"...what makes them defense [mechanisms]
is not that they protect you from pain-- they don't, clearly. They suck at
doing this, look around. The purpose of defense mechanisms is to stop
you from changing." ~ The Last Psychiatrist
As originally defined by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalytic (PA) therapy, a
defense mechanism is a tactic
developed by a person’s ego to
protect against anxiety. The ego is part of his three part model of the mind
that also includes biological impulses (the id)
and the learned values of the individual from his or her cultural milieu (the
conscience or superego).
Defense mechanisms were thought by the Freudians to safeguard the mind
against feelings and thoughts that are too difficult for the conscious mind to
cope with because of an internal conflict (neurosis) between one’s natural impulses and
one’s conscience. In some instances, defense mechanisms are thought to keep
inappropriate or unwanted thoughts and impulses from entering the conscious
mind at all.
For example, when someone's desire to have sexual relations with a stranger
conflict with a belief in the societal convention of not having sex outside of
marriage, unsatisfied feelings of anxiousness or anxiety come to the
surface. To reduce these negative feelings, the ego might employ one of the
defense mechanisms.
The most common
defense mechanisms are called regression,
repression, reaction formation, isolation of affect, undoing, projection,
introjection, turning against the self, and somatization. Some
defenses are considered “primitive,” such as acting out, splitting, and
dissociation. Others are considered somewhat healthy, including
sublimation and humor. A man with repressed angry impulses might, for
example, become a surgeon and get to both cut on people and do good at the same
time. Some of these defenses are illustrated in the cartoon above. Interested
readers that are not familiar with the various PA defense mechanisms can find definitions of
almost all of them here.
Cognitive Behavioral (CBT) therapists, as opposed to analytically oriented
therapists, reject the whole concepts of the unconscious, the tripartate mind,
and defense mechanisms – although they often seem to recognize their behavioral
manefestations and just call them something else.
They believe that seemingly neurotic or conflicted, Woody-Allen
style behavior stems mostly from irrational beliefs.
The first cognitive therapist was Albert Ellis, who came up with his theory
at least a decade before his model was hijacked by Aaron Beck. He listed
some of these irrational beliefs:
· It is a dire necessity for adult
humans to be loved or approved by virtually every significant other person in
their community.
· One absolutely must be competent,
adequate and achieving in all important respects or else one is an inadequate,
worthless person.
· People absolutely must act
considerately and fairly and they are damnable villains if they do not. They are their bad acts.
· It is awful and terrible when things
are not the way one would very much like them to be.
· Emotional disturbances are mainly
externally caused and people have little or no ability to increase or decrease
their dysfunctional feelings and behaviors.
· If something is or may be dangerous or
fearsome, then one should be constantly and excessively concerned about it and
should keep dwelling on the possibility of it occurring.
· One cannot and must not face life's
responsibilities and difficulties and it is easier to avoid them.
· One must be quite dependent on others
and need them and one cannot mainly run one's own life.
· One's past history is an all-important
determiner of one's present behavior and because something once strongly
affected one's life, it should indefinitely have a similar effect.
· Other people's disturbances are
horrible and one must feel upset about them.
· There is invariably a right, precise
and perfect solution to human problems and it is awful if this perfect solution
is not found.
These irrational beliefs cause people to do irrational things like overgeneralize, catastrophize,
awfulize, or musterbate/should all over themselves – and this leads to low-frustration tolerance, self-pity, anger,
depression, and to behaviors such as procrastination, avoidance, and inaction. To a musterbater who feels a failure because he came in second at
something, Ellis might reply, “What JEHOVIAN MANDATE says that you MUST come in
first?”
Cognitive behavioral therapists are beginning to grudging admit that these
irrational beliefs are often tied into one’s upbringing as a child. They
originally believed, and many still do, that they only occur because people are
fundamentally and innately irrational.
So who’s right, the CBT folks or the PA folks? Well, of course, both are
right. And both are also wrong! Let me explain.
When I first learned psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapy, I began to
notice what the Last Psychiatrist mentioned in the quote at the beginning of
the post. Defense mechanisms were envisioned by Freud as protecting the
self against anxiety, but neurotic people were the most anxious people out
there! Yes, indeed defense mechanism suck at preventing anxiety. So what do they
do?
What defense
mechanisms do, from my unified therapy (UT) prospective,
is to block a person's expression of innate thoughts and desires that run
counter to the roles they feel they must play to maintain
homeostasis in their family of origin. If a belief or a desire conflicts
with that role, it has to be blocked so that the person does not change from their
role behavior. This specifically is the “change” that is blocked. People
literally try to kill off parts of themselves that are incompatible with their
social role (I call this mortification).
If this is the case,
it becomes easy to see that the irrational beliefs listed by the CBT’ers also
come in handy. People use these beliefs to discourage themselves from
indulging in certain behaviors that they might otherwise want to do if they
became self-actualized and
stopped playing their role.
For example, a woman
with a gender role conflict who secretly wants to be a singer instead of a
housewife as her sexist family demands will stop herself from ever being a
successful singer if she thinks, overgeneralizing, that having failed one
audition invariable means that she will never pass one in the future. That
being the case, why bother to try?
In other words, the
irrational beliefs listed by Beck and Ellis serve the same function as defense
mechanisms. One could say, in fact, that they are defense mechanisms!
I once suggested to
Albert Ellis during a Q and A at a therapy conference that perhaps irrational
beliefs and defense
mechanisms serve the same purpose. He
naturally launched into a sarcastic tirade at me for daring to even think
something like that. Too bad.
It's interesting that you bring up The Last Psychiatrist in this post, because I've come to the conclusion that while TLP is very psychodynamic in his formulation, he is very behaviorist in his treatment plan. What do you think?
ReplyDeleteBTW, I have a new blog and I will be writing about many of the themes that you are interested in, from a child psychiatrist's perspective. Please feel free to visit and contribute some comments.
Cheers,
Psycritic
Hi Psycritic,
DeleteGood luck with your blog - I just added it to my reading list, and added it to my list of related links.
I'm not sure where TLP stands on things. I love some of his observations, but his posts are hard to follow and long, so I usually lose patience with them after getting part way through. It's probably his writing style, but for me, they often don't seem to coalesce into coherent arguments.