Do Not Hurt Me

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

Some people consider themselves to be completely self-sufficient, independent and mature individuals, however, in practice, their behavior and lifestyle do not fit into the concept of maturity, or, conversely, maturity and awareness can appear in all human actions, but he himself does not feel like a mature person at all.

What is maturity?

In psychoanalysis, the boundaries of this concept are quite clearly defined: a psychologically mature person is a person who is able to use mature defenses. People who do not know how to rationally use mature defenses are classified as borderline and psychotic types of personality organization.

What is the difference between mature and immature defenses, primary and

secondary, primary immature and secondary mature? First you need to figure out which protections are primary and secondary.

Primary defenses:

1. primitive detachment (isolation);

2. denial;

3. almighty control;

4. primitive isolation;

5. primitive idealization and depreciation;

6. projection;

7. introjection (inclusion by an individual in his inner world of views, motives, attitudes, perceived by him from other people, etc. - introjects);

8. projective identification (the unconscious attempt of one person to influence another in such a way that this other behaves in accordance with the unconscious fantasy of this person about the inner world of another);

9. splitting "ego";

10. somatization (the formation of bodily symptoms or "flight into illness");

11. acting out (outside) - unconscious provocation of development

an alarming situation for a person;

12. sexualization and primitive dissociation.

Secondary defenses (considered more mature):

1. displacement;

2. regression;

3. isolation of affect (removal of the emotional component of the experience from consciousness, but at the same time maintaining its understanding);

4. intellectualization (an unconscious attempt to abstract from one's feelings);

5. rationalization;

6. moralization;

7. compartmentalization (separate thinking) - manifests itself in the fact that the contradictions between some thoughts, ideas, attitudes or forms of behavior are stubbornly not recognized.

8.reversal, turn against oneself, displacement, reactive formation, inversion, identification, sublimation and humor.

So, in order to qualify the mechanisms of psychological defense as primary, they must have two nuances:

- insufficient contact with reality (a person sees only one side of the situation and is not fully aware of reality);

- insufficient awareness of separation and perception of the constancy of the surrounding world (personality behavior clearly indicates its immaturity).

If we delve directly into the characteristics and mechanisms of action of psychological defenses, as an example, we can consider splitting and rationalization, denial and repression, idealization and isolation.

1. Splitting is a first-order defense, immature, characteristic of a small child during infancy. The baby perceives the mother as a “good object” at the moment when she satisfies all his needs. If the child is unpleasant to be near his mother, her care is too much or, conversely, not enough - he perceives the mother as a “bad object”. There is a feeling that there are two different figures of the mother.

Rationalization is a secondary defense of a higher order. In this case, only that part of the perceived information is used in the thinking of a person, and

only those conclusions are drawn, thanks to which one's own behavior appears as well controlled and not contradicting objective circumstances. In other words, a rational explanation is selected for actions or decisions that have other, unconscious reasons. In order to rationalize their feelings with thoughts, a person needs to have skills of a sufficiently high level - mental and verbal. In addition, he must have "inner synchronicity" with the real world, so that all intellectual explanations are

are understandable.

2. Denial is considered an immature defense of the first order, "childish" - a person does not notice at all what is happening around him (like children - they close their eyes, the problem is not visible, which means that it is not!).

Repression is a more mature psychological defense of the secondary order. To repress something, one must first see it and, to some extent, recognize it, and then unconsciously “hide” it deep into consciousness. Denial says: "This does not happen, in reality this situation does not exist!" Repression says: "Yes, it happened, but I will forget this unpleasant fact, because it hurts too much!"

How does this manifest itself outwardly? When a person denies, there is a feeling that he has put on a mask (tight and unnatural smile, slightly "plastic" face). At this moment, a storm occurs inside the consciousness, which the person is trying to survive, therefore the expression on his face is strange and incomprehensible or does not express anything at all. When repressed, one can notice the shadow of feelings on the face - fear, shame, guilt.

What else can you see in people's behavior? Does the person work on himself, makes the appropriate conclusions, avoids any experiences or again unconsciously falls into their funnel. Sometimes it can be small and very insignificant steps, but in any case it is a movement. Do not rush to accuse a person of using primitive defenses. In modern society, it is customary to hide true emotions, experiences and vulnerability, this is considered shameful. In addition, regardless of the type of psychological defenses (mature / immature), they play an important role directly for the individual and her inner world, and no one is obliged to open their breath.

3. Idealization - endowing someone or something with perfect qualities that do not correspond to the real characteristics of the object. Hungarian psychoanalyst Sandor Ferenczi considers this phenomenon as a property of children to transfer the quality of the "omnipotent" to others (first, parents, as

growing up and expanding the social circle, the child transfers this quality to other people).

Idealization is also inherent in adults - when a person is psychologically dependent on another individual. May manifest as idolatry - “Wow!

This is the most wonderful person in the world! " The feeling of enthusiasm overrides all the visible flaws of the other person. Or there may be a more mature idealization: “Indeed, there is something to admire here. The character traits of this person are worthy of respect and recognition, but I understand that there are limitations and disadvantages. " In fact, these are two completely different phenomena.

With regard to isolation, the immature form is characterized by a complete detachment from the real world in favor of some kind of psychosomatic state of mind. Man, using primitive isolation for protection, can give the impression of being immersed in himself and not responding to external influences. A more mature form manifests itself in each personality - this is a departure at a certain moment into the world of fantasies, dreams (in the modern world - a telephone; if it becomes psychologically difficult for me, I need to quickly hide and protect myself).

Each person uses the mechanisms of psychological defense - both primary (if the psyche requires rest and does not want to realize everything at once) and secondary. This is really important, because sometimes you need to protect yourself from difficult experiences and wounds, but you need to be able to use the defenses of the mature level correctly.