Title Why Do I Do That?
Author Joseph Burgo
Kind of Book Mental Health/Psychology
How strongly I recommend it 9/10
My Impressions
This is not really a feel good book. It will likely uncover some of the ways you have been "protecting" yourself from negative thoughts, emotions, and truths. Burgo goes through each of the major types of defense mechanism giving examples as well as prompts to help you identify if this is something you do. This book helped me gain a deeper understanding of how I use various defense mechanisms to blunt painful emotions. It was by no means a cure-all, however it does a great job up helping you understand why you do certain things so that you can consciously choose whether or not you want to go down that road or pave a new one
Practical Takeaways
Don't turn away when you feel threatened
Make note of your resistance/defense mechanisms when they arise
(reaction formation) Ask yourself "Why do I keep coming back to this idea, over and over, insisting that it's not true?"
(reaction formation) Ask yourself "what is it about the passage that irritates me so much?"
See if you can spot any "lies" that friends, colleagues, or family members may be telling themselves in order to evade pain
Ask yourself what unpleasant truths you might not want to face
Let yourself feel your emotions
Resist the current cultural trend toward applying diagnostic labels to everyone
Focus more on what you might be avoiding and why you find it so painful, rather than worrying too much about which specific defense mechanism you employ.
(for repressing emotions) Engage in activities completely alien to your usual routine
(for repressing emotions) Challenge yourself to confront new experiences
(for repressing needing others) Ask a friend, colleague, or family member for assistance
(for repressing needing others) Practice saying to other people "I need your help with…"
Absorb your wife's anger when she can't (and shouldn't) take it out on the baby
(reaction formation) look for the things that disgust you to identify your likely reaction formations
(reaction formation) pay attention to things you have a negative reaction to of an inappropriate or unexplainable intensity. (eg. Having fantasies about kill a type of person others don't have a huge problem with)
When you feel a strong craving for something you're addicted to, sit down and write down how it feels to desire that thing. Be detailed and thorough
(Reaction formation) exercise
1.what makes you angry?
2. What kinds of people do this?
3.Did you used to be like these people? Are you agitated that you are still like them or that you used to be like them?
Don't blast people with the sheer force of your anger in the heat of the moment
(word swap) call bipolar disorder manic depressive illness
After your idealization of your partner fades, develop true intimacy based on a realistic appreciation of your partner
(Idealization) When you catch yourself thinking "everything will be great when I have…"
(Idealization) Pay attention to the painful feelings of disappointment that come up when an ideal lets you down A: those feelings may not be the result of disappointment but rather the reason you are searching for something ideal
(Projection) Don't infect others with your bad mood
(Projection) absorb your baby and child's negative emotions until they learn how to deal with
them themselves
(Projection) don't call your parents to complain whenever you're sad, angry, depressed and make them absorb your negative emotions. Deal with the yourself- Me
(Projection) Don't make the people around you miserable just because you're in a bad mood
Think of it as your duty to sometimes help love ones bear their negative emotions when they can't do it alone
(Projection) when you feel guilty for something, don't react by getting mad at the person who made you feel guilty and try to make them feel bad for making you feel bad
(Projection) don't dull yourself to a large part of your emotional life and make your partner carry it for you.
(Projection) Don't be defensive
(Projection) Notice when you find yourself thinking nothing is your fault
(control) Do something for the first time in which you're likely to feel some strong emotions
(control) Take a few days to stop straightening up your place. Take careful note of how you feel
(control) break up your daily routine
(thinking) notice when you explain to yourself over and over why you shouldn't feel guilt
(thinking) do a reading fast
(thinking) Develop some skepticism about your thinking
(thinking) Re-focus your attention away from your head and into your body
(thinking) take up an awareness meditation practice
Return to your breath throughout your daily routine (set a timer to take a deep breath)
Make your children feel safe in the world
Help your children manage their emotions at a young age
Pay attention to when your defenses come up and choose not to engage in them. Make this new choice over and over.
Create a new habit to feeling rejection (other than to withdraw)
Notice when you feel defensive about a joke someone makes
Don't believe everything you feel
Don't decide in advance what you will and will not feel when you tune into your body
Accept your anger when it arises
Have the courage to face your pain (instead of avoid it via psychological defense mechanisms)
When you recognize one of your defense mechanisms at work, struggle to break the habit
Don't overextend yourself. Accept your limits.
Don't keep adding things to your expectation of what you are able to do to the point where you get super overwhelmed and & shut down
Accept your limitations
Love the practice
Whenever you feel yourself to be a blameless victim, stop and wonder if you are responsible for it (or part of it)
If you have repressed your sexual desire, start a self pleasure practice
Take time to grieve for the time you lost not living your life to the fullest when your defense mechanisms were blocking you
Things to Research further /Google
Ancients believed that sneeze caused the soul to escape from the body through the nose, and that saying "bless you" would prevent the Devil from seizing it.
