The most prominent psychological defense mechanisms, including repression, denial, idealization, splitting and projection. This is the category for you.
Sometimes anger can have a “hardening” effect, working as a kind of defense to ward off other painful feelings such as fear, exhaustion or emotional thinness.
Not Your Usual Anger Management Techniques Read More »
Many of us have a fear of change because of it presents us with unfamiliar and unpredictable emotions, and also because change makes us aware of the passage of time, linking up unconsciously with the idea of death.
The Fear of Change Read More »
A discussion of the most fundamental of all defense mechanisms — repression — and how you may encounter resistance in your clinical practice when you try to probe it with your clients.
Defense Mechanisms VI: Repression (and Resistance) Read More »
Idealizing their baby helps parents cope with the difficulties and deprivations of parenting; more importantly, it conveys a sense of its own “beauty” to the infant, planting the seeds from which authentic self-esteem will later develop.
Idealizing Your Baby Read More »
Extreme self-conscious and performance anxiety (or stage fright) involve the projection of your internal critic into an external audience of observers, each one of them as critical as you are.
Self-Consciousness and Performance Anxiety Read More »
When couples who have idealized one another and their marriage divorce, they often engage in a battle about who is the “winner” and who the “loser” who must carry all the shame.
The Shame-Based Divorce Read More »
A degree of parental hostility and resentment toward infants is normal though not usually acknowledged. This article looks at ways we may unconsciously give voice to those feelings, or split them off and direct them elsewhere.
Of Puppies and Parenting Read More »
Personal observations on the actual moment when a defensive maneuver occurs, in order to evade pain, as well some reflections on the nature and value of the spiritual experience.
A Hiking Meditation Read More »
In order to empathize with another person, you have to recognize that he or she actually exists apart from and without specific reference to you. Our ability to tolerate separateness largely determines how well we are able to empathize with others.
Idealization reflects a drive to escape from an internal experience felt to be unbearable and to connect with something perfect. This defense mechanism may take aim at another person, an actual experience or one’s own self.
Defense Mechanisms V: Idealization Read More »