4 Healthy Ways to Cope with Unpleasant Realities
Some defense mechanisms work much better than others.
By Loren Soeiro, Ph.D. ABPP
January 31, 2025
So, your dentist says you might need oral surgery, and you get back to your car to find that it’s been booted—and just then, your sister texts to say she’s mad at you. Or: you’ve just scraped together enough money to pay this month’s rent, but then it turns out that your roommate left the heat on over the holiday weekend, and you know you won’t be able to pay the utility bill…and, at the same time, your boss tells you she’s cutting your hours this month because of a customer complaint. Or even: you can’t sleep again, for the third night in a row, and when you scroll through the news, it looks like it’s getting worse and worse, and you can’t be sure that the way you live won’t be affected directly.
The feeling is clear, in each of these situations: a sense that “the universe” has burdened you with bad luck and unhappiness, which you don’t expect to go away any time soon. Admittedly, I drew upon some dire implications in the examples I chose, but it’s also true that everyone goes through periods in which nothing seems to go right. Naturally, it can help a great deal to have the chance to talk about your feelings, to work through the way they’re related to the life you’ve led, and to consider how to make decisions about the future. But there are also several clear but general ways—defenses—to cope with the feelings that arise from repeated misfortune.
Even if you are familiar with defense mechanisms, did you know that some are better than others? Consider denial, the psychological equivalent of an ostrich, sticking its head in the sand—an excellent metaphor, even if real ostriches do not do this. According to the myth, the ostrich seems to be trying hard to avoid perceiving the world in which it lives, and thus to deny the existence of its problems. But even if the ostrich pretends that an advancing predator doesn’t exist, that predator might still attack; metaphorically, then, denying the existence of a stressor can’t make it go away. It’s a primitive effort to distort reality by making it disappear.
How about distraction, instead? If you’re not able to sleep because you’re focused on your problems—like, for example, earning enough money, this quarter, to pay for the expensive summer camp your daughter wants to go to—perhaps sitting down to an episode of reality TV with your partner, and taking your mind off the issue, might help for a while (as long as you are also doing your best to earn the money you need). In this way, distraction can serve as a valuable temporary escape from stress so you can recharge enough to get back to work, as long as you don’t pretend the summer camp deposit isn’t still waiting to be paid.
In order to distract yourself effectively, you may also need to manage the emotions that you’re feeling as a result of whatever it is you’re going through. The healthy way to do this is by what’s called suppression, which is to say, deliberately and consciously pushing unpleasant thoughts to the background. Telling yourself you don’t need to think about next week’s unpleasant medical procedure, then, will help you much more than worrying about it every day.
Or perhaps, if you’re angry at your partner for an insensitive remark he has just made to your grandparents, you might choose to put those feelings aside for the moment in order to get through the rest of the afternoon without another incident (before letting him know, in private, exactly what he got wrong and why). In this way, suppression — which is done with intention — is distinguished from repression, an unconscious defense in which memories of painful experiences become vague or seem to disappear. Repressed memories may continue to affect through emotional symptoms, spontaneous reactions, or other assumptions about human relationships, and can carry a steep psychological cost. In this case, reality is distorted by diminishment or forcible deletion. By contrast, suppression works best in short-term situations where expressing your emotions then and there won’t help you.
Our last way to manage serious life difficulties might be the best of all, but also, the most challenging. To take an innocent example: nobody likes being stuck in traffic. Imagine yourself driving home after a holiday weekend—at rush hour, in the rain, in stop-and-go conditions. The longer such an experience lasts, the more you might feel like screaming, or jumping out of the car, or just stomping on the gas and trying to escape in the breakdown lane. What’s the best way to help yourself under those conditions? Some people tend to hammer on their steering wheels and others try desperately to gain a positional advantage, one car-length at a time. But what about choosing a loud, well-known song on your phone and cranking the car stereo up as you sing along, loud enough to vent your anger?
Even if you’re not a great singer, you might be able to sublimate your feelings into an effort to produce music. Along these lines, sublimation generally refers to the effort to change socially unacceptable impulses and feelings into something positive or productive. Many people who have lived through personal traumas write books about their experiences, in order to share them with others; similarly, those who have struggled with drug or alcohol dependence can pay forward the wisdom they have gained by sponsoring others in twelve-step programs. An old friend of mine once took up boxing, and developed a fair amount of skill with the speed bag, to burn away the anger he felt after the end of a long relationship. Altruistic behavior—helping others—can also fall under this heading. Let’s say you’re not happy with the political direction of your state or community; perhaps spending your time in a volunteer activity, like making calls for an organization whose goals you believe in, could offer a small chance to chip away at your big feelings. Generally speaking, if you can find a way to channel your unhappiness into something constructive, you’re metabolizing negative feelings in a positive way, and that’s sublimation.
The more primitive defense mechanisms, like repression or denial, can have serious consequences for your psychological health or your interpersonal relationships. So, however you can manage it, if you’re working through your difficult feelings without distorting reality—via distraction, suppression, or sublimation—then you’re using mature defense mechanisms, and you’ll likely be better off in the long run.
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