Lecture 49- Defense Mechanisms-IV — Transcript

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1. 0:16Hello friends, I'm your course
2. 0:18instructor Shubraasha and this is
3. 0:21lecture four of module 10 of the stress
4. 0:24management course.
5. 0:27Till now we have learned about several
6. 0:30defense mechanisms and this lecture will
7. 0:34cover a few more.
8. 0:37So here we are going to discuss about
9. 0:40the defense mechanisms of displacement,
10. 0:43humor, intellectualization
11. 0:46and isolation of effect.
12. 0:50Let us begin with displacement.
13. 0:53Displacement word simply refers to an
14. 0:57action action of relocating something to
15. 1:01a new place.
16. 1:03How is it employed in defense mechanism?
17. 1:08It is an action of redirecting one's
18. 1:12emotions to a more benign or neutral
19. 1:16target instead of expressing it towards
20. 1:20the actual reason causing those
21. 1:23emotions.
22. 1:26Want little more explanation?
23. 1:29Right.
24. 1:31You might have noticed that sometimes
25. 1:34when we are badly scolded by our
26. 1:37teachers or by our bosses,
27. 1:40we go back home and expresses all our
28. 1:45anger either to our younger siblings or
29. 1:50to our mother or to our wife.
30. 1:55Why we do this? Because teacher or boss
31. 1:59is a powerful figure. If I try to press
32. 2:03my feelings of retaliation, of anger, of
33. 2:07hostility towards an authority figure,
34. 2:11it may be harmful for me. So
35. 2:14understanding the situation, I keep my
36. 2:17emotions with me. I kept waiting till I
37. 2:22get a more benign target to release
38. 2:25those emotions.
39. 2:28As soon as I reach a safer setting that
40. 2:30is my home and I got a soft target who
41. 2:34is either not going to answer back or
42. 2:38maybe there could be a normal fight but
43. 2:40the result of that would not be damaging
44. 2:43for me in proportion to what it could be
45. 2:48if I expressed my emotion in the office
46. 2:51or in the school. I'm going to release
47. 2:54all my pent up emotions towards that
48. 2:58soft target.
49. 3:00May I be given even a slightest or
50. 3:03mildest precipitator to do the same.
51. 3:07This is the basic idea behind
52. 3:10displacement.
53. 3:12It gives you a safer way to discharge
54. 3:17your emotion. But of course this is very
55. 3:20damaging for the people around you
56. 3:23because they have to face all those
57. 3:28negativity, all those anger, hostility
58. 3:32without being the reason of it. So use
59. 3:36of displacement
60. 3:38frequently can put the person in
61. 3:40trouble.
62. 3:43So this is what I was talking about.
63. 3:47This misdirected emotions
64. 3:50actually prevents the solution of the
65. 3:53problem. Instead of communicating it in
66. 3:57a mature way to the boss or teacher that
67. 4:00you don't like the way they behave, the
68. 4:02way they interact with you and it is
69. 4:05causing a lot of mental stress to you.
70. 4:08You started indulging in discharging
71. 4:12behavior, discharging your emotions to
72. 4:15someone else who was not at all
73. 4:17responsible for all this. So you are
74. 4:19feeling bad about something and you
75. 4:23discharged all your negative emotions
76. 4:26to a soft target. You know
77. 4:30although it can reduce anxiety for the
78. 4:32time being it results in a lot more
79. 4:35harmful consequences for the person.
80. 4:39Then comes the humor.
81. 4:42This is an interesting practice and it
82. 4:45operates on the principle that if one
83. 4:48can substitute a negative emotion with a
84. 4:52more positive one.
85. 4:54Next is humor. This is an interesting
86. 4:57defense mechanism which is based upon
87. 5:00the principle of substitution.
88. 5:03Substitution substituting the negative
89. 5:06emotion by a more positive one by a more
90. 5:11lighter uh emotion which is pleasant to
91. 5:14us. So what happens? You might have
92. 5:17noticed that during a very intense
93. 5:20discussion, if somebody comes with a
94. 5:24very hilarious note, maybe a folktale
95. 5:28which is based on some uh you know
96. 5:30humorous sequences or a comical tale of
97. 5:34someone in a uogology. This is going to
98. 5:39reduce the stress immediately. Everybody
99. 5:41connects to it, starts laughing and the
100. 5:44whole perception about the scenario
101. 5:46changes. So humor is considered to be a
102. 5:50very powerful tool in reducing a stress.
