Tag: Defence Mechanism

What is Decompensation (Psychology)?

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Introduction

In medicine, decompensation is the functional deterioration of a structure or system that had been previously working with the help of allostatic compensation.

Background

Decompensation may occur due to fatigue, stress, illness, or old age. When a system is “compensated,” it is able to function despite stressors or defects. Decompensation describes an inability to compensate for these deficiencies. It is a general term commonly used in medicine to describe a variety of situations.

Physiology

For example, cardiac decompensation may refer to the failure of the heart to maintain adequate blood circulation, after long-standing (previously compensated) vascular disease (see heart failure). Short-term treatment of cardiac decompensation can be achieved through administration of dobutamine, resulting in an increase in heart contractility via an inotropic effect.

Kidney failure can also occur following a slow degradation of kidney function due to an underlying untreated illness; the symptoms of the latter can then become much more severe due to the lack of efficient compensation by the kidney.

Psychology

In psychology, the term refers to an individual’s loss of healthy defence mechanisms in response to stress, resulting in personality disturbance or psychological imbalance. Some who suffer from narcissistic personality disorder or borderline personality disorder may decompensate into persecutory delusions to defend against a troubling reality.

What is Parataxic Distortion?

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Introduction

Parataxic distortion is a psychiatric term first used by Harry S. Sullivan to describe the inclination to skew perceptions of others based on fantasy.

Refer to Parataxical Integration.

Background

The “distortion” is a faulty perception of others, based not on actual experience with the other individual, but on a projected fantasy personality attributed to the individual. For example, when one falls in love, an image of another person as the “perfect match” or “soul mate” can be created when in reality, the other person may not live up to these expectations or embody the imagined traits at all.

The fantasy personality is created in part from past experiences and from expectations as to how the person ‘should be’, and is formulated in response to emotional stress. This stress can originate from the formation of a new relationship, or from cognitive dissonance required to maintain an existing relationship. Parataxic distortion serves as an immature cognitive defence mechanism against this psychological stress and is similar to Transference.

Parataxic distortion is difficult to avoid because of the nature of human learning and interaction. Stereotyping of individuals based on social cues and the classification of people into groups is a commonplace cognitive function of the human mind. Such pigeonholing allows for a person to gain a quick, though possibly inaccurate, assessment of an interaction. The cognitive processes employed, however, can have a distorting effect on the clear understanding of individuals. In essence, one can lose the ability to ‘hear the other’ through one’s own projected beliefs of what the other person is saying.

Etymology

From the Greek παράταξις, “placement side by side”.

Para – A Greek prefix which came to designate objects or activities auxiliary to or derivative of that denoted by the base word ( parody; paronomasia, paranoia) and hence abnormal or defective.

Taxic – indicating movement towards or away from a specified stimulus.

In this sense, Parataxic distortion, is a shift in perception away from reality.

Interpersonal Relationships and Emotions

Distorting one’s perception of others can often interfere with interpersonal relationships. In many cases, however, it may be beneficial to do so. Humans are constantly and subconsciously stereotyping. According to Paul Martin Lester, “our brains naturally classify what we see, we can’t help but notice the differences in physical attributes between one person and another.” Parataxic distortion runs parallel to stereotyping while it remains in the subconscious. As we make quick judgements, we are drawing from previous experiences stored in our memory.

Parataxic distortion can be a beneficial defence mechanism for the individual, allowing the individual to maintain relationships with others with whom he or she would otherwise be unable to interact or allowing the individual to endure difficult periods in relationships. A self-imposed blindness to certain personality traits can keep a relationship healthy, or it can also prove destructive. For instance, parataxic distortion can keep one in denial of the abusive nature of a spouse.

Attachment Theory

Parataxic distortion can begin in the early stages of development in infants. A mother’s nurturing personality and emotional warmth might be projected onto a lover later in life. This could initially generate stronger feelings for the woman than are warranted by her behaviour and character alone. This example of attachment theory correlates with parataxic distortion.

Attachment theory would have it that the fantasy selves projected onto others in parataxic distortion are informed by our long-term attachment patterns. Not only are these imagined traits the resultant of our earliest bonds and unresolved emotional issues from past relationships, but they are recreated in these fantasy selves for the purpose of recreating that past attachment in the present.

Negative Effects

Dealing with current situations or people that relate to a past event, or remind someone of a person from the past, can have negative effects on a human from an emotional standpoint. If the person from the past was a negative figure or the past event had a negative influence on a person, the person may create a self-sense of identity for the new individual they met. The negative emotional response happens when the individual realises that they have been creating a fake identity for the new individual.

Parataxic distortion is most effective in the realm of interpersonal communication. Parataxic distortion is typically used to avoid coping with past events. For example, if a child is mistreated by his or her father, the child may not only attach the fear and anger towards the father but will also relate this fear and anger to other men that look, talk or act like the father. The human mind keeps track of situations that we have encountered in the past to help us deal with future situations. The unconscious memory, without our knowing, helps us understand and deal with situations in the present that we have dealt with in the past. Parataxic distortion and our unconscious mind make us act the same way in current situations as we did in the past, even without realising it.

Defence Mechanism

As a defence mechanism, parataxic distortion protects one from the emotional consequences of a past event. A person may not remember a certain event, or be acting on it consciously, but will act a certain way to protect themselves from an outcome with the use of parataxic distortion. This behaviour is a pathological attempt to cope with reality by using unreality.

Parataxic distortion is a commonly used psychological defence mechanism. It is not an illness or a disease, but a part of everyday, normal human psychology that can become maladaptive in certain situations. The cognitive abilities used to generate internal models of others are useful in interaction. As we can never truly internalise the full reality of another, we must interact with a shorthand version of them. It is only when we believe that the shorthand version is their reality that this ability can become maladaptive. One may also attempt to coerce or force another to ‘fit the mould’ and act more according to expectations, more like the idealised version they dream the other as being. This is also pathological.

However, all humans engage in parataxic distortion to one extent or another, in one realm or another. It may be to manage emotions within their family, to facilitate communication between them and their spouse, or to imagine a relationship between them and their nation-state.

What is Reaction Formation?

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Introduction

In psychoanalytic theory, reaction formation (German: Reaktionsbildung) is a defence mechanism in which emotions and impulses which are anxiety-producing or perceived to be unacceptable are mastered by exaggeration of the directly opposing tendency.

The reaction formations belong to Level 3 of neurotic defence mechanisms, which also include dissociation, displacement, intellectualisation, and repression.

Theory

Reaction formation depends on the hypothesis that:

“[t]he instincts and their derivatives may be arranged as pairs of opposites: life versus death, construction versus destruction, action versus passivity, dominance versus submission, and so forth. When one of the instincts produces anxiety by exerting pressure on the ego either directly or by way of the superego, the ego may try to sidetrack the offending impulse by concentrating upon its opposite. For example, if feelings of hate towards another person make one anxious, the ego can facilitate the flow of love to conceal the hostility.”

Where reaction-formation takes place, it is usually assumed that the original, rejected impulse does not vanish, but persists, unconscious, in its original infantile form. Thus, where love is experienced as a reaction formation against hate, we cannot say that love is substituted for hate, because the original aggressive feelings still exist underneath the affectionate exterior that merely masks the hate to hide it from awareness.

In a diagnostic setting, the existence of a reaction-formation rather than a ‘simple’ emotion would be suspected where exaggeration, compulsiveness and inflexibility were observed. For example:

“[r]eactive love protests too much; it is overdone, extravagant, showy, and affected. It is counterfeit, and […] is usually easily detected. Another feature of a reaction formation is its compulsiveness. A person who is defending himself against anxiety cannot deviate from expressing the opposite of what he really feels. His love, for instance, is not flexible. It cannot adapt itself to changing circumstances as genuine emotions do; rather it must be constantly on display as if any failure to exhibit it would cause the contrary feeling to come to the surface.

