145 SelfWork: Dealing With the Elephant In The Room: Defending Yourself With Denial, Distraction and Other Defenses
The SelfWork Podcast
Margaret Robinson Rutherford PhD
4.8 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 6 September 2019
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Everyone knows when there's an elephant in the room. It's an event, fact or feeling-- past or present -- that can't, for some mysterious or not so mysterious reason, be acknowledged. It seems impossible or too risky or too painful to talk about. So you walk around it. Avoid it. Throw a sheet over it.
We all have what are called "defense mechanisms" to deal with what stresses us too much. It can be as simple as distraction (which can get a bad rap by some in psychology) which can entertain you, get your mind off something difficult. Or you can flat out deny it, meaning that you don't allow yourself to see or admit the reality of that stressful elephant.
Then there are more complex defenses, such as projection or compartmentalization. So today, we're talking about how you defend yourself from stress -- not a bad thing at all in moderation. It's only problematic when it's your only option to handle stress -- or tame the elephant.
Our listener email is from a teenager whose mom has two completely different ways of being and is trying to understand how to approach her. This is a common question I get about loved ones so I thought I'd answer it on air.
Important Links:
The article by Dr. John Grohol on Psych Central describing common defense mechanisms
Link to NPR's Invisibilia
You can hear more about coping with stress and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to this website and receive my weekly blog posts and podcasts!If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click here and answer the membership questions! Welcome!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is self-work and I'm Dr. Margaret Rutherford. |
| 0:13.0 | At self-work we'll discuss psychological and emotional issues common in today's world |
| 0:19.0 | and what to do about them. |
| 0:20.0 | I'm Dr. Margaret and self-work is a podcast dedicated to you taking just a few minutes today for your own self-work. |
| 0:29.0 | Hello and thanks for tuning in today to self-work. |
| 0:33.0 | I'm Dr. Margaret Rutherford. |
| 0:34.6 | I'm a clinical psychologist out of Fayeville, Arkansas, |
| 0:37.5 | and I've been practicing over 25 years now. |
| 0:40.8 | I started this podcast because I wanted to extend the walls of my practice to those of you who might already be very interested in psychological and emotional issues. |
| 0:50.0 | Perhaps to those of you who have just been diagnosed with depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, |
| 0:55.7 | whatever it happens to be, or you have a relationship problem that's a little difficult. |
| 1:00.4 | But there's that third group, and this one especially interests me because there's that third group and this one especially interests me because there's so much stigma and misinformation about mental health treatment. |
| 1:09.0 | This is the group who say they would never darken the door of a therapist, but they might just be willing |
| 1:15.3 | to tune into a podcast. So welcome whichever group you may be in. Or as someone |
| 1:20.4 | laughingly told me a few weeks ago, |
| 1:22.5 | you ought to have a fourth group, which means the people |
| 1:24.4 | that can't afford therapy. |
| 1:25.7 | So I hope this is helpful to any and all of you. |
| 1:30.0 | I started out this episode, thinking |
| 1:31.8 | it was only going to be about the difference between denial |
| 1:34.8 | and distraction, but I decided that I really wanted to talk about a few other what are called |
| 1:40.5 | defense mechanisms. |
... |
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