EMOTIONAL DEFENSES,
COVER-UPS, AND RE-ENACTMENTS
efense mechanisms are the way we
protect the self. The defense mechanisms automatically begin to
function whenever people violate a personal boundary. Defense
mechanisms are the direct result of the core of our being protecting
itself. The self defends itself out of a built in preservation
instinct. The instinct triggers when one is not ready to be seen or
when they are not prepared properly for the stimuli. The defenses
are the result of the need to protect the child's self from
unexpected exposure to personal offenses. When the child does not
have the ability to choose an appropriate response to the stimuli,
the defense mechanisms take over to protect the self.
When people violate a
boundary the self sounds the alarm and self-defense mechanisms
develop. The primary caregiver is responsible for setting
protective boundaries for the child. The response to the outside
stimuli depends on the screening by the caregiver. In the presence
of a primary caregiver, the security of the relationship allows us
to reset the boundaries. If the caregiver violates the child's
security through excessive exposure to the stimuli, the self-defense
mechanisms take over. If violations of the child's developing
boundaries continue, the child's authentic self buries itself under
layer-upon-layer of defensive shields.
A continual lack of
protection results in a lack of trust in a child and violates their
own sense of worth. The child does not believe they are worthy of
being loved; and having their needs, desires, or wants met. They do
not believe they have the right to have their basic human needs met.
The result of the
devaluation of the person's own core being results in an agonizing
amount of pain and rejection at the deepest level. Whenever the
pain becomes too much to handle, our basic automatic defenses cover
up the hurt. Once the defenses are in place, they function
automatically and unconsciously, placing layers of psychic
anesthetic over the wounds. The true self buries itself under the
defensive layers and a false identity develops. The deeper the
wound, the more layering that takes effect. If someone critically
wounds the false identity, a split can occur again and again. To
avoid these violations and protect us as children of God, He gave us
primary defense mechanisms.
PRIMARY DEFENSE MECHANISMS
Defense mechanisms are
in place to allow us to survive intolerable situations where we have
no boundaries in place to protect us. Emotions signal a loss, a
threat, or a need that is not being met. People use the following
defense mechanisms to defend the self from an outside threat:
Denial -- in the face of a
threat, people deny what is going on, the hurt, or the impact on
their lives. They refuse to acknowledge feelings, facts, or
memories. The child eventually believes they deserve the abuse.
Repression -- whenever a child
cannot express their emotions because someone will not allow them
to, they bury the resulting pain so they do not feel the emotion.
The emotional avoidance is sealed by learning to avoid the
avoidance.
Emotion Erasure -- when an
emotion is continually rejected overtly, the emotions are
experienced internally before they are allowed to be expressed
overtly. The effects of the rejection eventually disallow a person
to feel the emotion inwardly. We eventually learn not to feel
anything and cannot express ourselves outwardly.
Dissociation -- When the trauma
is so great and the self needs instant relief; the mechanisms of
denial, regression and self-deception are involved. Dissociation
accompanies the most violent forms of emotional, sexual, and
physical forms of abuse. The victim leaves the body, they walk away
from the violation objectively, the memories are screened, they live
in an unreal world, or they split because the response and
connection to the violence has been severed. These people lose
their identity in what happened to them instead of realizing they
are someone that the event happened to.
Displacement -- is a result of
not connecting the emotions to the proper events. It involves
turning ones' impulse aside from the original unacceptable target to
one that involves less anxiety. The person does not believe the
emotion is a result of the event. Emotional displacement transfers
the emotion to imaginary events or we divert the feeling until we
can deal with it later. When diverted, the emotional energy
diffuses itself on someone or something or a psychotic break may
occur.
Depersonalization -- is the loss
of personal awareness of inner experience. The person no longer
perceives the reality of self and the environment, and sees
themselves as an object being violated.
Identification -- for the purpose
of clarity, identification is when a person relates too closely to
another, loses their own characterological attributes, and takes on
the personality traits of the other person. The self is lost in the
projected image of the subject. Identification can be severe, as in
the case of nihilism, which is a form of soul murder.