Reaction formation is sometimes described as one of the most difficult defences for lay people to understand; this testifies not merely to its effectiveness as a disguise, but also to its ubiquity and flexibility as a defence that can be utilised in many forms. For example:

“solicitude may be a reaction-formation against cruelty, cleanliness against coprophilia”,

and it is not unknown for an analyst to explain a client’s unconditional pacifism as a reaction formation against their sadism. In addition:

“[h]igh ideals of virtue and goodness may be reaction formations against primitive object cathexes rather than realistic values that are capable of being lived up to. Romantic notions of chastity and purity may mask crude sexual desires, altruism may hide selfishness, and piety may conceal sinfulness.”

Even more counter-intuitively, according to this model:

“[a] phobia is an example of a reaction formation. The person wants what he fears. He is not afraid of the object; he is afraid of the wish for the object. The reactive fear prevents the dreaded wish from being fulfilled.

The concept of reaction formation has been used to explain responses to external threats as well as internal anxieties. In the phenomenon described as Stockholm syndrome, a hostage or kidnap victim ‘falls in love’ with the feared and hated person who has complete power over them. Similarly, paradoxical reports exist of powerless and vulnerable inmates of Nazi camps creating ‘favourites’ among the guards and even collecting objects discarded by them. The mechanism of reaction formation is often characteristic of obsessional neuroses. When this mechanism is overused, especially during the formation of the ego, it can become a permanent character trait. This is often seen in those with obsessional character and obsessive personality disorders. This does not imply that its periodic usage is always obsessional, but that it can lead to obsessional behaviour.

What is Regression (Psychology)?

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Introduction

Regression, according to psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, is a defence mechanism leading to the temporary or long-term reversion of the ego to an earlier stage of development rather than handling unacceptable impulses more adaptively.

In psychoanalytic theory, regression occurs when an individual’s personality reverts to an earlier stage of development, adopting more childish mannerisms.

Freud, Regression, and Neurosis

Freud saw inhibited development, fixation, and regression as centrally formative elements in the creation of a neurosis. Arguing that “the libidinal function goes through a lengthy development”, he assumed that “a development of this kind involves two dangers – first, of inhibition, and secondly, of regression”. Inhibitions produced fixations; and the “stronger the fixations on its path of development, the more readily will the function evade external difficulties by regressing to the fixations”.

Neurosis for Freud was thus the product of a flight from an unsatisfactory reality:

“along the path of involution, of regression, of a return to earlier phases of sexual life, phases from which at one time satisfaction was not withheld. This regression appears to be a twofold one: a temporal one, in so far as the libido, the erotic needs, hark back to stages of development that are earlier in time, and a formal one, in that the original and primitive methods of psychic expression are employed in manifesting those needs”.

Behaviours associated with regression can vary greatly depending upon the stage of fixation: one at the oral stage might result in excessive eating or smoking, or verbal aggression, whereas one at the anal stage might result in excessive tidiness or messiness. Freud recognised that “it is possible for several fixations to be left behind in the course of development, and each of these may allow an irruption of the libido that has been pushed off – beginning, perhaps, with the later acquired fixations, and going on, as the lifestyle develops, to the original ones”.

In the Service of the Ego

Ernst Kris supplements Freud’s general formulations with a specific notion of “regression in the service of the ego” … “the specific means whereby preconscious and unconscious material appear in the creator’s consciousness”. Kris thus opened the way for ego psychology to take a more positive view of regression. Carl Jung had earlier argued that “the patient’s regressive tendency…is not just a relapse into infantilism, but an attempt to get at something necessary…the universal feeling of childhood innocence, the sense of security, of protection, of reciprocated love, of trust”. Kris however was concerned rather to differentiate the way that “Inspiration -…in which the ego controls the primary process and puts it into its service – needs to be contrasted with the opposite…condition, in which the ego is overwhelmed by the primary process”.

Nevertheless his view of regression in the service of the ego could be readily extended into a quasi-Romantic image of the creative process, in which “it is only in the fiery storm of a profound regression, in the course of which the personality undergoes both dissolution of structure and reorganization, that the genius becomes capable of wresting himself from the traditional pattern that he had been forced to integrate through the identifications necessitated and enforced by the oedipal constellation”.

From there it was perhaps only a small step to the 1960s valorisation of regression as a positive good in itself. “In this particular type of journey, the direction we have to take is back and in….They will say we are regressed and withdrawn and out of contact with them. True enough, we have a long, long way to back to contact the reality”. Jungians had however already warned that “romantic regression meant a surrender to the non-rational side which had to be paid for by a sacrifice of the rational and individual side”; and Freud for his part had dourly noted that “this extraordinary plasticity of mental developments is not unrestricted in direction; it may be described as a special capacity for involution – regression – since it may well happen that a later and higher level of development, once abandoned, cannot be reached again”.

Later Views

Anna Freud (1936) ranked regression first in her enumeration of the defence mechanisms, and similarly suggested that people act out behaviours from the stage of psychosexual development in which they are fixated. For example, an individual fixated at an earlier developmental stage might cry or sulk upon hearing unpleasant news.

Michael Balint distinguishes between two types of regression: a nasty “malignant” regression that the Oedipal level neurotic is prone to… and the “benign” regression of the basic-fault patient. The problem then is what the analyst can do “to ensure that his patient’s regression should be therapeutic and any danger of a pathological regression avoided”.

Others have highlighted the technical dilemmas of dealing with regression from different if complementary angles. On the one hand, making premature “assumptions about the patient’s state of regression in the therapy…regarded as still at the breast”, for example, might block awareness of more adult functioning on the patient’s part: of the patient’s view of the therapist. The opposite mistake would be “justifying a retreat from regressive material presented by a patient. When a patient begins to trust the analyst or therapist it will be just such disturbing aspects of the internal world that will be presented for understanding – not for a panic retreat by the therapist”.

Peter Blos suggested that “revisiting of early psychic positions…helps the adolescent come out of the family envelope”, and that “Regression during adolescence thus advances the cause of development”. Stanley Olinick speaks of “regression in the service of the other” on the part of the analyst “during his or her clinical work. Such ego regression is a pre-condition for empathy”.

Demonstration of pain, impairment, etc. also relates to regression. When regression becomes the cornerstone of a personality and the life strategy for overcoming problems, it leads to such an infantile personality.

  • A clear example of regressive behaviour in fiction can be seen in J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. Holden constantly contradicts the progression of time and the ageing process by reverting to childish ideas of escape, unrealistic expectations and frustration produced by his numerous shifts in behaviour. His tendencies to reject responsibility and society as a whole because he ‘does not fit in’ also pushes him to prolonged use of reaction formation, unnecessary generalisations, and compulsive lying.
  • A similar example occurs in Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape. Krapp is fixated on reliving earlier times, and re-enacts the foetal condition in his ‘den’. He is unable to form mature relationships with women, seeing them only as replacements for his deceased mother. He experiences physical ailments that are linked to his foetal complex, struggling to perform digestive functions on his own. This literal anal retentiveness exemplifies his inefficacy as an independent adult.

What is Malignant Narcissism?

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Introduction

Malignant narcissism is a psychological syndrome comprising an extreme mix of narcissism, antisocial behaviour, aggression, and sadism.

Grandiose, and always ready to raise hostility levels, the malignant narcissist undermines families and organisations in which they are involved, and dehumanises the people with whom they associate.

Malignant narcissism is a hypothetical, experimental diagnostic category. Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR), while malignant narcissism is not. As a hypothetical syndrome, malignant narcissism could include aspects of NPD alongside a mix of antisocial, paranoid and sadistic personality disorder traits. The importance of malignant narcissism and of projection as a defence mechanism has been confirmed in paranoia, as well as “the patient’s vulnerability to malignant narcissistic regression”.

Brief History

The social psychologist Erich Fromm first coined the term “malignant narcissism” in 1964, describing it as a “severe mental sickness” representing “the quintessence of evil”. He characterised the condition as “the most severe pathology and the root of the most vicious destructiveness and inhumanity”. Edith Weigert (1967) saw malignant narcissism as a “regressive escape from frustration by distortion and denial of reality”, while Herbert Rosenfeld (1971) described it as “a disturbing form of narcissistic personality where grandiosity is built around aggression and the destructive aspects of the self become idealized.”