Things that Surprised Me
The term "subconscious mind" was coined by the 18th century German philosopher Sir Christopher Riegel, introduced into English by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and then taken up by Sigmund Freud
Idealized romantic love represents a kind of hypomania whose aim may be to cure unbearable feelings of depression
Self deprecating is a type of manipulation. It gives the person the control as to when they will have negative things said about them and one figures It will hurt less if I am the one who says it and not someone else
Big Ideas
Not all defense mechanisms need to be disarmed
We never completely get rid of defense mechanisms
Accidents sometimes aren't accidents (they are motivated by unconscious forces)
We rely on psychological defense mechanisms
To keep thoughts and feelings that are either
are too painful to bear
Conflict with our morality
Undermine our self-image
Fear of uncontrollable emotions may trigger defense mechanisms
Wilhelm Reich believed that one's personality or "character traits as a whole are a compact defense mechanism."
Knowing about the defense mechanisms is not enough to stop them
Repression/Denial
Repression requires a lot of mental energy to keep the repressed information from returning to consciousness
Just because something gets pushed underground (into the unconscious) doesn't mean it is gone.
Some clients will quit treatment if they can tell the therapist is getting closed to the repressed material
Examples of repression
Repressing hostility
Passive aggressive behavior
Repressing emotions
1.See yourself as very calm, even keel person,
2.Deny angry or never gets angry
3.Deny sadness or never cry, get sad
4.Life seems flat or often bored
5.Highly logical with little room for emotion
6.Not aware of how you're feeling
Repressing need for other people (relationships, sex, friends)
undervaluing people and thereby damaging the relationship
saying we don't need anybody
feeling judgmental towards people who need "too much"
Workaholic who has no time for relationships
Pornography addiction
Food or substance abuse
Lack of deep relationships
Displacement/Reaction Formation
Examples of Displacement
A mother feeling resentment towards her child and taking it out on her husband
A man feeling resentment towards his boss and taking it out on his dog
A man feeling resentment towards his Dad and taking it out on his boxing opponent
Examples of Reaction Formation
A closeted gay man hating homosexuals
A self-hating whit liberal
An ex smoker being disgusted by smokers and judging them harshly
A stripper who feels shame about her work, shoves it in everyone's face that she strips and is overly proud about it
An insecure person with a superiority complex and goes out of their way to show everyone how great they are (ie. Narcissism)
Splitting
Examples of Splitting (as all or nothing thinking)
Thinking women are all angels or they are all devils
Loving everything about your partner, to hating everything about them
A child seeing their parent as perfect when they are a kid and terrible as an adult
Examples of Splitting (as the first step in Displacement)
Splitting your feeling of resentment off you have toward your baby
Splitting your feelings of resentment you have toward you Dad
Idealization
It is used by some people as an anti-depressant to avoid dealing with the reality of a situation of the truth of the situation
Heightened enthusiasm about the impending event helps us ward off other, more painful feelings; we don't need to confront any immediate difficulties we may have, internal or external, because they will not exist once the event comes to pass. Pg105
Examples of Idealizing a person
To believe another person or group of people have no faults
Putting the pussy on a pedestal
Idealizing celebrities
Examples of Idealizing ourselves
To believe you have no faults or difficulties
Example of Idealizing an experience
Touring as a drummer is going to solve all my problems
Examples of Idealizing our future
As soon as I do X everything will be perfect
As soon as I'm a celebrity everything will be perfect
As soon as I'm rich everything will be perfect
Everything will be great once I have X (a different job, move, buy X)
Everything will be great once I meet the right person
Projection
Examples of Projection of Guilt
You do something bad. Someone calls you out on it. You feel guilty and try to make them feel bad/guilty for making you feel guilty eg. Calling them judgmental, fuck you you're not perfect
Examples of Projecting Insecurity
A bully who is insecure picking on a kid because he has projected onto him that he is insecure
Examples of Projecting neediness
A man who gets in a relationship with a "needy" woman and denies his own needs and projects them onto her, making her carry them for him
Control
Examples of Control
Deeply wedded to Routine
Tradition
Trying to control other people (because our need for them makes us feel helpless)
Not entering relationships/breaking them off
Not putting oneself in situations where one is likely to feel strong emotions
Avoid new situations
Appear even-tempered
Devoting energy towards influencing people's impression of you
Self deprecating (I will call myself a loser before others can. It will hurt less if I say it and I can control when it is said)
Thinking/Intellectualizing
Making up excuses to make yourself feel better
Person who rarely feels passionate about anything
Always cold/objective/rational
Come across asexual
Out of touch with body
Live in their head
Use rationalizations to avoid relationships
Detached from emotions
Shame
3 defenses for people who deal with shame
Narcissism
Blaming
Contempt
Things that Surprised Me
The term "subconscious mind" was coined by the 18th century German philosopher Sir Christopher Riegel, introduced into English by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and then taken up by Sigmund Freud
Idealized romantic love represents a kind of hypomania whose aim may be to cure unbearable feelings of depression
Self deprecating is a type of manipulation. It gives the person the control as to when they will have negative things said about them and one figures It will hurt less if I am the one who says it and not someone else
Ancients believed that sneeze caused the soul to escape from the body through the nose, and that saying "bless you" would prevent the Devil from seizing it.