Dialing In Defenses

As I’ve talked about in another post, psychological defenses aren’t just defenses. They aren’t minor annoying patterns that we can simply stop in order to be happy. Having defenses is absolutely vital to our survival.

And yet, it can sometimes seem like our defenses get in our way.

Let’s say, for example, you notice the tendency to hide your emotions rather than express them openly. There may be times when this seems to get in your way, like if those close to you tell you it’s hard to get close to you since they don’t know what you’re feeling.

Or as another example, let’s say you notice the tendency to get argumentative with others, building a case to defend your position or disprove theirs, despite this approach generally leading to a feeling of disconnection and frustration.

When we notice defenses like this that seem to stand in the way of what we want, like connection with those close to us, it can seem like the answer is to get rid of this tendency. Or to get better at doing the opposite.

So, rather than hiding our emotions, we may think that what we need to do is try to express our emotions as openly as we can.

Or, rather than getting argumentative, we may think that we need to stop defending our positions and simply agree with what the other person is saying.

However, the way toward a greater sense of wellness is a bit more nuanced than this.

Swinging the Pendulum or Dialing In

If we take the approach of trying to undo our usual defenses or of doing the opposite of what we tend to do, what we can accidentally end up with is a pattern of swinging back and forth between two extremes. We go from one end of the pendulum and swing to the other opposite end.

We go from hiding our emotions all the time to expressing our unfiltered emotions all the time.

We go from defending our position all the time to agreeing with the views of others all the time.

Or from being totally lax and undisciplined all the time to super strict and disciplined all the time.

Or from super driven and busy all the time to super undirected and inactive all the time.

It’s not uncommon to see clients come into therapy frustrated with the ways their defenses aren’t working, try to swing to the opposite approach, and then end up equally as frustrated but also confused as to why this isn’t working.

The trick is that the real problem here is the “all the time” part of the equation.

Hiding our emotions can be helpful or unhelpful, just as expressing raw emotion can be. It depends on when we use these approaches.

In the same way, defending or agreeing with a position can be helpful or unhelpful depending on the context.

What therapy is really trying to offer is the chance to trade in the pendulum for something more like a dial.

Rather than getting stuck in a cycle of swinging back and forth between extreme approaches that both don’t seem to work, we instead learn how to develop the flexibility to move along the entire spectrum of options between these extremes.

If hiding your emotions is “0” on the dial, and openly expressing raw emotions is “10”, can you learn how to turn the dial to a “2” or a “6” or an “8”, and when it is appropriate to do so?

If you are in an emotionally unsafe situation, it may be necessary to turn the dial to “0” and totally hide your emotions. This can actually be an incredibly helpful option for that context. If you are in a professional setting, maybe you turn the dial up to “3” where you show emotions to some extent but aren’t sharing so openly. Maybe you turn it up even more to a “6” or “7” with good friends, and an “8” or occasional “9” or “10” with a partner or spouse. 

Planting our feet in any position or approach “all the time” is what makes that approach not work. The changing and fluid landscape of life requires that we learn to navigate the entire spectrum of options.

We need both the gas and the brake pedal on our voyage. Neither one all the time, but both to the appropriate degree and at the appropriate time depending on the situation.

Therapy provides a space to identify our tendencies, learn what the opposite end of the spectrum looks like, and then practice moving along the continuum between these poles.

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