On 11 May 1968, psychoanalyst Otto Kernberg presented his paper Factors in the Psychoanalytic Treatment of Narcissistic Personalities, from the work of the Psychotherapy Research Project of The Menninger Foundation, at the 55th Annual Meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association in Boston. Kernberg’s paper was first published in hard copy on 01 January 1970. In Kernberg’s 1968 paper, first published in 1970 in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (JAPA), the word ‘malignant’ does not appear once, while ‘pathological’ or ‘pathologically’ appears 25 times.

Developing these ideas further, Kernberg pointed out that the antisocial personality was fundamentally narcissistic and without morality. Malignant narcissism includes a sadistic element creating, in essence, a sadistic psychopath. In his article, “malignant narcissism” and psychopathy are employed interchangeably. Kernberg first proposed malignant narcissism as a psychiatric diagnosis in 1984. So far it has not been accepted in any of the medical manuals, such as the ICD-10 or the DSM-5.

Kernberg described malignant narcissism as a syndrome characterised by a NPD, antisocial features, paranoid traits, and egosyntonic aggression. Other symptoms may include an absence of conscience, a psychological need for power, and a sense of importance (grandiosity). Psychoanalyst George H. Pollock wrote in 1978: “The malignant narcissist is presented as pathologically grandiose, lacking in conscience and behavioral regulation with characteristic demonstrations of joyful cruelty and sadism”. Of note, M. Scott Peck uses malignant narcissism as a way to explain evil.

Kernberg believed that malignant narcissism should be considered part of a spectrum of pathological narcissism, which he saw as ranging from Hervey M. Cleckley’s antisocial character (what is now referred to as psychopathy or antisocial personality) at the high end of severity, through malignant narcissism, and then to narcissistic personality disorder at the low end. So according to Kernberg’s hierarchy, psychopathy trumps malignant narcissism as a more extreme form of pathological narcissism. Malignant narcissism can be distinguished from psychopathy, according to Kernberg, because of the malignant narcissist’s capacity to internalise “both aggressive and idealized superego precursors, leading to the idealization of the aggressive, sadistic features of the pathological grandiose self of these patients”.

According to Kernberg, the psychopath’s paranoid stance against external influences makes him or her unwilling to internalise even the values of the “aggressor”, while malignant narcissists “have the capacity to admire powerful people, and can depend on sadistic and powerful but reliable parental images”. Malignant narcissists, in contrast to psychopaths, are also said to be capable of developing:

“some identification with other powerful idealized figures as part of a cohesive ‘gang’…which permits at least some loyalty and good object relations to be internalized… Some of them may present rationalized antisocial behavior – for example, as leaders of sadistic gangs or terrorist groups…with the capacity for loyalty to their own comrades.”

Psychopathy

The terms malignant narcissist and psychopath are sometimes used interchangeably because there is little to clinically separate the two. Individuals with narcissistic personality disorder, malignant narcissism, and psychopathy all display similar traits which are outlined in the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. The test has 20 items scored on a three-point scale, with a rating of:

  • 0 if it does not apply at all;
  • 1 if there is a partial match or mixed information; and
  • 2 if there is a reasonably good match.

With a maximum score of 40, the cut-off for the label of psychopathy is 30 in the US and 25 in the UK. High scores are positively associated with measures of impulsivity and aggression, Machiavellianism, persistent criminal behaviour, and negatively associated with measures of empathy and affiliation.

Malignant narcissism is highlighted as a key area in the study of mass murder, sexual, and serial murder.

Contrast with Narcissism

The primary difference between narcissism and malignant narcissism is that malignant narcissism includes comorbid features of other personality disorders and thus consists of a broader range of symptoms than pathological narcissism (NPD). In the term “malignant narcissism”, the word “malignant” is used in the sense of the word described by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “passionately and relentlessly malevolent: aggressively malicious”. In malignant narcissism, NPD is accompanied by additional symptoms of antisocial, paranoid and sadistic personality disorders. While a person with NPD will deliberately damage other people in pursuit of their own selfish desires, they may regret and will in some circumstances show remorse for doing so. Because traits of antisocial personality disorder are present in malignant narcissism, the “malignant narcissist” suffers from a more pervasive lack of empathy than someone with NPD alone and will lack feelings of guilt or remorse for the damage they cause. Since sadism is often considered a feature of malignant narcissism, an individual with the syndrome may not only lack feelings of guilt or remorse for hurting others but may even derive pleasure from the gratuitous infliction of mental or physical pain on others. These traits were formerly codified in the DSM-III under sadistic personality disorder (SPD).

Therapy

Typically in the analysis of the malignant narcissist, “the patient attempts to triumph over the analyst by destroying the analysis and himself or herself” – an extreme version of what Jacques Lacan described as “that resistance of the amour-propre… which is often expressed thus: ‘I can’t bear the thought of being freed by anyone other than myself'”.

What is Displacement (Psychology)?

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Introduction

In psychology, displacement (German: Verschiebung, “shift, move”) is an unconscious defence mechanism whereby the mind substitutes either a new aim or a new object for goals felt in their original form to be dangerous or unacceptable.

Refer to Emotional Conflict.

Sigmund Freud

The concept of displacement originated with Sigmund Freud. Initially he saw it as a means of dream-distortion, involving a shift of emphasis from important to unimportant elements, or the replacement of something by a mere illusion. Freud called this “displacement of accent.”

TypeOutline
Displacement of ObjectFeelings that are connected with one person are displaced onto another person. A man who has had a bad day at the office, comes home and yells at his wife and children, is displacing his anger from the workplace onto his family. Freud thought that when children have animal phobias, they may be displacing fears of their parents onto an animal.
Displacement of AttributionA characteristic that one perceives in oneself but seems unacceptable is instead attributed to another person. This is essentially the mechanism of psychological projection; an aspect of the self is projected (displaced) onto someone else. Freud wrote that people commonly displace their own desires onto God’s will.
Bodily DisplacementsA genital sensation may be experienced in the mouth (displacement upward) or an oral sensation may be experienced in the genitals (displacement downward). Novelist John Cleland in ‘’Fanny Hill’’ referred to the vagina as “the nethermouth.” Sexual attraction toward a human body can be displaced in sexual fetishism, sometimes onto a particular body part like the foot, or at other times onto an inanimate fetish object.
Jokes and NeurosesFreud also saw displacement as occurring in jokes, as well as in neuroses – the obsessional neurotic being especially prone to the technique of displacement onto the minute. When two or more displacements occurs towards the same idea, the phenomenon is called condensation (from the German Verdichtung).
Phobia Displacement or RepressionHumans were able to express specific unconscious needs through phobias. These needs that were suppressed deep within themselves created anxiety and tension. The stress, fear, and anxiety that characterise a phobic disorder were the discharge.
Reaction FormationCognizant practices are embraced to overcompensate for the nervousness an individual feels in regards to their socially inadmissible oblivious considerations or feelings. Typically, a response arrangement is set apart by misrepresented conduct, like garishness and urgency. An illustration of reaction formation incorporates the loyal little girl who adores her mom is responding to her Oedipus scorn of her mom.

The Psychoanalytic Mainstream

Among Freud’s mainstream followers, Otto Fenichel highlighted the displacement of affect, either through postponement or by redirection, or both. More broadly, he considered that “in part the paths of displacement depend on the nature of the drives that are warded off”.

Freud’s daughter, Anna Freud, also played an important role in the upbringing of these defence mechanisms by the twentieth century. She introduced and analysed ten of her own defence mechanisms and her work has been used and increased through the years by newer psychoanalysts.

Eric Berne in his first, psychoanalytic work, maintained that “some of the most interesting and socially useful displacements of libido occur when both the aim and the object are partial substitutions for the biological aim and object…sublimation”.

Lacan

In 1957, Jacques Lacan, inspired by an article by linguist Roman Jakobson on metaphor and metonymy, argued that the unconscious has the structure of a language, linking displacement to the poetic function of metonymy, and condensation to that of metaphor.

