Part 1
Think about your family when you were growing up. Jot down the first thing that comes to your mind to complete each of these phrases:
In thinking about my parents, the thing I most respected about my mother was the way she…
The thing I most respected about my father was the way he…
In thinking about my parents’ marriage, the thing they did the best or handled extremely well was…
When I think about my mother, the one trait that most embarrassed or turned me off was…
When I think about my father, the one trait that most embarrassed or turned me off was…
In thinking about my parents’ marriage, the thing that made me most uncomfortable was…
If I could have changed one thing about my mother, I would have made her…
If I could have changed one thing about my father, I would have made him…
Part 2
Now highlight or underline the key words and themes that appear in each of your responses and answer the following questions:
Do you see any of these characteristics in yourself or in your most important relationships?
Write down one of your likenesses to either parent that fills you with comfort or pride.
Write down one of your likenesses to either parent that makes you uncomfortable or ashamed.
What recent situation made you aware of this unwanted trait?
Would this kind of situation typically lead to an emotional overreaction?
Although there are certain situations that can provoke overreactions for most people, the personal values that you have acquired play a very important role in defining the issues you are most sensitive to. By taking the time to think about the qualities that you observed and reacted to in your childhood family, you will be more quickly alerted when these core values are challenged. You may still end up doing what feels “right,” but you will be able to recognize the identifications and disidentifications that are stimulating your response.
Chapter 5
Splitting, Denial, and Flooding
When we are overcome by emotions, our ability to see things objectively is thrown out the window. Even when we switch to the logical left brain, our emotional system is on overload and will automatically attempt to reduce our levels of anxiety and tension. To do this, psychological defense mechanisms spring into action. A defense mechanism is an unconscious response to anxiety that allows us to deal with the situation from a safer position. Just as a suit of armor will deflect an arrow, a defense mechanism temporarily alters the way we view the situation that has made us feel overwhelmed. When our central nervous system just can’t handle another difficult moment, our defense mechanisms come to the rescue.
Psychological Defense Mechanisms
You have probably heard about some of the more common defense mechanisms and, if you have studied psychology, may even know which ones you tend to use. Many of us use rationalization when we want to justify why we can bend the rules when it suits us. Most of us use sublimation, which allows us to harness energy that cannot be safely released and turn it into something more productive. For example, if a friend has made you so furious that you would like to punch him in the face, you might decide to grab the garden shears and trim down some overgrown bushes instead.
When it comes to overreacting, various defense mechanisms join forces. Perhaps the most important defense is one referred to in the psychological field as splitting. Under the influence of splitting, we see things in an exaggerated fashion. Things are either all good or all bad. However, in order to see things in such an extreme way, the defense mechanism of denial automaticallykicks in. When we are emotionally centered, things are rarely entirely good or completely bad. However, in order to preserve a perspective based on splitting, denial acts like a pair of blinders that prevents us from noticing or giving much credence to anything that would contradict a one-sided opinion. To put this another way, if splitting requires that we see something as completely black, denial makes sure that anything white or gray is kept out of sight and out of mind. As a result, we are only able to recognize certain aspects of a situation and end up seeing things in a skewed manner. Not having all the information available makes it more likely that our reactions and decisions will not be the best ones possible.
Splitting not only obscures our judgment, it also adds to the intensity of our experience. As if that isn’t bad enough, the combination of splitting and denial often stimulates memories of other situations that were experienced in the extreme. When this happens, we are flooded by old memories and all of the feelings that were experienced in the past. These emotional memories and leftover emotions from the past comingle with the present situation in a way that magnifies our response. Splitting, denial, and flooding can be activated in less than thirty seconds, creating an appraisal and an intense response that have little to do with the situation at hand (J. P. Siegel 1992, 2006).
Jenny’s Story
Jenny’s resentment toward her husband Phil had been growing for two years, but one night she exploded and was ready to call the marriage quits. Jenny had worked late and was exhausted by the time she got home. She had been relieved to see Phil’s car in the driveway. She hated to think that the girls were home alone. True, they were responsible girls who were more than capable of heating up the dinner she had left for them, but lately Kristen had been slacking off on her homework.
