Crib. Psychological Defenses

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

1. Merger - I consider myself a part of another person or consider another person a part of myself, that is, I ascribe my thoughts, desires, feelings, qualities to another person, or vice versa, I ascribe to myself other people's desires, feelings, qualities, thoughts. Merging helps a person not to collide with himself and the other real, as this can cause very unpleasant feelings.

2. Introjection - this is ascribing to oneself some phenomena without their critical assessment, without living and comprehending this information on the subject of whether it suits me or not. Most often, introjection serves as a support to protect a person from the realization of his insecurity and helplessness. The classics of introjection are erudites, people speaking in clichés and slogans, unable to explain their deep meaning for themselves personally. If you ask them the question "why do you think so?"

3. Projection - This is the attribution of something to another person or environment. Projections can be positive or negative. For example, an accusation is just a projection. Negative projection protects a person from feeling bad, from feelings of guilt and shame, from experiencing negative feelings. Positive projection protects a person from disappointment in other people and, as a result, from losing support outside, from a feeling of loneliness.

4. Retroflection - keeping feelings inside oneself, directing them to oneself in order to protect oneself from a reciprocal external reaction, of the type "I will screw myself up until others have done it." Retroflection also protects against disappointment in others and loss of support outside. All psychosomatics is a consequence of retroflection.

5. Deflection - this is when I laugh instead of crying, eat instead of getting angry, think, instead of feeling, work instead of rest. Deflection helps to avoid meeting your real feelings and desires, as they can be accompanied by feelings of badness, shame or guilt, and, in general, allows you to feel happy despite inner unhappiness. Dependencies are a vivid illustration of deflection. And deflection is well illustrated by such a phenomenon as "to take evil on someone."

6. Egotism - similar to retroflection, but more highly organized. This is an attempt to control every action, every spontaneous impulse in order to avoid feeling bad, wrong, fear, shame and guilt. For the most part, it is characteristic of very vulnerable and anxious people who have experienced a lot of mental violence, but have managed to grow a powerful intellect as their weapon, from which nothing escapes.

7. Proflexion - similar to projection and deflection at the same time, it is expressed most often in hyper attention to another person. By profiling, a person protects himself from the pain of realizing how much attention, warmth and care he himself needs.

8. Displacement - abstraction from something, protection of the human psyche from allowing oneself to react. It is often the result of severe trauma. Usually repression is perceived by a person as forgetting. In general, psychological defenses allow a person not to feel how bad he is and how badly he needs something. Protection cannot be unequivocally called something negative. In fact, they really help a person to survive in a difficult situation with minimal energy costs.

9. Dissociation - detachment from his feelings, when a person can name his feelings, but does not experience them, looks at himself as if from the outside. For example, he can tell about himself some sad or unpleasant facts (really unpleasant) and at the same time either do not react emotionally at all, or smile, as if ironically. This protection protects against the actual experience of feelings. It is often characteristic of those who forbid themselves to cry and complain. Just like retroflection, dissociation is like a means of sending straws in case my experiences may cause a negative reaction from the outside. Protections play the role of such a cast on the wound. It seems like I put it in a plaster cast - and you can believe that nothing bad happened to me. Nevertheless, the wound does not heal without air, the participation and attention of oneself or another.

10. Idealization - very similar to positive projection, only it is more powerful. Idealization is characterized by uncomplaining trust, practically worship, where perfection in everything is attributed to the idealized object. Since no one is perfect, idealization cannot last long, and as soon as the object has shown its imperfection, this causes strong frustration in the idealizing person and subsequent depreciation. The function of idealization is a support, creating an illusion of security. That is, as if an ideal object is not capable of causing pain, it will always bring only happiness. Idealization arises as a consequence of chronic danger in which no one could ever be relied upon, all around the setup. Idealization is, as it were, an overcompensation of fear.

11. Depreciation - a consequence of idealization. Devaluation protects a person again from experiencing himself in his reality, that is, from all experienced fear, from anger at those people who committed violence. Devaluation also protects a person from admitting to himself how much such a person needs protection, warmth, and acceptance of himself by any other person. Like, "yes, I didn't really want to, and I'll live without you." The depreciation does not last for a long time, because after some time a person begins to suffer from loneliness and dissatisfaction and then begins to unconsciously look for a new object for idealization. This can be observed in amorous people. Devaluation is still very close to negative projection, that is, everything that I consider bad is recognized as invaluable, I deny in myself and then I attribute these qualities to another person.

12. Transfer or transfer … Transference is a complex of projections, both positive and negative, but it happens when you unconsciously find in another person some kind of similarity with other people. For example, the transferee sees in a friend his parents, family members, ex-partners, ex-friends and behaves with them in the same way as he behaved with those whom they resemble. When the transference happens, you may find that for some unknown reason I somehow love or hate a person, although he has not done anything bad or good to me yet. Transference is inherent in expecting the other person to do what the person they resemble should do. For example, if the mother was cold, then the person to whom the image of the mother is transferred is expected to be warm. If the mother could not recognize the child's needs, then this person should know exactly what I need. In the transference, people choose their partners, spouses, transfer the images of parents to children, to the therapist. In negative transference, the person is expected to do bad things to you. The transfer can be both negative and positive to the same person, that is, if he did not give what was expected of him, then it is automatically declared an enemy or a traitor.

To another person, defenses look like an attack on their boundaries and dignity. Therefore, in response, the defender in the overwhelming majority of cases receives retaliatory aggression, thereby reinforcing his defenses and his conclusions about the impossibility of receiving warmth and support. It resembles a vicious circle that participants are not aware of. Therapy and the desire for changes in your life will help you get out of the circle.