As he himself put it, “in the case of Verschiebung, ‘displacement’, the German term is closer to the idea of that veering off of signification that we see in metonymy, and which from its first appearance in Freud is represented as the most appropriate means used by the unconscious to foil censorship”.

Aggression

The aggressive drive – known as mortido – may be displaced quite as much as the libidinal – the sex drive. Business or athletic competition, or hunting, for instance, offer plentiful opportunities for the expression of displaced mortido.

In such scapegoating behaviour, aggression may be displaced onto people with little or no connection with what is causing anger or frustration. Some people punch cushions when they are angry at friends; a college student may snap at his or her roommate when upset about an exam grade.

Displacement can also act in what looks like a ‘chain-reaction,’ with people unwittingly becoming both victims and perpetrators of displacement. For example, a man is angry with his boss, but he cannot express this properly, so he hits his wife. The wife, in turn, hits one of the children, possibly disguising this as a “punishment.” (rationalization).

Ego psychology sought to use displacement in child rearing, a dummy being used as a displaced target for toddler sibling rivalry. With a purpose to apprehend how the ego uses defence mechanisms, it is important to apprehend the defence mechanisms themselves and the way they function. A few defence mechanisms are visible as protecting us from the internal impulses (e.g. repression); other defence mechanism guard us from external threats (e.g. denial).

Transferential Displacement

The displacement of feelings and attitudes from past significant others onto the present-day analyst constitutes a central aspect of the transference, particularly in the case of the neurotic.

A subsidiary form of displacement within the transference occurs when the patient disguises transference references by applying them to an apparent third party or to themselves.

As of now encoded in subcortical neural pathways, material from our oblivious brain is pushed into our cognizant psyche as we attempt to manage mental wonders – typically agonising – that we are encountering. With the “help” of mind movement, we unknowingly re-surface and re-order struggle ridden encounters as though the past were the present and one setting were another. We move contemplations, sentiments, and perspectives, particularly about individuals who take after others. We allocate them jobs once played by others. We take on old jobs ourselves. All unwittingly.

Criticism

Later writers have objected that whereas Freud only described the displacement of sex into culture, for example, the converse – social conflict being displaced into sexuality – is also true.

Freud’s hypothesis is acceptable at clarifying however not at anticipating conduct. Therefore, Freud’s hypothesis is unfalsifiable – it cannot be demonstrated valid or invalidated. Freud may likewise have shown research predisposition in his understandings – he may have just focused on data which upheld his hypotheses, and overlooked data and different clarifications that didn’t fit them.

What is Psychological Projection?

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Introduction

Psychological projection is the process of misinterpreting what is “inside” as coming from “outside”.

It forms the basis of empathy by the projection of personal experiences to understand someone else’s subjective world. In its malignant forms, it is a defence mechanism in which the ego defends itself against disowned and highly negative parts of the self by denying their existence in themselves and attributing them to others, breeding misunderstanding and causing untold interpersonal damage. A bully may project their own feelings of vulnerability onto the target, or a person who is confused may project feelings of confusion and inadequacy onto other people. Projection incorporates blame shifting and can manifest as shame dumping. Projection has been described as an early phase of introjection.

Refer to Emotional Conflict and Splitting (Psychology).

Brief History

A prominent precursor in the formulation of the projection principle was Giambattista Vico. In 1841, Ludwig Feuerbach was the first enlightenment thinker to employ this concept as the basis for a systematic critique of religion.

The Babylonian Talmud (500 AD) notes the human tendency toward projection and warns against it: “Do not taunt your neighbour with the blemish you yourself have.” Religious people of the Christian faith believe that in the New Testament, Jesus also warned against projection: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

Psychoanalytic Developments

Projection (German: Projektion) was conceptualised by Sigmund Freud in his letters to Wilhelm Fliess, and further refined by Karl Abraham and Anna Freud. Freud considered that, in projection, thoughts, motivations, desires, and feelings that cannot be accepted as one’s own are dealt with by being placed in the outside world and attributed to someone else. What the ego refuses to accept is split off and placed in another.

Freud would later come to believe that projection did not take place arbitrarily, but rather seized on and exaggerated an element that already existed on a small scale in the other person. The related defence of projective identification differs from projection in that the other person is expected to become identified with the impulse or desire projected outside, so that the self maintains a connection with what is projected, in contrast to the total repudiation of projection proper.

Melanie Klein saw the projection of good parts of the self as leading potentially to over-idealisation of the object. Equally, it may be one’s conscience that is projected, in an attempt to escape its control: a more benign version of this allows one to come to terms with outside authority.

Theoretical Examples

Projection tends to come to the fore in normal people at times of personal or political crisis but is more commonly found in narcissistic personality disorder or borderline personality disorder.

Carl Jung considered that the unacceptable parts of the personality represented by the Shadow archetype were particularly likely to give rise to projection, both small-scale and on a national/international basis. Marie-Louise Von Franz extended her view of projection, stating that “wherever known reality stops, where we touch the unknown, there we project an archetypal image”.

Psychological projection is one of the medical explanations of bewitchment used to explain the behaviour of the afflicted children at Salem in 1692. The historian John Demos wrote in 1970 that the symptoms of bewitchment displayed by the afflicted girls could have been due to the girls undergoing psychological projection of repressed aggression.

Practical Examples

ExampleDescription
Victim BlamingThe victim of someone else’s actions or bad luck may be offered criticism, the theory being that the victim may be at fault for having attracted the other person’s hostility. In such cases, the psyche projects the experiences of weakness or vulnerability with the aim of ridding itself of the feelings and, through its disdain for them or the act of blaming, their conflict with the ego.
Projection of Marital GuiltThoughts of infidelity to a partner may be unconsciously projected in self-defence on to the partner in question, so that the guilt attached to the thoughts can be repudiated or turned to blame instead, in a process linked to denial. For example, a person who is having a sexual affair may fear that their spouse is planning an affair or may accuse the innocent spouse of adultery.
BullyingA bully may project their own feelings of vulnerability onto the target(s) of the bullying activity. Despite the fact that a bully’s typically denigrating activities are aimed at the bully’s targets, the true source of such negativity is ultimately almost always found in the bully’s own sense of personal insecurity or vulnerability. Such aggressive projections of displaced negative emotions can occur anywhere from the micro-level of interpersonal relationships, all the way up to the macro-level of international politics, or even international armed conflict.
“Reading”People in love “reading” each others’ mind involves of a projection of the self into the other.
Projection of General GuiltProjection of a severe conscience is another form of defence, one which may be linked to the making of false accusations, personal or political.
Projection of HopeAlso, in a more positive light, a patient may sometimes project their feelings of hope onto the therapist.

Counter-Projection

Jung wrote, “All projections provoke counter-projection when the object is unconscious of the quality projected upon it by the subject.” Thus, what is unconscious in the recipient will be projected back onto the projector, precipitating a form of mutual acting out.

In a rather different usage, Harry Stack Sullivan saw counter-projection in the therapeutic context as a way of warding off the compulsive re-enactment of a psychological trauma, by emphasizing the difference between the current situation and the projected obsession with the perceived perpetrator of the original trauma.

Clinical Approaches

Drawing on Gordon Allport’s idea of the expression of self onto activities and objects, projective techniques have been devised to aid personality assessment, including the Rorschach ink-blots and the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT).

Projection may help a fragile ego reduce anxiety, but at the cost of a certain dissociation, as in dissociative identity disorder. In extreme cases, an individual’s personality may end up becoming critically depleted. In such cases, therapy may be required which would include the slow rebuilding of the personality through the “taking back” of such projections.

The method of managed projection is a projective technique. The basic principle of this method is that a subject is presented with their own verbal portrait named by the name of another person, as well as with a portrait of their fictional opposition (V.V. Stolin, 1981).

The technique is suitable for application in psychological counselling and might provide valuable information about the form and nature of their self-esteem Bodalev, A (2000). “General psychodiagnostics”.

