Isolation – a somewhat helpful strategy we use to manage strong feelings (1 minute read)

Here the post “Isolation – a somewhat helpful strategy we use to manage strong feelings” continues with how you can increase your self-esteem by managing your thoughts and feelings.

Isolation – a somewhat helpful strategy we use to manage strong feelings:

The psychiatrist Vaillant has divided the defense mechanisms into 4 levels. The levels mirror different levels of maturity and hence are increasingly constructive ways of dealing with difficult feelings.

This post continues with Level III which contains intermediate, neurotic defenses common in mild anxiety problems but also in diagnoses such as phobias and panic disorder. They cause the user more discomfort than the observer.

The defense mechanism isolation is when a person separate ideas or feelings from the rest of their thoughts.

It creates a gap between an unpleasant or threatening thought and other thoughts and feelings.

By this the threatening thought will be remembered less often and is less likely to affect self-esteem and identity. Freud used the example of a person who starts a train of thought and then pause before continuing to a different topic. The pause creates distance between the two topics.

The two defense mechanisms isolation and undoing are connected to intellectualization. Undoing is the topic of the next post.

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