Everybody Present by Flor Rotne Nikolaj;Flor Rotne Didde;

Author:Flor Rotne, Nikolaj;Flor Rotne, Didde; [Rotne, Nikolaj Flor; Rotne, Didde Flor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Parallax Press

Defense Mechanisms

As teachers, we can have difficulty accepting the fact that we play a part in our students’ poor development or lack of learning. We have observed many times that a parent who contacts her child’s teacher because the child isn’t thriving at school is rebuffed or met with blame. When the teacher either denies that there are problems with the child’s growth or lays the responsibility on the parent, it’s difficult for them to work constructively together. The teacher’s defense mechanisms block his willingness to have an open mind about the situation and take his share of the responsibility in solving the problem.

We’re all guided by psychic defense mechanisms that we use to reduce or banish experiences of strong, unpleasant feelings. Examples of psychic defense mechanisms include denial, projection, intellectualizing, idealizing, and splitting.

In situations where we allow ourselves to be attacked by another’s negativity, denial is an obvious psychic mechanism to use in self-defense. With denial we shut our eyes to the situation and pretend that the attack hasn’t found its target.

We can also use idealizing, in which we see only the good in every situation, repress the bad, and pretend that everything is fine.

Projection implies that we transfer an inner conflict on to someone else; a mechanism we often use if we’re stressed. We get rid of the difficult feelings by projecting them out into the environment. For instance, we might blame the parents of a girl we find difficult to control in class for not having brought up their daughter properly, even though that’s only one part of the story.

The defense mechanism of splitting means that we can’t handle ambivalence, and so we divide the world into black and white. Through splitting, we try to gain control over a situation we experience with growing anxiety.

Our psychic defense mechanisms are hard at work distancing us from those things that are hard to look in the eye, from breakdowns in relationships to experiences that create feelings of inadequacy. Through mindfulness it becomes possible to create other methods of coping with difficult situations so that we avoid dependence on defense mechanisms. In that way we can change our inappropriate habits. As the following story shows, we have to work to get rid of our inappropriate defense mechanisms.

The Princess and the Dragon

Once upon a time, a king and queen found themselves in debt to a dragon. To relieve themselves of this debt, they entered into a bargain to marry their daughter, the princess, to the dragon. The princess was very unhappy about this bargain and went to a wise woman to seek advice. The wise woman told her she should not complain, but simply follow her instructions. When the wedding day dawned, the princess followed the old woman’s advice and put on ten thin dresses. On the wedding night, the princess asked the dragon if he’d remove his clothes at the same time she did, so she wouldn’t be too embarrassed. The dragon agreed to the bargain. Each time the princess took off a layer of clothing, the dragon had to take off a layer.

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