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by Kenneth L. Fischer Phd (Author)
Freud said our defenses are unconscious. I say only Repression may be considered unconscious - Example: Repressed memories and repressed impulses. All the other defenses we have the capability of bringing to our awareness. I substitute for "defense mechanisms" my more colloquial term - "Defensiveness". To help us identify the type of defensiveness we may be employing - I describe each in a way that makes it easier to relate to their relevancy for us. Defensiveness is the perceptual tool we use to reduce our anxiety and preserve our Self Concept such as it is. In short, defensiveness' job is to distort our perception of ourselves in order to reduce the anxiety of seeing ourselves as we really are. Lowering our defenses is an important first step in mitigating our perceptual tendency to distort what we see. Getting into the process of lowering our defenses will enable us to see what of ourselves needs changing. Trusting our perceptions after lowering our defenses will lead us to present ourselves more realistically through the behavioral changes we make. Living with our defenses is an admission that it would not be possible to live without them. Defensiveness will always be our fall-back option to rely upon to take some of the pressure off- But we will be in control of it rather than it in control of us.