Criticism

Some studies were critical of Freud’s theory. Research on social projection supports the existence of a false-consensus effect whereby humans have a broad tendency to believe that others are similar to themselves, and thus “project” their personal traits onto others. This applies to both good and bad traits; it is not a defence mechanism for denying the existence of the trait within the self. A study of the empirical evidence for a range of defence mechanisms by Baumeister, Dale, and Sommer (1998) concluded, “The view that people defensively project specific bad traits of their own onto others as a means of denying that they have them is not well supported.” However, Newman, Duff, and Baumeister (1997) proposed a new model of defensive projection in which the repressor’s efforts to suppress thoughts of their undesirable traits make those trait categories highly accessible – so that they are then used all the more often when forming impressions of others. The projection is then only a byproduct of the real defensive mechanism.

What is Splitting (Psychology)?

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Introduction

Splitting (also called black-and-white thinking or all-or-nothing thinking) is the failure in a person’s thinking to bring together the dichotomy of both positive and negative qualities of the self and others into a cohesive, realistic whole.

It is a common defence mechanism. The individual tends to think in extremes (i.e. an individual’s actions and motivations are all good or all bad with no middle ground).

Splitting was first described by Ronald Fairbairn in his formulation of object relations theory; it begins as the inability of the infant to combine the fulfilling aspects of the parents (the good object) and their unresponsive aspects (the unsatisfying object) into the same individuals, instead seeing the good and bad as separate. In psychoanalytic theory this functions as a defence mechanism.

Refer to Emotional Conflict and Psychological Projection.

Relationships

Splitting creates instability in relationships because one person can be viewed as either personified virtue or personified vice at different times, depending on whether they gratify the subject’s needs or frustrate them. This, along with similar oscillations in the experience and appraisal of the self, leads to chaotic and unstable relationship patterns, identity diffusion, and mood swings. The therapeutic process can be greatly impeded by these oscillations, because the therapist too can come to be seen as all good or all bad. To attempt to overcome the negative effects on treatment outcome, constant interpretations by the therapist are needed.

Splitting contributes to unstable relationships and intense emotional experiences. Splitting is common during adolescence, but is regarded as transient. Splitting has been noted especially with persons diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Treatment strategies have been developed for individuals and groups based on dialectical behaviour therapy, and for couples. There are also self-help books on related topics such as mindfulness and emotional regulation that claim to be helpful for individuals who struggle with the consequences of splitting.

Borderline Personality Disorder

Refer to Borderline Personality Disorder.

Splitting is a relatively common defence mechanism for people with borderline personality disorder. One of the DSM IV-TR criteria for this disorder is a description of splitting: “a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation”. In psychoanalytic theory, people with borderline personality disorder are not able to integrate the good and bad images of both self and others, resulting in a bad representation which dominates the good representation.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Refer to Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

People matching the diagnostic criteria for narcissistic personality disorder also use splitting as a central defence mechanism. Most often narcissists do this as an attempt to stabilise their sense of self-positivity in order to preserve their self-esteem, by perceiving themselves as purely upright or admirable and others who do not conform to their will or values as purely wicked or contemptible.

The cognitive habit of splitting also implies the use of other related defence mechanisms, namely idealisation and devaluation, which are preventive attitudes or reactions to narcissistic rage and narcissistic injury.

Depression

In depression, exaggerated all-or-nothing thinking can form a self-reinforcing cycle: these thoughts might be called emotional amplifiers because, as they go around and around, they become more intense. Typical all-or-nothing thoughts:

  • My efforts are either a success or they are an abject failure.
  • Other people are either all good or all bad.
  • I am either all good or all bad.
  • If you’re not with us, you’re against us.

Janet, Bleuler and Freud

Refer to Pierre Janet, Eugen Bleuler, and Sigmund Freud.

Splitting of consciousness (“normal self” vs. “secondary self”) was first described by Pierre Janet in De l’automatisme psychologique (1889). His ideas were extended by Bleuler (who in 1908 coined the word schizofrenia from the Ancient Greek skhízō [σχῐ́ζω, “to split”] and phrḗn [φρήν, “mind”]) and Freud to explain the splitting (German: Spaltung) of consciousness – not (with Janet) as the product of innate weakness, but as the result of inner conflict. With the development of the idea of repression, splitting moved to the background of Freud’s thought for some years, being largely reserved for cases of double personality. However, his late work saw a renewed interest in how it was “possible for the ego to avoid a rupture… by effecting a cleavage or division of itself”, a theme which was extended in his Outline of Psycho-Analysis (1940a [1938]) beyond fetishism to the neurotic in general.

His daughter Anna Freud explored how, in healthy childhood development, a splitting of loving and aggressive instincts could be avoided.

Melanie Klein

Refer to Melanie Klein.

There was, however, from early on, another use of the term “splitting” in Freud, referring rather to resolving ambivalence “by splitting the contradictory feelings so that one person is only loved, another one only hated … the good mother and the wicked stepmother in fairy tales”. Or, with opposing feelings of love and hate, perhaps “the two opposites should have been split apart and one of them, usually the hatred, has been repressed”. Such splitting was closely linked to the defence of “isolation … The division of objects into congenial and uncongenial ones … making ‘disconnections’.”

It was the latter sense of the term that was predominantly adopted and exploited by Melanie Klein. After Freud, “the most important contribution has come from Melanie Klein, whose work enlightens the idea of ‘splitting of the object’ (Objektspaltung) (in terms of ‘good/bad’ objects)”. In her object relations theory, Klein argues that “the earliest experiences of the infant are split between wholly good ones with ‘good’ objects and wholly bad experiences with ‘bad’ objects”, as children struggle to integrate the two primary drives, love and hate, into constructive social interaction. An important step in childhood development is the gradual depolarization of these two drives.

At what Klein called the paranoid-schizoid position, there is a stark separation of the things the child loves (good, gratifying objects) and the things the child hates (bad, frustrating objects), “because everything is polarised into extremes of love and hate, just like what the baby seems to experience and young children are still very close to.” Klein refers to the good breast and the bad breast as split mental entities, resulting from the way “these primitive states tend to deconstruct objects into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bits (called ‘part-objects’)”. The child sees the breasts as opposite in nature at different times, although they actually are the same, belonging to the same mother. As the child learns that people and objects can be good and bad at the same time, he or she progresses to the next phase, the depressive position, which “entails a steady, though painful, approximation towards the reality of oneself and others”: integrating the splits and “being able to balance [them] out … are tasks that continue into early childhood and indeed are never completely finished.”

However, Kleinians also utilize Freud’s first conception of splitting, to explain the way “In a related process of splitting, the person divides his own self. This is called ‘splitting of the ego’.” Indeed, Klein herself maintained that “the ego is incapable of splitting the object—internal or external—without a corresponding splitting taking place within the ego”. Arguably at least, by this point “the idea of splitting does not carry the same meaning for Freud and for Klein”: for the former, “the ego finds itself ‘passively’ split, as it were. For Klein and the post-Kleinians, on the other hand, splitting is an ‘active’ defence mechanism”. As a result, by the close of the century “four kinds of splitting can be clearly identified, among many other possibilities” for post-Kleinians: “a coherent split in the object, a coherent split in the ego, a fragmentation of the object, and a fragmentation of the ego.”

Otto Kernberg

Refer to Otto Kernberg.

In the developmental model of Otto Kernberg, the overcoming of splitting is also an important developmental task. The child has to learn to integrate feelings of love and hate. Kernberg distinguishes three different stages in the development of a child with respect to splitting:

  • The child does not experience the self and the object, nor the good and the bad as different entities.
  • Good and bad are viewed as different. Because the boundaries between the self and the other are not stable yet, the other as a person is viewed as either all good or all bad, depending on their actions. This also means that thinking about another person as bad implies that the self is bad as well, so it’s better to think about the caregiver as a good person, so the self is viewed as good too. “Bringing together extremely opposite loving and hateful images of the self and of significant others would trigger unbearable anxiety and guilt.”
  • Splitting – “the division of external objects into ‘all good’ or ‘all bad'” – begins to be resolved when the self and the other can be seen as possessing both good and bad qualities. Having hateful thoughts about the other does not mean that the self is all hateful and does not mean that the other person is all hateful either.

