Have you ever found yourself in a conversation with someone where it feels so incredibly difficult to let in anything they say?
The sensation is similar to a fired-up judge in a trial - vigorously analyzing your opponent's language for signs of threat, and riding the wave of adrenaline as you try to illuminate their weak points, their vulnerabilities, and reinforce your point of view.
Though perhaps exciting, vindicating, even satisfying, there is one pretty big challenge with this approach in relationships: we lose our ability to hear and see each other. Momentarily, our ‘receptors’, our ability to ‘receive’ the other, are turned off in service of defense.
We lose out when we're stuck in defensiveness. We lose out on understanding our partner. We lose out on a deeper understanding of ourselves. And we remain stuck in the isolation of a rigid point of view.
This is the protective response I have been reflecting on this month: defensiveness, and how we can begin to disrupt it in relationships. I wonder often, why, when couples and individuals can have every intention of moving forward towards deeper listening and more vulnerability, does defensiveness so often rear its familiar head when that emerges on the horizon?
The Neuroscience of Defensiveness
As The Gottman Institute emphasizes, downregulating defensiveness is the main work of relationships. This is in part because the persistence of defensiveness makes it impossible to move towards meaningful understanding, empathy, repair, and ultimately connection.
When we feel defensive, our nervous system is perceiving an attack or threat. This threat signal activates the limbic system, a brain system which scans the environment for danger and is a catalyst for impulsive reactions: fight (outbursts), flight (avoidance), and freeze (shut down/stonewalling). The limbic system is the defensive part of our brain! Our stress response is primal. It prioritizes immediate responses to pursue nervous system safety (through defense), and can interfere with the reasoning centre of our brain - the Prefrontal Cortex.
Defense of ‘The Self’
Defensiveness is a difficult strategy to let go of in a relationship because it can feel so important, and even urgent. And in many ways it is. This feeling can stand as an ally beside our values, our beliefs, and our dreams. These are factors that build our foundation in life. They are the ground upon which we stand! The place from which we make decisions, whether we know it or not. We want to believe that our values, judgments, and opinions are important and true.
When another person - our partner, friend, family member - introduces a belief, value, or interpretation of events that challenges, contradicts, or destabilizes our beliefs, the question becomes not just about the immediate issue at hand, but a deeper challenge. It pushes against our carefully constructed reality, and this can be experienced not only as criticism, but as a meaningful threat to our understanding of the self and the world.
Accepting Otherness is Hard
Well-known couples therapist Dr. Orna Guralnik has often noted that dealing with a partner’s ‘otherness,’ the fact of their difference and separation from us, is at its core very difficult and annoying. I love that she used this word: that otherness in our loved ones can be annoying! It can be so frustrating to accommodate another person, because it means we have to consistently check, adapt, and compromise our own desires and instincts. People are so consistent in their uniqueness - it's so often why we love them, but it is also what makes it difficult to love them.
At the end of the day, those we love are not us. Because of that, being reminded of their ‘otherness’ can feel overwhelming, threatening, frightening even. Defensiveness asserts a singular reality while closing the door to a shared understanding. It says, there is only space for one way of seeing things here. Momentarily, that creates a piercing certainty. It allows - with sacrifice - one person's version of things to take priority, to hold the power. There is a simplicity to that. But the consequence is often rupture, frustration, and distance. One person’s voice is prioritized over the other.
Accountability Disrupts Fantasy
The other side of defensiveness is also often accountability; integration of feedback and acceptance of the reflection others hold of us. In order to hold multiple realities, we have to start to accept that our version of things is inherently porous, challengeable, perhaps even flawed at times. This deeply challenges that fantasy that we all hold of finding a relationship, the relationship that gives us a whole and unwavering feeling of being understood.
Many of us carry a conscious or unconscious wish to be rescued. This collective fantasy is reflected in Disney movies and romantic comedies time and time again. What a relief to imagine a relationship that allows us to live into a future in which we are enduringly admired and where we can experience unending relief from uncertainty, confusion, and frustration. Psychodynamic Theory posits that often this is driven by a desire to recreate an ideal nurturing environment, the unconscious search for the ideal parent who will finally provide the understanding and love that we may not have received as children.
When we experience our partners as not understanding us, or as challenging our perception of things, this is inherently threatening as it exposes our foundational difference. Our partner is no longer an all-knowing, benevolent figure who can anticipate and meet our every need, but rather a human who - like us - is limited in their ability to merge fully with our reality. Who, in fact, must do the work of understanding us over time. This can feel nearly outrageous. Defensiveness becomes almost like a form of denial; a part of us that refuses to integrate the other's differences.
Working with Defensiveness
Couples therapist Terry Real reminds us that in order to move towards greater intimacy in a relationship, we have to give up the fight to be ‘right.’ Defensiveness wants to convince us to protect our position until we’re the ‘last person standing’, whereas curiosity and empathy bring both sides into dialogue.
When we shift into a receptive state, a state of curiosity, we invite our brains to engage the medial prefrontal cortex. This part of the brain is involved in building a picture of the internal world of the other. The Gottman Institute calls this ‘Love Maps’ - a blueprint of your partner’s inner world that allows you to more deeply access and explore empathetic communication.
This is difficult work! Releasing deeply ingrained patterns of defensiveness can feel counterintuitive and deeply vulnerable. Rather than expecting yourself to not be defensive at all out of the gate, you might begin by bringing awareness to this instinctual response within your relationship, naming it, and developing awareness of your ‘triggers.’ Illuminating the cycles and patterns within your relationship that ignite defensiveness can be an empowering first step in developing a shared goal towards deeper empathy within difficult conversations.
Should you wish to learn more about my practice, or schedule a free consultation feel free to reach out.
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Image: Escultura, Natureza morta, Vulcânica | Jorge Fernando Biju