Conversion -- is the act of
subconsciously converting most of our feelings and needs into sexual
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. When we have feelings that are
unacceptable, we block them from conscious awareness and convert
them into more tolerable or family authorized feelings. The other
expression of conversion takes place when the needs and feelings are
converted into some form of bodily or somatic expression. We
virtually make ourselves sick because we learn at a very early age
we will receive the care and attention we long for.
Projection -- is the result of
disowning our emotions, needs, wants, or desires. It is the
mechanism by which we take something unacceptable about ourselves
and attribute it to another. It is when we disown our emotions and
we project them unto others. It is a major source of conflict in
relationships, because these people will not own up to their
behavior or personal responsibility. They are delusional in their
logic, reasoning, and thinking process. Their reality is distorted
through skewed feelings, which may cause hallucinations through
audio and visual perception. They don't hear, see, or perceive
correctly. The senses cannot be trusted.
Another relevant
problem is created when children project God-like characteristics
upon their caregiver. When they are rejected by the caregiver, who
is seen as being perfect, they believe they are the problem even
while they are totally innocent. This sets them up for further
abuse that they do not deserve and leaves them without hope of
escape.
When the primary
defense mechanisms fail, we use a secondary line of defenses. The
following defenses will come to the rescue when the main line of
defense fails.
Inhibitions -- inhibitions
protect the individual by triggering an unnerving feeling that
impedes the will. A wall is built around the will from past
offenses against the self.
Reactive formation -- we use this
defense to keep repressed feelings from surfacing to conscious
awareness. The people using the defense will use the opposite
feeling to repress the emotion. However, the feelings will have
some of the negative characteristics and quality of the
inappropriate feeling.
Undoing -- is a magical way of
canceling out a feeling, thought, or behavior that would cause
emotional or mental pain. It is a form of behavior to avoid
reliving a painful memory. The behavior usually emulates the event
in a totally opposite expression.
Isolation of Affect -- a person
disowns the responsibility for a feeling or impulse by converting
them into a thought that will distract them from the pain of facing
the emotion and confusion. They usually display some form of mental
preoccupation with the same obsessive thought pattern.
Self-abatement - A process
whereby through criticizing, blaming, or otherwise derogating the
self, the individual seeks to lessen anxiety.
Turning Against Self -- This
occurs when a person is violated and abused by a primary caregiver
or significant person in their life. The person directs the
hostility onto themselves because they so desperately need the other
person. The aggression turns onto oneself and the rage lives out in
self-abuse. The forms of abuse range from suicide, self-mutilation,
accident proneness, reckless forms of activities they may use to
live out an accidental death wish, or making decisions that would
injure them socially or financially.
Rationalization -- a form of
self-justification occurs when person starts justifying something
she has done or are doing which otherwise would be intolerable and
make her feel guilty.
Minimalization -- we reduce the
impact of an event to the lowest denominator by repressing the
impact of the situation.
Explanation -- we define the
event in terms that will bring about the desired effect and protect
us from the reality that is too painful for us to experience.
Sublimation -- The mechanism by
which the instinctual drives, consciously unacceptable, divert into
personally and socially acceptable channels.
Whenever there is an
over-reaction to a minimal amount of stimulus, there is usually
unresolved trauma. By exposing the violations and making use of
God's grace through forgiveness, healing will often occur over a
period of grief and sometimes spontaneously. The power of an
emotion lies in the darkness and secrecy. There is a way to repair
the damage of those things done in secret and that is by exposing
them to the light.
Some people use
emotional cover-up’s to change their behavior and alter their mood.
The behavior transfers the emotion to another person. The person
takes on a characterological style to cover-up the emotion to
distract themselves and others from uncovering the pain. The
following behaviors focus the attention on the other person to take
the heat off oneself.
Perfectionism -- is a form of
doing in order to gain acceptance by behavior or performance.
Unfortunately, these people never reach the goal; are always
self-defeating; always base acceptance on outer appearance; and
people lose sight of the person on the inside.