If a person fails to accomplish this developmental task satisfactorily, borderline pathology can emerge. “In the borderline personality organization”, Kernberg found ‘dissociated ego states that result from the use of “splitting” defences’. His therapeutic work then aimed at “the analysis of the repeated and oscillating projections of unwanted self and object representations onto the therapist” so as to produce “something more durable, complex and encompassing than the initial, split-off and polarized state of affairs”.

Horizontal and Vertical

Heinz Kohut has emphasized in his self psychology the distinction between horizontal and vertical forms of splitting. Traditional psychoanalysis saw repression as forming a horizontal barrier between different levels of the mind – so that for example an unpleasant truth might be accepted superficially but denied in a deeper part of the psyche. Kohut contrasted with this vertical fractures of the mind into two parts with incompatible attitudes separated by mutual disavowal.

Transference

Refer to Transference.

It has been suggested that interpretation of the transference “becomes effective through a sort of splitting of the ego into a reasonable, judging portion and an experiencing portion, the former recognizing the latter as not appropriate in the present and as coming from the past”. Clearly, “in this sense, splitting, so far from being a pathological phenomenon, is a manifestation of self-awareness”. Nevertheless, “it remains to be investigated how this desirable ‘splitting of the ego’ and ‘self-observation’ are to be differentiated from the pathological cleavage … directed at preserving isolations”.

What is Experiential Avoidance?

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Introduction

Experiential avoidance (EA) has been broadly defined as attempts to avoid thoughts, feelings, memories, physical sensations, and other internal experiences – even when doing so creates harm in the long-run.

The process of EA is thought to be maintained through negative reinforcement – that is, short-term relief of discomfort is achieved through avoidance, thereby increasing the likelihood that the behaviour will persist. Importantly, the current conceptualisation of EA suggests that it is not negative thoughts, emotions, and sensations that are problematic, but how one responds to them that can cause difficulties. In particular, a habitual and persistent unwillingness to experience uncomfortable thoughts and feelings (and the associated avoidance and inhibition of these experiences) is thought to be linked to a wide range of problems.

Background

EA has been popularised by recent third-wave cognitive-behavioural theories such as acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). However, the general concept has roots in many other theories of psychopathology and intervention.

Psychodynamic

Defence mechanisms were originally conceptualised as ways to avoid unpleasant affect and discomfort that resulted from conflicting motivations. These processes were thought to contribute to the expression of various types of psychopathology. Gradual removal of these defensive processes are thought to be a key aspect of treatment and eventually return to psychological health.

Process-Experiential

Process-experiential therapy merges client-centred, existential, and Gestalt approaches. Gestalt theory outlines the benefits of being fully aware of and open to one’s entire experience. One job of the psychotherapist is to:

“explore and become fully aware of [the patient’s] grounds for avoidance” and to “[lead] the patient back to that which he wishes to avoid”.

Similar ideas are expressed by early humanistic theory:

“Whether the stimulus was the impact of a configuration of form, color, or sound in the environment on the sensory nerves, or a memory trace from the past, or a visceral sensation of fear or pleasure or disgust, the person would be ‘living’ it, would have it completely available to awareness…he is more open to his feelings of fear and discouragement and pain…he is more able fully to live the experiences of his organism rather than shutting them out of awareness.”

Behavioural

Traditional behaviour therapy utilises exposure to habituate the patient to various types of fears and anxieties, eventually resulting in a marked reduction in psychopathology. In this way, exposure can be thought of as “counter-acting” avoidance, in that it involves individuals repeatedly encountering and remaining in contact with that which causes distress and discomfort.

Cognitive

In cognitive theory, avoidance interferes with reappraisals of negative thought patterns and schema, thereby perpetuating distorted beliefs. These distorted beliefs are thought to contribute and maintain many types of psychopathology.

Third-Wave Cognitive-Behavioural

The concept of EA is explicitly described and targeted in more recent CBT modalities including acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), functional analytic psychotherapy (FAP), and behavioural activation (BA).

Associated Problems

  • Distress is an inextricable part of life; therefore, avoidance is often only a temporary solution.
  • Avoidance reinforces the notion that discomfort, distress and anxiety are bad, or dangerous.
  • Sustaining avoidance often requires effort and energy.
  • Avoidance limits one’s focus at the expense of fully experiencing what is going on in the present.
  • Avoidance may get in the way of other important, valued aspects of life.

Empirical Evidence

  • Laboratory-based thought suppression studies suggest avoidance is paradoxical, in that concerted attempts at suppression of a particular thought often leads to an increase of that thought.
  • Studies examining emotional suppression and pain suppression suggest that avoidance is ineffective in the long-run. Conversely, expressing unpleasant emotion results in short-term increases in arousal, but long-term decreases in arousal.
  • Exposure-based therapy techniques have been shown to be effective in treating a wide range of psychiatric disorders.
  • Numerous self-report studies have linked EA and related constructs (avoidance coping, thought suppression) to psychopathology and other forms of dysfunction.

Relevance to Psychopathology

Seemingly disparate forms of pathological behaviour can be understood by their common function (i.e., attempts to avoid distress). Some examples can be seen in the Table below.

DiagnosisExample BehavioursTarget of Avoidance
Major Depressive DisorderIsolation/suicideFeelings of sadness, guilt, and/or low self-worth.
PTSDAvoiding trauma reminders, hypervigilanceMemories, anxiety, concerns of safety.
Social PhobiaAvoiding social situationsAnxiety, concerns of judgement from others.
Panic DisorderAvoiding situations that might induce panicFear, physiological sensations.
AgoraphobiaRestricting travel outside of home or other ‘safe areas’Anxiety, fear of having symptoms of panic.
Obsessive-Compulsive DisorderChecking/ritualsWorry of consequences (e.g. contamination).
Substance Use DisordersAbusing alcohol/drugsEmotions, memories, withdrawal symptoms
Eating DisordersRestricting food intake, purgingWorry about becoming ‘overweight’, fear of losing control.
Borderline Personality DisorderSelf-harm (e.g. cutting)High emotional arousal.

Relevance to Quality of Life

Perhaps the most significant impact of EA is its potential to disrupt and interfere with important, valued aspects of an individual’s life. That is, EA is seen as particularly problematic when it occurs at the expense of a person’s deeply held values. Some examples include:

  • Putting off an important task because of the discomfort it evokes.
  • Not taking advantage of an important opportunity due to attempts to avoid worries of failure or disappointment.
  • Not engaging in physical activity/exercise, meaningful hobbies, or other recreational activities due to the effort they demand.
  • Avoiding social gatherings or interactions with others because of the anxiety and negative thoughts they evoke.
  • Not being a full participant in social gatherings due to attempts to regulate anxiety relating to how others are perceiving you.
  • Being unable to fully engage in meaningful conversations with others because one is scanning for signs of danger in the environment (attempting to avoid feeling “unsafe”).
  • Inability to “connect” and sustain a close relationship because of attempts to avoid feelings of vulnerability.
  • Staying in a “bad” relationship to try to avoid discomfort, guilt, and potential feelings of loneliness a break-up might entail.
  • Losing a marriage or contact with children due to an unwillingness to experience uncomfortable feelings (e.g. achieved through drug or alcohol abuse) or symptoms of withdrawal.
  • Not attending an important graduation, wedding, funeral, or other family event to try to avoid anxiety or symptoms of panic.
  • Engaging in self-destructive behaviours in an attempt to avoid feelings of boredom, emptiness, worthlessness.
  • Not functioning or taking care of basic responsibilities (e.g. personal hygiene, waking up, showing up to work, shopping for food) because of the effort they demand and/or distress they evoke.
  • Spending so much time attempting to avoid discomfort that one has little time for anyone or anything else in life.

Measurement

Self-Report

The Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ) was the first self-report measure explicitly designed to measure EA, but has since been re-conceptualised as a measure of “psychological flexibility”. The 62-item Multidimensional Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire (MEAQ) was developed to measure different aspects of EA. The Brief Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire (BEAQ) is a 15-item measure developed using MEAQ items, which has become the most widely used measure of experiential avoidance.