103. 5:53But this powerful tool has to be managed
104. 5:57very carefully. If we start using humor
105. 6:01in a way which appears to be humilating
106. 6:04to someone else, this may increase the
107. 6:07stress many folds instead of reducing
108. 6:11it.
109. 6:12So no matter it is a very effective way
110. 6:15to cope with the stress, anxiety and
111. 6:18uncomfortable emotions by redirecting
112. 6:21attention and sometimes by restructuring
113. 6:25the perception of the reality. It may be
114. 6:28very damaging if it is presented in a
115. 6:32way which seems offensive to other
116. 6:35people. So one must be very careful in
117. 6:39using this particular defense mechanism.
118. 6:42Then comes intellectualization.
119. 6:46Intellectualization
120. 6:47simply means looking at the situation in
121. 6:51a more logical way instead of in an
122. 6:55emotional way.
123. 6:58If I have to face an examination or an
124. 7:03interview to get my promotion
125. 7:07instead of being panic or anxious about
126. 7:09it that oh my god how the interview
127. 7:12panel is going to judge me how they are
128. 7:15going to evaluate me what if my
129. 7:18performance is not up to mark how
130. 7:21damaging it would be for my selfimage my
131. 7:25students my colleagues What do they
132. 7:27think about myself?
133. 7:30I can focus more upon the logical aspect
134. 7:34of it that to be promoted I need to
135. 7:38acquire skills and knowledge up to a
136. 7:42basic level. An interview is just a way
137. 7:46to assess how much I have achieved.
138. 7:50If I do not get through the interview
139. 7:53successfully, it indicates that I need
140. 7:57more practice, more time to acquire the
141. 8:02desired set of skills or the desired
142. 8:04knowledge base and everybody work on
143. 8:08one's own pace. So there is no harm if
144. 8:10other person have successfully acquired
145. 8:13or accomplished the required value set
146. 8:16or the knowledge set and I failed to do
147. 8:19so. It's okay. I can work more.
148. 8:22This is what happens when students
149. 8:25commit suicide after failing in an
150. 8:28examination. They look at the situation
151. 8:31emotionally overwhelmed with emotions
152. 8:34which are directly connected to their
153. 8:38self-esteem to their self-worth.
154. 8:41Instead of that if they simply look at
155. 8:44the situation more logically that is the
156. 8:48examination is simply a way to assess
157. 8:51how much I have learned throughout the
158. 8:54year where I am lacking on which points
159. 8:58I need to focus more. I can be more
160. 9:02relaxed and can feel encouraged about
161. 9:06working more to crack the examination
162. 9:09successfully. So intellectualization
163. 9:12is a way of dealing with the situation
164. 9:16in a more logical or objective way
165. 9:19instead of getting emotionally involved
166. 9:22with it that too unduly.
167. 9:28It avoids
168. 9:29and sometimes reduce emotional distress.
169. 9:33But if I am very much habituated to this
170. 9:37practice, sometimes I may fail to notice
171. 9:41the delicate emotions related with the
172. 9:45situation. I can appear emotionally numb
173. 9:50to other people who always talk about
174. 9:53the logics and explanations completely
175. 9:57denying the presence of emotions that
176. 10:00can be there with the situation. Here
177. 10:05is the next defense mechanism known as
178. 10:08isolation of effect.
179. 10:11What happens that every situation, every
180. 10:15interaction is accompanied by some kind
181. 10:19of emotion, they may be good or bad. If
182. 10:23the emotions experienced by us are good,
183. 10:28we want to continue with them. We want
184. 10:30to relive the moments. We want to keep
185. 10:32talking about those memories about those
186. 10:36incidences because those incidences and
187. 10:39memories make us feel happy immediately.
