While the Primitive, or Pathological Defenses are likely bans against you even dating a person, let alone forming a commitment with them, the Immature Defenses, which one can fall into a tiny bit here and there, might be an occurrence you are able to work with and occasionally tolerate and correct. It will be a question of frequency and degree. If they are rampant and pervasive, you might as well consider them to be as much of a block on the possibility of the necessary skills of commitment as the Primitive Defenses are.

These defenses are often present in adults, and also lessen inner conflict and anxiety produced by threatening people or by just not wanting to deal with the social reality at hand. Excessive use of these is seen as socially undesirable, in that they are immature, difficult to deal with and seriously out of touch with reality. Overuse almost always leads to serious problems in a person's ability to be in a relationship. They are also seen in clinical depression and personality disorders. mastery of the personal boundary is the ultimate test of whether it is possible to commit to each other, or to anybody for that matter. While one of the most valuable tools of the psychoanalyst to evaluate and treat us for our strange ways with each other, our “neuroses,” is the analysis of the Ego Defenses, I am certain of a couple things about them:

If we don’t render them in a physical way where you could literally learn to “see” them in ourselves and others, they won’t do us much good, as universal and potentially useful as they may be. And you have, indeed heard of them. One of the most common, pervasive, and primitive ones is called, “denial.”

Why, “repression?” Because of the very nature of a personal boundary: it “contains,” or “holds” our psyche together, including the “tamping down” of any force which were to try to be unleashed,” (and just as much, to block any force which would try to get in.) This “tamping down” of our own drives, or instinctual or passion-based tendencies is literally the “repressing” of that tendency.

These mechanisms are often present in adults. These mechanisms lessen distress and anxiety produced by threatening people or by an uncomfortable reality. Excessive use of such defenses is seen as socially undesirable, in that they are immature, difficult to deal with and seriously out of touch with reality. These are the so-called "immature" defences and overuse almost always leads to serious problems in a person's ability to cope effectively. These defences are often seen in major depression and personality disorders.

They will cause a person to not be able to participate at all in the Four Skills of Commitment or to make adjustments in the Four Commonalities of Commitment seen in intellectual attraction. Not without major changes and skill building in these areas.

Common Immature Defense Mechanisms

Acting Out ➳

Direct expression in action of an unconscious wish, instinct or impulse, without conscious awareness of the emotion underlying the behavior. It is literally letting the instincts run our behavior without filtering or intervention by our boundaries, ethics, or other features of behaving in a socially civilized way, most often caused by a lack of Observing Ego skill.

Fantasy ➳

When people have the tendency to retreat into fantasy in order to resolve their inner conflicts, or outer stresses, this is also the way of teens who take to science fiction or romantic fantasy media to keep themselves from being overwhelmed. If something dabbled in as a guilty pleasure, there is something to be said for the enriching of the creative mind, however, since the intellectual attraction phase of courtship is all about goal-setting in our committed relationships, living in a fantasy will just not do.

Idealization ➳

This defense appears when we see another person as having more desirable qualities than he or she may actually have. We saw the basic boundary anatomy of this defense when we looked at the defense called, “Projection.” Only in this case - Idealization - we are participating in a kind of “hero worship,” which any of us can indulge in from time to time.

Introjection ➳

This is one of those defenses which can be an incredibly healthy thing when it is either age-appropriate or suitable to adaptive needs that fit the context of our lives. It demonstrates how evolutionarily crucial the ego defenses are for our growth and development, and how it is that - maturity appropriate to our age at the time - they may even manage to save us from trouble in the nick of time. Introjection is especially befitted to such a human need, because it is the essence of hero worship. We need heroes throughout our lives, and those moments of tribulation and despair are the ones in which we most desperately need the “self-heroism” of introjection.

Passive-aggressiveness ➳

Oh, you know this one well. So well. You have been it, done it, and experienced it countless times.  It is aggression towards others expressed indirectly or passively, often through procrastination or some other seemingly non-aggressive but destructive act.

Projection ➳

Projection lowers our anxiety by letting our instincts and desires get expressed without becoming consciously aware of them.  We take our own unacceptable or unwanted thoughts and emotions and place them onto another person, perhaps blaming them, shaming them or otherwise dispensing with that in ourselves which we do not like.

Projective Identification ➳

This is one of those weird ones to wrap your mind around. You have views of yourself and the world which you aren’t able to accept about yourself, but when you put them out onto other people, now you find them at a safe distance, more in your control. Now you do not feel as alone with them, and can accept them in yourself.

Somatization ➳

This is the unconscious process of taking negative feelings or instincts originally directed towards others, but which are in violation of one’s morals or character - for example, “hating” a dying grandfather - and redirecting them at oneself: pain, illness, and anxiety. It is exemplified by sayings such as, “I make myself sick.”

Wishful Thinking ➳

Call it the “Walter Mitty syndrome,” or call it being a pathological dreamer, but those of us who tend to unconsciously making decisions based on what might be enjoyable to our imagination instead of by appealing to evidence, rationality, and reality, tend to present an intoxicating roadblock to a successful relationship for those they seduce into their hyper-romantic world.

Return to the FOUR LEVELS OF EGO DEFENSES ➳

See the Primitive Ego Defenses, Immature Ego Defenses, Neurotic Ego Defenses, and Mature Ego Defenses.