What is Coping (Psychology)?

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Introduction

Coping means to invest one’s own conscious effort, to solve personal and interpersonal problems, in order to try to master, minimise or tolerate stress and conflict.

The psychological coping mechanisms are commonly termed coping strategies or coping skills. The term coping generally refers to adaptive (constructive) coping strategies, that is, strategies which reduce stress. In contrast, other coping strategies may be coined as maladaptive, if they increase stress. Maladaptive coping is therefore also described, based on its outcome, as non-coping. Furthermore, the term coping generally refers to reactive coping, i.e. the coping response which follows the stressor. This differs from proactive coping, in which a coping response aims to neutralise a future stressor. Subconscious or unconscious strategies (e.g. defence mechanisms) are generally excluded from the area of coping.

The effectiveness of the coping effort depends on the type of stress, the individual, and the circumstances. Coping responses are partly controlled by personality (habitual traits), but also partly by the social environment, particularly the nature of the stressful environment.

Types of Coping Strategies

Hundreds of coping strategies have been identified. Classification of these strategies into a broader architecture has not been agreed upon. Researchers try to group coping responses rationally, empirically by factor analysis, or through a blend of both techniques. In the early days, Folkman and Lazarus split the coping strategies into four groups, namely problem-focused, emotion-focused, support-seeking, and meaning-making coping. Weiten has identified four types of coping strategies:

  1. Appraisal-focused (adaptive cognitive);
  2. Problem-focused (adaptive behavioural);
  3. Emotion-focused; and
  4. Occupation-focused coping.

Billings and Moos added avoidance coping as one of the emotion-focused coping. Some scholars have questioned the psychometric validity of forced categorisation as those strategies are not independent to each other. Besides, in reality, people can adopt multiple coping strategies simultaneously.

Typically, people use a mixture of several coping strategies, which may change over time. All these strategies can prove useful, but some claim that those using problem-focused coping strategies will adjust better to life. Problem-focused coping mechanisms may allow an individual greater perceived control over their problem, whereas emotion-focused coping may sometimes lead to a reduction in perceived control (maladaptive coping).

Lazarus “notes the connection between his idea of ‘defensive reappraisals’ or cognitive coping and Freud’s concept of ‘ego-defenses'”, coping strategies thus overlapping with a person’s defence mechanisms.

Appraisal-Focused Coping Strategies

Appraisal-focused (adaptive cognitive) strategies occur when the person modifies the way they think, for example: employing denial, or distancing oneself from the problem. People may alter the way they think about a problem by altering their goals and values, such as by seeing the humour in a situation: “some have suggested that humor may play a greater role as a stress moderator among women than men”.

Adaptive Behavioural Coping Strategies

People using problem-focused strategies try to deal with the cause of their problem. They do this by finding out information on the problem and learning new skills to manage the problem. Problem-focused coping is aimed at changing or eliminating the source of the stress. The three problem-focused coping strategies identified by Folkman and Lazarus are: taking control, information seeking, and evaluating the pros and cons. However, problem-focused coping may not be necessarily adaptive, especially in the uncontrollable case that one cannot make the problem go away.

Emotion-Focused Coping Strategies

Emotion-focused strategies involve:

  • Releasing pent-up emotions.
  • Distracting oneself.
  • Managing hostile feelings.
  • Meditating.
  • Mindfulness practices.
  • Using systematic relaxation procedures.

Emotion-focused coping “is oriented toward managing the emotions that accompany the perception of stress”. The five emotion-focused coping strategies identified by Folkman and Lazarus are:

  • Disclaiming.
  • Escape-avoidance.
  • Accepting responsibility or blame.
  • Exercising self-control.
  • Positive reappraisal.

Emotion-focused coping is a mechanism to alleviate distress by minimizing, reducing, or preventing, the emotional components of a stressor. This mechanism can be applied through a variety of ways, such as:

  • Seeking social support.
  • Reappraising the stressor in a positive light.
  • Accepting responsibility.
  • Using avoidance.
  • Exercising self-control.
  • Distancing.

The focus of this coping mechanism is to change the meaning of the stressor or transfer attention away from it. For example, reappraising tries to find a more positive meaning of the cause of the stress in order to reduce the emotional component of the stressor. Avoidance of the emotional distress will distract from the negative feelings associated with the stressor. Emotion-focused coping is well suited for stressors that seem uncontrollable (e.g. a terminal illness diagnosis, or the loss of a loved one). Some mechanisms of emotion focused coping, such as distancing or avoidance, can have alleviating outcomes for a short period of time, however they can be detrimental when used over an extended period. Positive emotion-focused mechanisms, such as seeking social support, and positive re-appraisal, are associated with beneficial outcomes. Emotional approach coping is one form of emotion-focused coping in which emotional expression and processing is used to adaptively manage a response to a stressor. Other examples include relaxation training through deep breathing, meditation, yoga, music and art therapy, and aromatherapy, as well as grounding, which uses physical sensations or mental distractions to refocus from the stressor to present.

Reactive and Proactive Coping

Most coping is reactive in that the coping is in response to stressors. Anticipating and reacting to a future stressor is known as proactive coping or future-oriented coping. Anticipation is when one reduces the stress of some difficult challenge by anticipating what it will be like and preparing for how one is going to cope with it.

Social Coping

Social coping recognises that individuals are bedded within a social environment, which can be stressful, but also is the source of coping resources, such as seeking social support from others.

Humour

Humour used as a positive coping strategy may have useful benefits in relation to mental health and well-being. By having a humorous outlook on life, stressful experiences can be and are often minimised.

This coping method corresponds with positive emotional states and is known to be an indicator of mental health. Physiological processes are also influenced within the exercise of humour. For example, laughing may reduce muscle tension, increase the flow of oxygen to the blood, exercise the cardiovascular region, and produce endorphins in the body.

Using humour in coping while processing through feelings can vary depending on life circumstance and individual humour styles. In regards to grief and loss in life occurrences, it has been found that genuine laughs/smiles when speaking about the loss predicted later adjustment and evoked more positive responses from other people. A person of the deceased family member may resort to making jokes of when the deceased person used to give unwanted “wet willies” (term used for when a person sticks their finger inside their mouth then inserts the finger into another person’s ear) to any unwilling participant. A person might also find comedic relief with others around irrational possible outcomes for the deceased funeral service.

It is also possible that humour would be used by people to feel a sense of control over a more powerless situation and used as way to temporarily escape a feeling of helplessness. Exercised humour can be a sign of positive adjustment as well as drawing support and interaction from others around the loss.

Negative Techniques (Maladaptive Coping or Non-Coping)

Whereas adaptive coping strategies improve functioning, a maladaptive coping technique (also termed non-coping) will just reduce symptoms while maintaining or strengthening the stressor. Maladaptive techniques are only effective as a short-term rather than long-term coping process.

Examples of maladaptive behaviour strategies include dissociation, sensitization, safety behaviours, anxious avoidance, rationalisation and escape (including self-medication).

These coping strategies interfere with the person’s ability to unlearn, or break apart, the paired association between the situation and the associated anxiety symptoms. These are maladaptive strategies as they serve to maintain the disorder.

Dissociation is the ability of the mind to separate and compartmentalise thoughts, memories, and emotions. This is often associated with post traumatic stress syndrome.

Sensitization is when a person seeks to learn about, rehearse, and/or anticipate fearful events in a protective effort to prevent these events from occurring in the first place.

Safety behaviours are demonstrated when individuals with anxiety disorders come to rely on something, or someone, as a means of coping with their excessive anxiety.

Rationalisation is the practice of attempting to use reasoning to minimise the severity of an incident, or avoid approaching it in ways that could cause psychological trauma or stress. It most commonly manifests in the form of making excuses for the behaviour of the person engaging in the rationalisation, or others involved in the situation the person is attempting to rationalise.

Anxious avoidance is when a person avoids anxiety provoking situations by all means. This is the most common method.

Escape is closely related to avoidance. This technique is often demonstrated by people who experience panic attacks or have phobias. These people want to flee the situation at the first sign of anxiety.

