Most of us are familiar with the concept of defence mechanisms – it’s the kind of phrase that’s familiar but somehow meaningless; not something one ever needs to think about really. Defence mechanisms are for angry people, or people that aren’t coping, or the desperate… but do you know what yours are? Do you know how much you owe them and how they might be holding you back? It might be time to take stock and disarm the ones you don’t need anymore.
Let’s start with a working definition of defence mechanisms; they are adaptive behaviours designed to mitigate anxiety and protect from potentially overwhelming situations and emotions. They’re not physical as much as they’re emotional and they are entirely unique to you. We all have them and many of them seem to be common amongst all of us – but yours are entirely your own. You designed them yourself, spontaneously and without prompting (you are, consciously or not, an incredibly creative person).
Common examples include denial, projection, lashing out, withdrawing or avoiding. There are countless others and they can range from the extreme, for example dissociation, to much more subtle ways of coping and self-soothing. Do you ever find yourself zoning out from a particular person or thing? When someone starts talking about money/relationships/politics/whatever pushes your buttons do you just switch off and come round some minutes later to find them looking at you and waiting for a response? Perhaps you were just bored but more likely you were removing yourself from some level of anxiety or discomfort.
Perhaps you find social situations or crowds difficult, so you have a tendency to look for excuses to avoid, or you leave early, or you are “half there” and stay at the edge of things – and why not? It works, you avoided the bad thing and your system successfully returned to its comfortable, resting state. Consider people who seem to explode with anger at the slightest thing; they feel under threat and go immediately on the attack in order to return to safety – same thing; its spontaneous, immediate and it “works”.
Therein lies both the beauty of and the problem with defence mechanisms – they work. And yet they don’t.
Think about your own defence mechanisms and styles for coping with stress and try and make a note of when and where they started. For the most part, you probably can’t. They often go way way back and as we mentioned before they are largely unconscious. In a way they represent the resources we had to cope with tricky situations in younger incarnations of ourselves, when perhaps we weren’t as developed emotionally or intellectually as we are now. We had to come up with some way of coping (avoiding the stressful situation, getting angry at the person in front of us, drowning out conversations by dissociating or over-talking and so on) and we got passed that particular hurdle. Our brains noticed the result (we’re free! The danger is passed!) so we did it again and again and again until it was written right through us, coming to the rescue whenever we encountered the same situation.
At this point it’s probably useful to recognise and feel grateful for these defences that seem a little off or that we’re a little sick of – let’s remember they helped us at some point. They’re not a good fix but they were a quick fix and they worked, at the time. They put the brakes on. But are they still working? Is it time for the brakes to come off a little bit now? Perhaps some of your own defence mechanisms are becoming the well intentioned guest who has well over-stayed their welcome.
You might find when you do your own mechanisms audit that there are some that you could do without; you’re ready to let them go. There was a place and a time but that isn’t here and now and you’re done. So what next? It might be as easy as simply letting go of the behaviour; acknowledge it, give some thanks and say goodbye – you’re okay on your own now. It will help not to feel resentful, or that you have wasted your time in any way; remember that the behaviour you have identified was the best you could do at the time. It was good enough then but now it isn’t so try and adopt a compassionate attitude to it and to yourself.
It might not be as easy as that though, it might feel about as easy as someone telling you to fly to work tomorrow or speak Japanese. In these cases ask for help – a qualified therapist could be a good option for you. They will help you explore the reasons beneath the behaviour and chip away at it in a way that is appropriate for you and at a pace that is appropriate for you. If you’ve built a wall around yourself, tearing it all down at once might not be the best idea. One brick at a time might be the way to go.
The rewards might be travelling with the brakes off for once – if the unconscious forces stopping you from changing are gone what might you do? What might you create this time?
If you want to speak to a therapist I recommend that you choose someone either with accreditation or working towards it. This gives you peace of mind that your therapist has undergone appropriate training and is following best practice in their work. You can find therapists in your area here:
More information about David’s work via davidfoottherapy.com and find him on Twitter @DavidFoot5
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