, but considered by the ‘user’ to be safer than admitting them
(EXP: wanting to kill one’s parents or oneself). We do this by using Defenses. Which ones we pick will depend on our upbringing & our native personality.
*ANXIETY types, according to Freud
1. Neurotic – the unconscious worry that we’ll lose control of the id‘s urges, resulting in punishment for inappropriate behavior
2. Moral – the fear of violating our own principles
3. Reality – the fear of real-world events, usually easy to identify.
EXP: Fear of being bitten when near a menacing, snarling, barking dog is appropriate – so it’s best to avoid genuinely dangerous situations (PPT) if at all possible.
Defense Mechanisms distort reality
In proper proportion & with limited use they can also be adaptive, allowing us to function normally in very difficult situations, where there are no better options
The big problem comes from over-use, as a way of life, especially when they’re no longer needed. What was once a way to cope then becomes the problem. A goal in Recovery is to make the extreme / harmful use of defenses conscious so the we can develop healthier ways of handling anxiety & stress – without eliminating defenses altogether.
NEXT: 27 Defenses
are seen as detached, insensitive, overly cheery, plain, predictable, rude, shallow AND not terribly interesting or refined.
lack of all knowledge onto others, so feel like they’re surrounded by a “confederacy of dunces” (Sherlock Holmes). Others are considered emotional, foolish, overly effusive and chatty, myopic, oblivious, shallow-minded, stupid.
T
HEAL & GROW for ACoAs 