But instead of finding the girls doing their work and the house running smoothly, the sight that greeted Jenny made her wish she had stayed even longer at work. The kitchen was a mess, with orange peels and peanut shells all over the counter tops. Phil was zoned out in front of the TV, completely oblivious to the mess, the girls, or the fact that the dog was lapping water from the toilet. But she really lost it when she called upstairs to ask Kristen if she was doing her homework and Phil interjected. When Phil told her to leave Kristen alone, she felt like he was working against her. Instead of having a partner who shared her concern for their children, she had a third teenager who just wanted to play his way through life. Not only was he setting a bad example for their daughters, he was intervening to protect them from her. The look on his face made her feel that he was judging her as being too serious, demanding, and difficult. Of course the girls would rather chat on the Internet than do their homework, and of course they would prefer the parent who let them get away with things. It became perfectly clear that not only would she never get the support she needed, she would have to work twice as hard to put out the fires that Phil was setting.
If we take a closer look at this situation, it is easy to see splitting in action. When Jenny saw Phil relaxing despite the disarray in the kitchen, her mind came to several rapid conclusions. From her perspective, Phil was once again being completely irresponsible. Without being aware of it, Jenny flashed back to other situations that, in her opinion, Phil had mismanaged. While Jenny prided herself on living up to her commitments, Phil could often let things slide. Jenny immediately assumed that this was just another example of Phil allowing himself to tune out the girls in order to relax. Splitting brought Jenny to a rapid assessment that colored her judgment and reaction. Now that she was focused on Phil’s inadequacies, she immediately assumed that Phil had not adequately supervised Kristen and that, in all likelihood, Kristen was goofing off. Because she didn’t feel that Phil was supporting her, Jenny believed that Phil was undermining her and encouraging the girls to choose pleasure over responsibility.
But Jenny hadn’t even taken the time to find out whether Kristen’s homework was done and what had been going on prior to her arrival that made Phil tell her to back off. Splitting had led to a very specific vantage point, and she had filled in the blanks with her own version of the truth.
All Good or All Bad
While it is perfectly normal to use personal history to inform our understanding of current realities, splitting directs us to stored memories that do not relate fully to the present situation. One way t
o understand how splitting works is to imagine a two-drawer filing cabinet. Memories are not just randomly accumulated but are attached to schemas that are organized before they are filed away. Splitting separates our positive schemas from ones that are filled with pain or disappointment. In the memory cabinet that we each have, we store the positive memories and schemas in one drawer and the memories of things that we wish had never happened in the other. But it is impossible to have both drawers open at the same time. If a schema from the good drawer is activated, the entire drawer may slide open. When that happens, we are focused only on the good and have no awareness or access to things that are tucked away in the bad drawer. In a similar way, when a schema from the bad drawer is opened, we become aware of other emotional memories filed in that drawer. At the same time, the schemas about good things that could have offset or balanced the bad are, for the moment, tightly sealed away in the good drawer. When we only have access to memories that are either all good or all bad, we are primed to overreact.
Drs. Lorna Benjamin and F. J. Friedrich (1991) suggest that the feelings that are awakened when memory schemas are activated can be very intense. The schemas also carry our conclusions about past experiences. Without realizing it, this colors our expectations, as it is normal to assume that what happened before might happen again.
In the story above, Jenny has a file that is dedicated to the subject of competence. In fact, there are two files dedicated to competence: one is located in the good drawer, and the other is filed in the bad drawer. If Jenny had opened the file labeled “Feeling proud of Phil,” she would be flooded with pride and security. She would likely remember how Phil was recognized as salesman of the year and was celebrated at last year’s company banquet. She might remember how clever he had been when he installed a speaker system that required an amazing amount of patience. But seeing Phil relaxed despite the orange peels and peanut shells had stimulated a schema of incompetence and pushed Jenny into the drawer of bad experiences. All she could think about were Phil’s shortcomings and failures, from a file labeled “Phil screws up again.”
Once the bad drawer is open, the situation is ripe for overreaction. Because Jenny was flooded with memories of past incidents where Phil’s low standards had caused her to be shamed or compromised, she assumed that this time would be no different. She expected that Phil would come up with some lame excuse as he had done in the past or turn it around and blame her for not making her expectations clear. She started to feel utterly pessimistic that life with Phil could ever make her happy. In ten seconds, Jenny’s thoughts had gone from the orange peels to memories of twenty years of accumulated failings. Denial prevented Jenny from asking whether the girls had finished their homework and from noticing that aside from the signs of a late-night snack, all the dinner dishes had been cleaned and put away.
