Defense Mechanisms - Vicki's Clinic

Understanding Defense Mechanisms

At one time or another, most of us go through an experience when we feel, talk or behave in ways that take us by surprise, when we, or somebody else, suddenly see that something unrecognised has been going on ‘behind the scenes’ or outside our conscious awareness. What seems like a minor incident may set us off and we suddenly realise we’ve been feeling something intense for a while without being aware of it. While we assume we have special insight into people around us, we’re likely to resent it if someone presumes the same thing about us. The possibility that we are unable to recognise something about ourselves that other people can see is an extremely unpleasant one for most people. If a friend suggests as much, well insist that our slip of the tongue was a chemical glitch, with no meaning whatsoever – we were just stressed, just a simple oversight.... Sometimes we do forget because we are over-burdened at the office. Usually, though, oversights and slips reveal something at work that we’re not aware of and may not want to acknowledge, even to ourselves.

The fact that we can recognise unconscious motivation in other people more readily than in ourselves makes perfect sense when you consider that nature of unconscious, and why certain thoughts and feelings remain unconscious and others don’t. The unconscious carries all the thoughts and feelings we either find too painful to bear, or which conflict with our morality and values, and undermine our self- image. In other words, we don’t want to know about the contents of our unconscious. If we did want to know, these thoughts and feelings wouldn’t be unconscious in the first place. At the last minute, your friend calls to cancel plans – “something’s come up ... do you mind?” – and you feel surprisingly upset. Over the years you’ve made generous allowance for this kind of inconsideration. Now you realise that you haven’t gotten over the fact that she forgot your birthday last year. You see clearly what you’ve always known but didn’t want to face: she has other friendships she values more highly than yours.

We usually go through life believing that our conscious experience of ourselves is the beginning and end of who we are; in truth, important parts of our emotional and psychic lives may remain hidden from us. This is not a new idea. 18th-century German philosopher Sir Christopher Riegel introduced the notion of the ‘subconscious mind’ which was then taken up by Sigmund Freud as the corner of psychoanalytic theory. Since then, the notion of an unconscious part of the mind, remote from awareness, has entered the cultural heritage, permeating our shared understanding of the self and its landscape. It's common to speak of a ‘Freudian slip’ for example - a mix-up in language that reveals something the speaker didn’t consciously intend to say. Many people infer unconscious motive behind certain actions such as ‘forgetting’ an unwelcome obligation or chore: it’s not that the person deliberately neglected to do what he or she had promised: rather the act of forgetting betrayed a reluctance to follow through. The motives remain hidden to the ‘chore avoider’ in the order they avoid particular feelings.

Usually, the conflicts have been kept out of the person’s awareness and it is a way they have operated since early in life, when not old enough or strong enough to be able to work them out consciously. So how do we manage to avoid encountering those parts of ourselves we find too difficult to bear? How is it possible for an aspect of our personality to remain a stranger to us when other people can see it? This is where psychological defenses come into play. Our defense mechanisms are invisible, psychological methods by which we exclude unacceptable thoughts and feelings from awareness. In the process, they subtly distort our perceptions of reality - in both our relationships and the emotional terrain within us. There is a problem inherent in psychological defenses: while they’re necessary and useful for us, in coping with the inevitable pain that goes with being human when they become too deeply entrenched, they may prevent us from accessing important emotions we need to face.

On the one hand, temporarily numbing yourself to overwhelming grief may help you weather the loss of a loved one; on the other hand, blinding yourself to the emotional poverty of your childhood might mean you can’t see how that past plays a role in your unhappy marriage. Shutting out the awareness that we’re all heading toward death allows us to function day-to-day and get on with our lives; engaging in high-risk behaviour because you unconsciously believe you’re invulnerable, not mortal like everyone else, can have tragic results. By excluding large arts of our emotional experience, we deplete ourselves, diminishing our strength and ability to cope in the world. Anger, for example, can motivate us to make important changes in our lives – to leave an unhealthy relationship with a selfish partner, or end a one-sided friendship, i.e. to protect ourselves in the face of mistreatment. Admitting the guilt and regret we feel about the way we behaved can help us to make it up so someone we care for.

By diverting or misdirecting the expression of some of our strongest passions, our defense mechanisms often lead us to act in ways that don’t get us what we truly need; instead, they may be self-defeating or even self-destructive. Worst of all, psychological defenses may exclude or misdirect parts of our emotional life that we need for effective relationships == not just romantic ones but those with our family members and close friends, or with our colleagues at work. If you block out the awareness of your own needs, you’re unable to develop true intimacy. When you ‘swallow’ your anger or unhappiness by compulsive over-eating, you’re not motivated to do anything about the cause of those feelings, whether at home or with friends or at work. People who habitually withdraw when someone else expresses an emotion that frightens them will develop limited, unsatisfying relationships that pose no threat – and no growth. Nearly everyone understands what it means to appear defensive or to react defensively. We use those words to describe people’s behaviour when they don’t want to admit the truth of something said about them. We recognise that the person is trying to ward off something painful or unpleasant they don’t want to face.

We owe this understanding of defensiveness to the earliest work of Sigmund Freud. According to Freud, when we are confronted with an idea or feeling that we find too painful or morally unacceptable, we ward it off, pushing it into the unconscious. It’s not a deliberate decision; it happens outside of our awareness, in ways that are often automatic. Sometimes, our defense mechanisms help us to get by when facing the full truth would render life unbearable. At other times, however, we need to confront our pain; avoiding the truth feels better for the moment, but it might only make matters worse in the long run. Defense mechanisms operate in the here-and-now, with no thought for tomorrow. They’re unthinking and reflexive; they aim only to ward off pain at this very moment and don’t take into account the long-term costs of doing so.

In psychoanalytic psychotherapy, you are supported to develop the observing part of yourself (your self- observing ego), and together with your therapist, to study the interferences and obstacles (defenses), that keep particular thoughts, wishes, feelings, and responses out of your awareness – particularly those that contribute to your problem’s. In therapy, you will no doubt be surprised at how unfamiliar the task is, of saying whatever is on your mind (freely associating) and will encounter the inherent difficulty of performing an unfamiliar task, as well as resistance. This is what is expected and is an ongoing part of the work of therapy, alongside coming to know what had been/is defended against.

It is precisely the study of these interferences and obstacles to putting into words the self-observations of your mind’s intrapsychic activity at its encounter with and defensive solution to conflict - that provides us with greater access to what is now out of reach, and which contribute to your problems; and that the nature of the obstacles to free association will be intimately connected with the nature of the problems or conflicts that bring one to therapy.