A sequence for making defenses conscious, showing their cost, and helping the client replace automatic avoidance with emotional awareness.
Step-by-step guide
- Identify repeated defenses
- Clarify how each defense operates
- Demonstrate the short-term protection and long-term cost
- Invite the client to interrupt the defense in session
- Practice returning to feeling, anxiety, and impulse
When to use
- With entrenched defenses
- When the same avoidance pattern repeats across sessions
- When the client has enough observing ego
Key phrases
This protects you from feeling, but it also keeps the suffering in place.
Follow-up questions
Can you see the defense happening now?
What feeling appears when you do not use it?
Alternative phrasings
The defense helped you survive then; does it help you now?
Let us separate you from the defense.
Warnings
- ⚠️ Do not remove defenses faster than anxiety can be tolerated
- ⚠️ Fragile clients need graded restructuring
- ⚠️ Avoid moralizing about defenses
Source: Davanloo, H. Abbass, A. Coughlin, P
Materials are informational and educational and summarize publicly available scientific sources. They are not medical or psychological advice, are not intended for self-diagnosis or self-treatment, and do not replace consultation with a qualified professional.