Defense Mechanism - Coursework Example

Defense Mechanism Behaviour is an interest aspect of human beings. People’s behaviour helps them to form their personalities. Different people have different behaviour patterns and hence, they adjust differently in the society. However, when people fail to perform to their abilities or fail to get expected results in their lives, they try to protect themselves from getting criticized by others through different mental ‘techniques’. These ‘techniques’ that are used to make unacceptable behaviour seem reasonable and acceptable to others are called as ‘defense mechanisms’. People use defense mechanisms to protect their ego, self esteem and reputation from getting hurt. Hence, when people are unable to deal with challenging situations in an effective way, then they create defense mechanisms to avoid feeling frustrated, anxious or fearful. The defense mechanisms help people in maintaining their self-esteem and self-respect in face of embarrassing, threatening or defeating situations. Hence, defense mechanisms are mental tools used by people from feeling unworthy and inferior. Using defense mechanism once or twice is fine. However, when people start using defense mechanism often, then it harms their reputation and also keeps them from seeing the ‘real’ picture. ‘Rationalization’ and ‘projection’ are among the most commonly used defense mechanisms by people. People use rationalization when the truth about a situation is painful to accept. In such situations, people use rationalization as a defense mechanism and give socially acceptable and reasonable explanation for their behaviour. By doing so, people avoid accepting their own fears, anxieties and negative aspects of personality. After using rationalization repeatedly, it becomes a part of their unconscious behaviour pattern and they lose the ability to reflect on the truth or to improve their behaviour. Hence, people around them lose trust and faith in them and consider them as people ‘who always give excuses’ and hence, not dependable. In this way rationalization affects the trust and bonding in personal and professional relationships. ‘Projection’ is another defense mechanism where a person blames another person or situation for his own inadequacies, unfavorable characters and failure. When projection becomes a habit, then the person using it loses the sense of reality and examines people and situations in distorted way. People around him start to realize that this person is never going to improve as he never accepts his fault and weaknesses. They consider him as irresponsible and immature. Hence, they start keeping a distance from him and do not allow him to form close relationship with them. In this way, a person who uses projection as a defense mechanism fails to make and maintain relationships. His attitude of blaming others repels people from him. Factors Inhibiting Congruent Relating Congruence in relationship is possible when the counsellor and the client are open, authentic and honest with each other in the process of counselling. However, for the formation of a congruent relationship with clients, the counsellor needs to have a ‘whole’ and ‘integrated’ personality. Otherwise, the counsellor is unable to help the client to achieve the ‘integration’ in his personality. Hence, if the counsellor lacks growth and ‘integration’ in his own personality, then it inhibits the formation of congruence between the counsellor and the client while counselling. Second factor that inhibits the congruent relating with clients is the lack of ‘self -awareness’ in the counsellor. When a counsellor is not consciously aware of the weak areas in his personality, then he gets uncomfortable and irritated while attending to those weaknesses in his clients. Hence, being aware of the weaknesses in his own personality is very important for the counsellor. Otherwise, it inhibits congruent relating with the client by creating discomfort and friction in interactions while counselling. Fears And Prejudices Prejudice is one of the main causes of conflict and hatred between people belonging to different racial, ethnic or religious backgrounds. Prejudice leads people to judge others on the basis of the group they belong to rather than judging them as individuals. Hence, when a person judges other person through the lens of prejudice, he subconsciously applies the characters of the culture or the race he belongs to, to his personality. This leads the person belonging to minority group to become a victim of ‘generalized’ thinking, wrong judgment, bias treatment and hatred from others. People who have prejudiced thinking always judge people belonging to other group with doubt and preconceived notion. They behave indifferently with people belonging to other group and show their animosity quite openly. The hatred and the bias treatment suffered at every stage of their lives makes people belonging to minority groups to develop anger, frustration and hatred for people who treat them with prejudice. This hatred for each other results in conflict and violence. Hence, prejudice affects the peace of the society very badly. People who are victims of prejudice also develop a lot of stress and fear in life. Fear is destructive for any relationship. People who have fears develop distorted perceptions about life as their fears make them to perceive things differently. This makes them to develop stress, volatile emotions and aggressive behaviour. Some people tackle fear by running away from fearful situations and others tackle it by becoming extremely aggressive and violent. Hence, fear affects all the relationships as other people find it difficult to relate to people who are unpredictable, aggressive and overcautious. Self-awareness And Acceptance People with self-awareness are goal oriented and stable. They focus on long term goals and hence, are capable of staying away from short term sensory gratifications. Their relaxed attitude helps them to perceive the reality as it is and make the most of it. This attitude also helps them to remove selfishness and cultivate the nature of acceptance. Hence, self-awareness helps people in giving importance to the needs of other people around them and in accepting them as they are. People with self-awareness have the ability to understand others without blaming or judging them. In this way, self-awareness affects the ability to accept others in a positive way. Difference Between Constructive Criticism And Abuse The difference between constructive criticism and abuse depends upon the intention with which a person criticizes others. Abuse is a practice where a person is made to feel worthless by consistently criticizing every action and every decision that he takes. One can say that a person is in an abusive relationship when he is criticized and discouraged whenever he takes any action to improve his life or to go ahead in his life. Hence, when criticism is used as a weapon to gain total control of a person by devaluing, belittling and insulting him, then it is called as abuse. On the other hand, constructive criticism is made with an intention of encouraging a person to perform to the best of his ability and to increase his productivity. In constructive criticism, people are made to see the drawbacks of their personality in an objective, helpful and positive way. Hence, the criticism is ‘constructive’ and not ‘destructive’, as it is in abuse. Read More