The basic problem that brings people to therapy: Part One

Emotional Conflicts, defenses and the dynamic unconscious

I would wager that most of what brings people to therapy are emotional conflicts. Emotional conflicts are the results of some kind of trauma experience. When emotional conflicts come from growing up they are considered symbols of what’s called, developmental trauma (sometimes called “small ’t’ trauma”). When they are in connection to a shocking or harrowing moment or event they are considered symbols of what’s called, shock trauma (sometimes called “large ’T’ trauma”). 

Here’s what I mean, at some point we have an emotion or set of emotions and are in need but when we express them or try to express them it doesn’t go well. Maybe they get us nothing of support, maybe they get us criticized or attacked maybe they get us ignored. When this happens the first thing we’ll feel is panic. If our panic response doesn’t result in people re-adjusting and supporting us then we feel helpless and alone (and still in need). Any of those ill tuned responses likely will also cause us to feel shame on top of the unrelieved stress we are already feeling. If that happens strong enough (i.e. shock trauma) or enough times (i.e. the “death by a thousand paper cuts” of developmental trauma) we remember it and adjust in the future. So we learn to feel alarmed when those emotions happen again because we fear getting hurt again and we also learn to automatically feel bad about ourselves when those feelings happen, as if there is something wrong with us (i.e. we re-experience the shame that we felt then). That is an emotional conflict. 

Coping with emotional conflict

So how does our body and mind deal with emotional conflict? Well, we can’t control what we feel but we can protect ourselves from feelings we fear get us hurt. We do this by using something called dissociation. This is basically a way to distract ourselves and not know what we’re feeling. Another word for these distractions or dissociation is defenses. 

Defenses

Defenses can be internal or external or both. When they are internal they involve a distortion of reality. We may feel that everything is our fault, or someone else’s fault, we may attribute our emotions to someone else (e.g. “I’m not angry, you’re angry”), we may feel paranoid, we may feel very helpless and just retreat and hide (this could include going numb emotionally), we may feel like someone or the situation is all good or all bad, we may under weigh the severity of the situation or over weight it, etc. External distractions may be the use of substances, shopping, eating, exercising, work, sex, creating drama, and of course the ever present phone in our pocket beckoning us to scroll just a little more, etc. Defenses correlate to what age we were when we first had to cope with this emotional conflict. Diagnostically, this is helpful because certain defenses can give clues to when a trauma may have happened in the lifespan. Think of it this way, if you are a baby you only have so many ways to protect yourself, you are pretty helpless, so things like denial of reality, rage, or extreme withdrawal or closing your eyes and hiding somehow are kind of the best you can do. Additionally, if you take on intense shame as a baby it really hinders your ability to grow healthy self esteem (e.g. you might develop a more fragile sense of self and be prone to addiction, deep humiliation and/or fits of rage when you feel too vulnerable). Likewise, if you experience something later in life you have more tools available to cope (both with the stress and the shame). For example, you might learn to tell jokes instead of feeling the emotions.

Summary

Basically, when you experience an emotional suffering you can’t solve you have to cope somehow to survive. That coping distracts you from the real needs you feel. In this way coping doesn’t really solve the issue but it does help you get through it. When that happens it’s that coping that gets recorded and remembered in the body and mind. So the next time you feel that way it is the coping that is used to get through it again (even if you’re not really in the same situation again). This becomes habit and eventually automatic and, over time, part of your personality. Another way to talk about things that are automatic (like defenses or coping) is that they are unconscious. So, defenses are automatic or unconscious. We don’t know when they are occurring. This is worth repeating. We don’t know when they are occurring. Our view of reality slips from in tune to a distortion based on past pains in the blink of an eye. We still think we are seeing clearly when we are actually seeing the past. No matter the current reality we see threat. This protects us from feeling the vulnerable emotions evoked that are marked as threatening because originally when we had those feelings we got hurt. This is the point of defenses, they help our system feel calm when we are experiencing upsetting emotions that we don’t know how to solve for. 

