Several readers responding to my recent post about a client who felt invisible have asked me to discuss the opposite experience — the person who fears being seen and desperately wants to remain invisible. It’s a very different issue, with roots in profound shame.
Tag: defense mechanisms
Anders Breivik, You and Me: What We Have in Common
When an anti-Islamic loner explodes a bomb outside a government building, killing eight people, then travels to a nearby island where he guns down 69 more, we naturally view that man as a dangerous lunatic. His paranoid tirades against multi-culturalism and “Eurabia”, along with his grandiose view of himself as crusading member of the fictional… Continue reading Anders Breivik, You and Me: What We Have in Common
Autism Symptoms Get a Second Look
The upcoming revision to the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual will purportedly eliminate Asperger’s Syndrome as a diagnosis, once again calling into question the scientific precision and validity of psychological diagnosis.
Anxiety Symptoms, Mindfulness and the Enlargement of the Self
Mindfulness meditation techniques are a useful adjunct to psychotherapy, allowing you to see your defense mechanisms in action and to disengage from them, rather than a replacement for it.
Defense Mechanisms VII: Reaction Formation (Not to be Confused with Hypocrisy)
Reaction formation, like all defense mechanisms, is an unconscious process. People with conscious but secret desires they publicly denounce in others are not resorting to reaction formation; they are hypocrites.