Further Examples

Further examples of coping strategies include emotional or instrumental support, self-distraction, denial, substance use, self-blame, behavioural disengagement and the use of drugs or alcohol.

Many people think that meditation “not only calms our emotions, but…makes us feel more ‘together'”, as too can “the kind of prayer in which you’re trying to achieve an inner quietness and peace”.

Low-effort syndrome or low-effort coping refers to the coping responses of a person refusing to work hard. For example, a student at school may learn to put in only minimal effort as they believe if they put in effort it could unveil their flaws.

Historical Psychoanalytic Theories

Otto Fenichel

Otto Fenichel summarised early psychoanalytic studies of coping mechanisms in children as “a gradual substitution of actions for mere discharge reactions…[&] the development of the function of judgement” – noting however that “behind all active types of mastery of external and internal tasks, a readiness remains to fall back on passive-receptive types of mastery.”

In adult cases of “acute and more or less ‘traumatic’ upsetting events in the life of normal persons”, Fenichel stressed that in coping, “in carrying out a ‘work of learning’ or ‘work of adjustment’, [s]he must acknowledge the new and less comfortable reality and fight tendencies towards regression, towards the misinterpretation of reality”, though such rational strategies “may be mixed with relative allowances for rest and for small regressions and compensatory wish fulfillment, which are recuperative in effect”.

Karen Horney

In the 1940s, the German Freudian psychoanalyst Karen Horney “developed her mature theory in which individuals cope with the anxiety produced by feeling unsafe, unloved, and undervalued by disowning their spontaneous feelings and developing elaborate strategies of defence.” Horney defined four so-called coping strategies to define interpersonal relations, one describing psychologically healthy individuals, the others describing neurotic states.

The healthy strategy she termed “Moving with” is that with which psychologically healthy people develop relationships. It involves compromise. In order to move with, there must be communication, agreement, disagreement, compromise, and decisions. The three other strategies she described – “Moving toward”, “Moving against” and “Moving away” – represented neurotic, unhealthy strategies people utilise in order to protect themselves.

Horney investigated these patterns of neurotic needs (compulsive attachments). The neurotics might feel these attachments more strongly because of difficulties within their lives. If the neurotic does not experience these needs, they will experience anxiety. The ten needs are:

  • Affection and approval, the need to please others and be liked.
  • A partner who will take over one’s life, based on the idea that love will solve all of one’s problems.
  • Restriction of one’s life to narrow borders, to be undemanding, satisfied with little, inconspicuous; to simplify one’s life.
  • Power, for control over others, for a façade of omnipotence, caused by a desperate desire for strength and dominance.
  • Exploitation of others; to get the better of them.
  • Social recognition or prestige, caused by an abnormal concern for appearances and popularity.
  • Personal admiration.
  • Personal achievement.
  • Self-sufficiency and independence.
  • Perfection and unassailability, a desire to be perfect and a fear of being flawed.

In Compliance, also known as “Moving toward” or the “Self-effacing solution”, the individual moves towards those perceived as a threat to avoid retribution and getting hurt, “making any sacrifice, no matter how detrimental.” The argument is, “If I give in, I won’t get hurt.” This means that: if I give everyone I see as a potential threat whatever they want, I won’t be injured (physically or emotionally). This strategy includes neurotic needs one, two, and three.

In Withdrawal, also known as “Moving away” or the “Resigning solution”, individuals distance themselves from anyone perceived as a threat to avoid getting hurt – “the ‘mouse-hole’ attitude … the security of unobtrusiveness.” The argument is, “If I do not let anyone close to me, I won’t get hurt.” A neurotic, according to Horney desires to be distant because of being abused. If they can be the extreme introvert, no one will ever develop a relationship with them. If there is no one around, nobody can hurt them. These “moving away” people fight personality, so they often come across as cold or shallow. This is their strategy. They emotionally remove themselves from society. Included in this strategy are neurotic needs three, nine, and ten.

In Aggression, also known as the “Moving against” or the “Expansive solution”, the individual threatens those perceived as a threat to avoid getting hurt. Children might react to parental in-differences by displaying anger or hostility. This strategy includes neurotic needs four, five, six, seven, and eight.

Related to the work of Karen Horney, public administration scholars[40] developed a classification of coping by frontline workers when working with clients (see also the work of Michael Lipsky on street-level bureaucracy). This coping classification is focused on the behavior workers can display towards clients when confronted with stress. They show that during public service delivery there are three main families of coping:

  • Moving towards clients:
    • Coping by helping clients in stressful situations.
    • An example is a teacher working overtime to help students.
  • Moving away from clients:
    • Coping by avoiding meaningful interactions with clients in stressful situations.
    • An example is a public servant stating “the office is very busy today, please return tomorrow.”
  • Moving against clients:
    • Coping by confronting clients.
    • For instance, teachers can cope with stress when working with students by imposing very rigid rules, such as no phone use in class and sending everyone to the office when they use a phone.
    • Furthermore, aggression towards clients is also included here.

In their systematic review of 35 years of the literature, the scholars found that the most often used family is moving towards clients (43% of all coping fragments). Moving away from clients was found in 38% of all coping fragments and Moving against clients in 19%.

Heinz Hartmann

In 1937, the psychoanalyst (as well as a physician, psychologist, and psychiatrist) Heinz Hartmann marked it as the evolution of ego psychology by publishing his paper, “Me” (which was later translated into English in 1958, titled, “The Ego and the Problem of Adaptation”). Hartmann focused on the adaptive progression of the ego “through the mastery of new demands and tasks”. In fact, according to his adaptive point of view, once infants were born they have the ability to be able to cope with the demands of their surroundings. In his wake, ego psychology further stressed “the development of the personality and of ‘ego-strengths’…adaptation to social realities”.

Object Relations

Emotional intelligence has stressed the importance of “the capacity to soothe oneself, to shake off rampant anxiety, gloom, or irritability….People who are poor in this ability are constantly battling feelings of distress, while those who excel in it can bounce back far more quickly from life’s setbacks and upsets”. From this perspective, “the art of soothing ourselves is a fundamental life skill; some psychoanalytic thinkers, such as John Bowlby and D. W. Winnicott see this as the most essential of all psychic tools.”

Object relations theory has examined the childhood development both of “[i]ndependent coping…capacity for self-soothing”, and of “[a]ided coping. Emotion-focused coping in infancy is often accomplished through the assistance of an adult.”

Gender Differences

Gender differences in coping strategies are the ways in which men and women differ in managing psychological stress. There is evidence that males often develop stress due to their careers, whereas females often encounter stress due to issues in interpersonal relationships. Early studies indicated that “there were gender differences in the sources of stressors, but gender differences in coping were relatively small after controlling for the source of stressors”; and more recent work has similarly revealed “small differences between women’s and men’s coping strategies when studying individuals in similar situations.”

In general, such differences as exist indicate that women tend to employ emotion-focused coping and the “tend-and-befriend” response to stress, whereas men tend to use problem-focused coping and the “fight-or-flight” response, perhaps because societal standards encourage men to be more individualistic, while women are often expected to be interpersonal. An alternative explanation for the aforementioned differences involves genetic factors. The degree to which genetic factors and social conditioning influence behaviour, is the subject of ongoing debate.

Physiological Basis

Hormones also play a part in stress management. Cortisol, a stress hormone, was found to be elevated in males during stressful situations. In females, however, cortisol levels were decreased in stressful situations, and instead, an increase in limbic activity was discovered. Many researchers believe that these results underlie the reasons why men administer a fight-or-flight reaction to stress; whereas, females have a tend-and-befriend reaction. The “fight-or-flight” response activates the sympathetic nervous system in the form of increased focus levels, adrenaline, and epinephrine. Conversely, the “tend-and-befriend” reaction refers to the tendency of women to protect their offspring and relatives. Although these two reactions support a genetic basis to differences in behaviour, one should not assume that in general females cannot implement “fight-or-flight” behaviour or that males cannot implement “tend-and-befriend” behaviour. Additionally, this study implied differing health impacts for each gender as a result of the contrasting stress-processes.