Control -- is the way in which we
attempt to secure our emotions, thoughts, and actions. We want our
feelings and the feelings and rights of others under our
domination.
Rage -- works by keeping others
away, or by transferring the emotion to others.
Arrogance -- when a person
believes they are more important than someone else.
Criticism and blame -- these
defenses transfer feelings onto another person so they do not have
to deal with their own lacking.
Spiritual One-Upsmanship -- is a
form of perfectionism that uses comparison to transfer the
responsibility and guilt of one's own feelings onto another in order
to secure a good feeling about oneself.
Contempt -- is the rejection of
the person instead of the character and behavior, which may be
objectionable. Through contempt, people identify with the emotion
and reject themselves. They see the feeling as an object and
transfer the feeling onto another.
Patronizing -- on the surface a
person may seem to support and encourage someone when in reality
they don't really care to help. The person never asked for help.
Caretaking And Helping -- use
others to distract oneself from emotional pain by helping others.
This tactic commonly leads to playing roles of the enabler and
rescuer.
People Pleasing And Being Nice --
the goal of these people is to protect their image. They are nice
in order to manipulate people and situations. They hide behind a
facade of being a friendly, well-liked person to avoid pain, but in
doing so they indirectly destroy any chance of intimacy.
Envy -- is an offensive
expression of behavior where we attempt to take away from another
person's accomplishment to hide the inadequacy we feel.
Being self-centered is
emotionally damaging; there is no reality when preoccupied with
ourselves. An identity without the base of God's grace and revealed
truth blocks and distorts our view of reality. There is no way to
alleviate the pain if we only relate to the outside world through
the eyes of our emotional identity. God never meant for us to live
by feelings. God created us to reveal His love by living in His
Spirit and by the truth.
When a person refuses
God's love and forgiveness, they cannot love themselves or anyone
else. When this happens, the door remains open to some of the most
destructive behaviors in the world to alleviate the fear,
frustration, and pain. The ways in which we attempt to change our
mood will soon take precedence over every aspect of our life. We
become obsessed with relieving the pain. The anesthetic we choose
soon becomes addictive upon our continued dependence.
The following are compulsive/
addictive behaviors we rely on to ease the pain:
Ingestive Addictions -- include
alcohol, drugs and food.
Eating Disorders -- these include
obesity, anorexia nervosa, bulimia and fat/thin disorder.
Feeling Addictions -- these
include addictions to rage, sadness, fear, excitement, religious
righteousness, joy, shame, and guilt, etc.
Thought Addictions -- these
include rumination (turning thoughts over and over in your mind),
abstract thinking, mental obsession (avoiding all feelings),
intellectualizing, generalizing, universalizing, and obsessive
detailing.
Activity Addictions -- any
activity in which we get so involved we lose touch with the world in
order to change our mood.
Will Addiction -- the will is
unable to make clear cut decisions based on the facts. The emotions
cloud our perception, judgment, and reasoning because of the inner
turmoil and pain.
Re-enactment -- is the result of
acting out our repressed emotions. The very event that originally
caused the pain, the person now acts out with surrogates. These
people dissociate from their feelings, and in an attempt to relieve
the pain, form relationships that allow them to act out their
original feelings and pain. The repetition compulsion is the urge
to repeat the offense and continues until the person resolves the
pain.
Criminal re-enactment -- is the
result of acting out a learned behavior or the expression of
repressed feelings. When and if an abuse victim identifies with the
aggressor and represses the memory of the trauma, the victim becomes
disconnected from the horror of the event. This causes feelings of
anger, helplessness, confusion, and pain. The result is acting out
these powerful feelings against others in criminal behavior, or
against himself in drug addiction, prostitution, mental/emotional
disorders, and suicide. The only way the person knows how to reveal
the offense is to repeat the offense.
Panic Attacks -- result from
acting out internalized emotions that were ungrieved and unfinished;
there was no closure. When a trauma is unresolved, a similar event
or experience triggers the past terror and grief.
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