What you need to know about defenses to make your life better

Making sure we know what’s in the Trojan Horse of our words

Words are more than just letters strung together; they're vessels of meaning. However, their effectiveness in communication relies on shared understanding. Consider the word "cool," which can mean temperature or admiration (“The water is cool - better turn the heater on.” vs. “The water is cool - I love the colors they put in.”), showcasing how meanings can shift subtly.

Similarly, psychological terms like "defense" have shifted beyond clinical contexts into everyday language, often losing their original nuances. "Defense," once describing an unconscious process to regulate unsolvable stress, now carries connotations of confrontation. We weaponize it to criticize someone by telling them they’re being defensive. Revisiting this term can unveil its profound significance in human functioning.

Two Fundamental Insights on Defenses:

1. Defenses Can Be Classified According To Developmental Stages. Many scholars, including famed psychoanalyst, Nancy McWilliams, have helped us understand that defenses evolve with age, mirroring our developmental stages. As our thinking and feeling abilities get more sophisticated so do our defenses. Usually this means our defenses are more pro-social and less isolating. However, when we encounter trauma when we’re young and we never get help for that we continue to use those younger defenses when facing similar stresses moving forward even as adults. For instance, consistent use of extreme withdrawal (an infantile defense) in adults can symbolize the need for trauma resolution. Of course given enough stress or limitations anybody may situationally regress to more primitive self protections.

2. Defenses Are Unconscious Self-Protection Processes: Defenses are automatic self-protective mechanisms, operating unconsciously to keep us safe. They shield us from recognizing and confronting uncomfortable emotions or threats that we feel helpless to solve. For instance, projection (another young defensive process) involves attributing our own feelings to others (e.g. “they’re mad, not me”), allowing us to avoid acknowledging and processing them ourselves. This process maintains a sense of security by dissociating us from alarming emotions. Without effort, we remain unaware of when, what, or how we're protecting ourselves. Through intentional work though, we can develop awareness of these aspects.

Embracing Defenses:

Defenses are not flaws; they're adaptive mechanisms ingrained in our survival. Rather than stigmatizing defensiveness, we should appreciate its role in safeguarding our well-being. Acknowledging past traumas and their influence on our defenses empowers us to cultivate awareness and choose adaptive responses. In kind, showing gentleness and curiosity towards others when they seem to be unaware goes a lot farther than accusation (accusation likely reveals we are feeling overwhelmed and engaging in a self protective process ourselves).

In essence, understanding the language of defenses fosters self-awareness and emotional growth, enabling us to navigate life's challenges with resilience and authenticity.

Rethinking Defensiveness: A Path to Mutual Understanding

How many times have you heard people weaponize being “defensive”? “You’re being defensive!” We accuse each other of this as if we are pointing out a moral failure or a flaw. The truth is if someone is indeed protecting themselves it’s a sign that their mind and nervous system ARE WORKING PROPERLY given what they assume about the moment. Meaning that we are supposed to be able to protect ourselves from threat when we perceive it. Our nervous systems are designed to go between open and closed all the time. It would not help you survive if you were in a protective mode all the time and equally it would not serve survival if you were open all the time. You need to be able to move dynamically between these modes.

The next time you sense someone is in a defensive mode TAKE STOCK OF YOURSELF and notice if it bothers you. If so, get curious. What’s going on right now? What’s my emotional state, how am I impacting them? What are they going through and how does it make sense? How am I feeling and what do I need right now? Is that need available here or do I need to make a change?

The point is defensiveness is not bad the real issue is relating mutually. We fail to own our personal impact usually because we are insecure. Recognizing how we are contributing to a relational moment is not admitting some kind of objective failure or guilt or shame it’s simply recognizing WHAT might be happening not who is right and who is wrong. That kind of black and white, win or lose thinking is indicative of being in an insecure state that might let you know that a change is needed to feel less threatened again so you can return to reflective thinking.