by Floyd P.Garret,M.D. (part 1)
Psychological defenses(mental defense mechanisms) are universal features of the human mind that operate consciously and unconsciously to protect the ego from awareness of difficult or painful feelings,facts and ideas.
It is not the existence of these natural and necessary mental defense mechanisms but their maladaptive application that causes problems for people.
Without some means of screening and protection from unpleasant thoughts and experiences no one would be able to remain sane and function for long.
In severe psychiatric illnesses such as schizophrenia there may be a weakness or failure of mental defense mechanisms which grievously impairs the the capacity of the individual to cope with life by exposing him to the unbuffered and untamed force of inner and outer stimuli.
Normal defense mechanisms of particular importance in the maintainence of addictive disease include denial,paranoid projection,avoidance,isolation of affect,rationalization and intellectualization.In the psychodynamic heirarchy of mental defense mechanisms denial and paranoid projection are regarded as psychotic defenses because their fundamental character involves a severe disruption of reality testing that causes the afflicted individual to lose touch with consensual reality and to dwell increasingly in a world and reality of his own.
Individuals relying heavily upon primitive psychotic mental defense mechanisms such as denial and paranoid projection are realtively or wholly inaccessible to corrective influences such as logic,data or the opinion of others.One therefore cannot reason them out of their beliefs or persuade them to change their minds regardless of how compelling the contrary data and reasons might seem to anyone but the individual in denial
Part 2 in a little while.
I found this on the family board. I think all the boards need this kind of ino.Thanks for reading...a.
Part 2
Denial in this psychodynamic defensive sense must be distinguished from lying,dishonesty and other forms of conscious and deliberate falsification.Though there is obviously a gray zone and sort of no mans land between wholly unconscious defensive psychodynamic denial and half conscious deliberate distortion and evasion of the truth,the foundations of true denial rest solidly upon a profoundly misconceived and yet firmly and unshakably believed private version of reality that is relatively or absolutely immune to outside influence.
In conscious and deliberate deception the individual remains awarw of the difference between his own truth claims and what he realizes is the actual truth of the matter;in psychdynamic denial he believes his own deceptions and distortions and therefore regards the contrary opinion of others as false and their efforts to convince him otherwise as misguided at best and malevolent at worst.
Harmful and ultimately painful addictive behaviors require a bodyguard of lies,distortions,and psychotic denial to fend off the natural corrective consequences of cognitive and behavioral dissonance resulting from addiction.
Without such an elaborate and often amazingly sophisticated array of mystification and obscuring defenses,the addictive process could not survive for long but would melt like a polar icecap in Mediterranean seas,destroyed by its innate incompatibility with its enviornment.
But when Benjamin Franklin tersely noted that 'Those things that hurt,instruct' he could not have been thinking of addiction;for it is precisely the lack of instruction in the face of cumullative hurt that suggests the operation of an addictive process concealed and protected by mental defense mechanisms,that having become perverted or detached from their natural survival adaptive function of protection of the host,now operate as defectors and mercenary troops in the service of an addiction that is at best indifferent and at worst inimical to the prosperity and s individual(gotta go back and find that word)
Powerful and at times delusional as the unconscious psychotic denial of reality is,most addicted individuals retain a sufficient commerce with social and interpersonal reality to require the augmentation of such primitive defense mechanisms by higher level and less drastic measures such as rationalization,intelluctualization,avoidance and procrastination.
Part 3 comin......
Denial in this psychodynamic defensive sense must be distinguished from lying,dishonesty and other forms of conscious and deliberate falsification.Though there is obviously a gray zone and sort of no mans land between wholly unconscious defensive psychodynamic denial and half conscious deliberate distortion and evasion of the truth,the foundations of true denial rest solidly upon a profoundly misconceived and yet firmly and unshakably believed private version of reality that is relatively or absolutely immune to outside influence.
In conscious and deliberate deception the individual remains awarw of the difference between his own truth claims and what he realizes is the actual truth of the matter;in psychdynamic denial he believes his own deceptions and distortions and therefore regards the contrary opinion of others as false and their efforts to convince him otherwise as misguided at best and malevolent at worst.
Harmful and ultimately painful addictive behaviors require a bodyguard of lies,distortions,and psychotic denial to fend off the natural corrective consequences of cognitive and behavioral dissonance resulting from addiction.
Without such an elaborate and often amazingly sophisticated array of mystification and obscuring defenses,the addictive process could not survive for long but would melt like a polar icecap in Mediterranean seas,destroyed by its innate incompatibility with its enviornment.
But when Benjamin Franklin tersely noted that 'Those things that hurt,instruct' he could not have been thinking of addiction;for it is precisely the lack of instruction in the face of cumullative hurt that suggests the operation of an addictive process concealed and protected by mental defense mechanisms,that having become perverted or detached from their natural survival adaptive function of protection of the host,now operate as defectors and mercenary troops in the service of an addiction that is at best indifferent and at worst inimical to the prosperity and s individual(gotta go back and find that word)
Powerful and at times delusional as the unconscious psychotic denial of reality is,most addicted individuals retain a sufficient commerce with social and interpersonal reality to require the augmentation of such primitive defense mechanisms by higher level and less drastic measures such as rationalization,intelluctualization,avoidance and procrastination.
Part 3 comin......
Part 3
For while psychotic denial may indeed protect the addicted individual from seeing the proverbial elephant in the living room he usually will be left with a certain smell and perhaps other reminders of the presence of the elephant that somehow must be accounted for and explained away in an agreeable manner,i.e. in a manner that does not betray the presence of the elephant.
It's not that bad,or'I am definitely going to stop one day' are classic evasions and rationalizations commonly found in established addictive processes.
The addict is frequently quite ingenious in developing personal theories that attempt to acknowledge even if in a minimized diluted fashion,the destructive consequences of his addictive behavior while linking it with a complex often Byzantine web of justifications,excuses,complaints and explanations,the bottom line of which always seems to be that'I don't really need to stop yet' or 'Now is not a good time to stop'.
Therapists and others who innocently wander into this dense maze of psychological defenses for behavior that is in many cases self-evidently irrational and harmful not merely to the addict but often to those around him.risk themselves becoming confused and bewildered by a blizzard of words,ideas,and false reasons as the addictive process throws tinfoil into the radaqr screens of both the addict and his interlocutor to keep them from interfering with its continued hegemony and behavioral expression.
whew...Part4 next
For while psychotic denial may indeed protect the addicted individual from seeing the proverbial elephant in the living room he usually will be left with a certain smell and perhaps other reminders of the presence of the elephant that somehow must be accounted for and explained away in an agreeable manner,i.e. in a manner that does not betray the presence of the elephant.
It's not that bad,or'I am definitely going to stop one day' are classic evasions and rationalizations commonly found in established addictive processes.
The addict is frequently quite ingenious in developing personal theories that attempt to acknowledge even if in a minimized diluted fashion,the destructive consequences of his addictive behavior while linking it with a complex often Byzantine web of justifications,excuses,complaints and explanations,the bottom line of which always seems to be that'I don't really need to stop yet' or 'Now is not a good time to stop'.
Therapists and others who innocently wander into this dense maze of psychological defenses for behavior that is in many cases self-evidently irrational and harmful not merely to the addict but often to those around him.risk themselves becoming confused and bewildered by a blizzard of words,ideas,and false reasons as the addictive process throws tinfoil into the radaqr screens of both the addict and his interlocutor to keep them from interfering with its continued hegemony and behavioral expression.
whew...Part4 next