As we get to know the file cabinets that can rule our emotional lives, we will notice that the files in each of the drawers are not ordered alphabetically. Some files are located so close to other files that when one is accessed, others get pulled out as well. In Jenny’s case, her experience of needing to defend her standards against Phil led to the possibility of conflict with a close family member. The recognition of differences between them had opened the file in the bad drawer labeled “Criticism leads to losing love.” When Phil told her to back off, Jenny felt threatened that she would be excluded from the bond shared by her husband and children. If a therapist had been there to probe the past, Jenny might have remembered times when her parents criticized and then rejected her. There might also have been times when friends disapproved of how she had handled something and excluded her from their circle. But at that moment, it was Phil joining with her daughters in a shared defiance against her. While the details of this scenario were different, once the files from the past had sprung open, the combination of flooding, splitting, and denial created the straw that broke the camel’s back.
When we are in an episode where we are splitting and flooding, the present situation becomes even more unbearable. As the past merges with the present, it is impossible for us to untangle the different sources of feelings. The intensity and certainty that we feel in the moment may be our only clues that our response might be far greater than the immediate situation calls for.
It is always easier to recognize splitting after the fact. When the incident has passed, we have room to consider alternative explanations and concede to misunderstandings. But when we are in the midst of splitting, our confused emotions create a sense of truth and certainty that justifies emotions that are in many ways blinding. If you find yourself in an intense situation that seems totally one-sided, you are probably splitting and flooding. Our relationships are rarely completely good or totally bad. Sometimes being aware that you have taken an all-or-nothing stance is the first clue that splitting and flooding have taken over. When we see things as all good or all bad, we have opened the file cabinet and found a schema that causes us to view things through a lens that narrows our view. Even the people and things that we hate the most have some good points, and in most situations there are some positives to offset the negatives. When things seem to point in only one direction, splitting is most likely the culprit. Denial makes sure that we only focus on aspects that will reinforce our perspective, leading us to interpret events through a lens that skews our perspective. Our response seems perfectly justified and appropriate to us but way out of line to everyone else.
End-of-Chapter Exercises
The folders that you have in the drawers of your file cabinet are unique to you, but knowing about the common themes and triggers (described in section 2) might shed light on those issues or triggers that are powerful enough to open your “bad” drawer and cause you to overreact.
Exercise 1: In My Family
Families that operate with a high level of splitting can generate this kind of response pattern in their children. Look at each of the descriptions and patterns listed in this exercise and note whether each was true or false in your family.
True or false: In the family in which I grew up…
we never knew when a small problem would turn into a crisis.
some days my parents thought I was great; other days, they thought I was terrible.
people saw things the way they wanted to, not how they were.
people frequently exaggerated.
our parents would punish one of us for something that another sibling could get away with.
my mother or father could stay in a bad mood for days on end.
someone would mention problems from the past during arguments.
people believed what they wanted to believe regardless of evidence to the contrary.
If you answered “true” to most of these questions, then chances are you grew up with defensive splitting. If that is the case, it means that you had less exposure to ways of handling problems in calm, thoughtful ways. Families who operate out of the “all good” or “all bad” drawer frequently generate this style of reacting in their children. Learning to identify those of your triggers that most often stimulate splitting and recognizing what your intense posture feels like will help you de-escalate a cycle that has the potential to harm you and the people you are close to.
Exercise 2: Identifying Splitting
Although there are some triggers and schemas that are more common than others, you need to know exactly what yours look and feel like. When you are splitting, there are specific thoughts, beliefs, expectations, feelings, and responses that tend to be repeated. I will start you out in this exercise by listing responses that are common. You can think about whether each is true or false for you. I hope it will get you to start thinking about the specific thoughts and responses that you experience when you are in your “good” and “bad” drawers so that you can jot them down in your notebook. Now that you know what splitting is, you will notice it in almost every story of people I have worked with over the years. If any of these examples make you aware of your own tendencies to
do the same thing, add those insights to your notebook.
True or false: When I am in my good drawer…
I get excited by what I think is going to happen next.
I feel a huge relief from the worries I usually have.
I don’t want anything to bring me down.
I want to keep things just like this for as long as I can.
I don’t want to hear about any problems.
True or false: When I am in my bad drawer…
I feel outraged that I have been treated this badly.
I feel pessimistic or even hopeless that things will ever change.
I doubt that anyone is going to fix this or help me.
It’s difficult to think about anything good.
I feel terrible about myself and everyone who is part of this mess.
I think this situation is incredibly unfair and blame someone for making it happen.
It is important for you to remember that splitting is a state. Psychologists emphasize the difference between a state, which is a temporary way of being, and a trait, which is something inherent in us. Just as our thoughts and feelings shift when we enter a certain state, they shift again when we leave it. Chapter 12 will give you more ideas to help you confront and diminish an episode of splitting, but the earlier you can recognize your thoughts, feelings, and physical responses, the easier it will be to regain your perspective.
Stop Overreacting Page 6