188. 10:43On the other hand, if the associated
189. 10:46emotions are bad, they are painful, they
190. 10:50cause anger and agony or they somehow
191. 10:54feels humiliating for oneself,
192. 10:57one wants to do away with those kind of
193. 11:00emotions. What can we do? We can either
194. 11:07turn towards the mechanisms of
195. 11:09suppression or repression or we can make
196. 11:13use of isolation of effect. If I
197. 11:18repeatedly talk about that thing, if I
198. 11:21repeatedly review that particular
199. 11:24incidents happening, I can detach my
200. 11:27emotions from the situation
201. 11:31with the passage of time.
202. 11:34emotions on itself also vanishes. They
203. 11:38get reduced in terms of their intensity.
204. 11:42So this is the appropriate time when I
205. 11:46can detach my emotion from the situation
206. 11:50or the happening.
207. 11:53You must have watched people talking
208. 11:56about their childhood mistakes in a very
209. 12:00objective manner and they present them
210. 12:03to others as an opportunity to learn
211. 12:07something about human behavior about how
212. 12:11our mind works and how we should
213. 12:13identify our own faults and rectify
214. 12:16them.
215. 12:18How does it happen? they can do it
216. 12:21because now they have detached the
217. 12:24feeling of shame and guilt from what had
218. 12:28happened.
219. 12:30Similarly,
220. 12:31you might have noticed that people who
221. 12:35undergo major surgeries or some terminal
222. 12:39illness or sometimes anything shocking
223. 12:43if happens in somebody's life, we try to
224. 12:47talk about more and more about it.
225. 12:51We try to discuss it with everyone
226. 12:54and we notice that when we discuss about
227. 12:59that particular sad or uh emotionally uh
228. 13:03you know pinching event for the first
229. 13:05time we get emotional for the second
230. 13:07time we get emotional but for from the
231. 13:09third time we find our emotions getting
232. 13:13numbed and when we do the same thing
233. 13:16again and again we can present the whole
234. 13:19scenario in a very
235. 13:22you know emotionally blunt manner as if
236. 13:24we are not at all emotional about it. We
237. 13:27simply narrate the whole incidents in a
238. 13:29very objective manner.
239. 13:31This is the process of isolation of
240. 13:35effect. Effect here refers to emotions.
241. 13:38Isolation of emotions means we are going
242. 13:41to detach emotion, disconnect emotions
243. 13:44with the situations we have faced.
244. 13:48This process can also be adopted to
245. 13:52overcome the anxiety and uh fear related
246. 13:55with trauma and to maintain better
247. 13:58emotional control. But sometimes it can
248. 14:02also lead to emotional numbness or at
249. 14:05least we can appear to other people as
250. 14:08being emotionally detached or
251. 14:10indifferent towards very significant
252. 14:14events of our life.
253. 14:17So this was all about the four defense
254. 14:20mechanisms we had scheduled for this
255. 14:23lecture. Let us review what we have
256. 14:27learned so far. We have talked about
257. 14:30displacement that is shifting of our
258. 14:32emotion from the actual causes of it to
259. 14:37a more benign target which may not harm
260. 14:42us equally and this provides a safe
261. 14:45setting to us in order to release our
262. 14:49emotions. Humor is also effective as a
263. 14:53way of dealing with stresses. It
264. 14:56operates on the principle of
265. 14:58substitution. So we are trying to
266. 15:01substitute a more pleasant emotion with
267. 15:04a with an unpleasant emotion. But at the
268. 15:08same time we must be careful that humor
269. 15:11should not appear as humiliation of
270. 15:14someone else. Then intellectualization
271. 15:18is a process when we try to look at the
272. 15:21situation in a very objective manner.
273. 15:24And finally, isolation of effect is a
274. 15:27method where we try to detach our
275. 15:30emotions from a highly emotionally
276. 15:34arousing situation. For example, a
277. 15:37traumatic event or a major life
278. 15:40challenge in for someone.
279. 15:45This is the list of recommended readings
280. 15:47that you can go through. A few more
281. 15:55the list of books and articles continue.
282. 16:01Thank you very much for your patient
283. 16:04listening.