People who are defensive are people who have an emotional wound caused by some trauma experienced during childhood, adolescence or youth and live with a casing that protects them from the world to avoid being hurt from new. They act in a hypervigilant way, attentive to any possible attack from outside. At the slightest signal interpreted by them as a threat, they draw their swords to defend themselves from the blow they do not want to receive. However, it is precisely this defensive mechanism that leads them to see threats where there are actually none. Hence, they are people who are always defending themselves even when, apparently, there is no objective fact that provokes this response.
In the following Psychology-Online article we will propose 7 tips for dealing with a person who is defensive and improve social interactions.
Index
- Try to understand their behaviors
- Have patience
- stay by your side
- subtly re-educate
- Promote confidence
- Enliven and optimize your vision
- Set limits
Try to understand their behaviors.
How to deal with a person who is always defensive? People who act defensively hit or push others away, making it very difficult to establish good relationships with them. Due to this, and taking into account that it is not a conscious and premeditated behavior, but the result of an internal emotional wound that leads him to defend himself against In this way, from Psychology-Online we want to promote forms of interaction with these people that favor their better social integration and that help them overcome their wound. inside.
The first piece of advice for dealing with a person who is defensive is to try to understand their behaviorsthrough the prism of the emotional wound. This will make us not feel offended by their behaviors and, by feeling compassion for them, we will interact in a much more empowering and constructive way.
Have patience.
It is not easy to relate to this type of person, since they continually feel attacked and hit before receiving the imagined offense or attack. This means receiving impulsive and, on more than one occasion, offensive responses. If we respond by letting ourselves be carried away by our own emotional wounds, they can end up causing strong and unpleasant conflicts.
Therefore, a good way to improve the relationship and favor the best internal state of this person is to change the look towards them and see them as victims of their own traumas. To achieve this, we will need be patient and stay calm by your side, despite the defensive responses we receive.
Stay by your side.
Nowadays, psychological advice is very fashionable "stay away from toxic people"But in reality, to a greater or lesser degree, we are all toxic to the extent that we all, to a lesser or greater extent, present certain emotional deficiencies.
This approach, far from building a good personality, what it encourages is confrontation and separation between human beings. In the case of people who are always on the defensive, and despite how difficult it may be to relate to these types of people, it is important to stay by their side without abandoning them to help them improve, as long as they do not cross our own limits.
Subtly re-educate.
On many occasions, if we stop to observe from the outside, we will be able to observe the hell that these people are going through. That is to say, their hypervigilant attitude to defend themselves against possible dangers is totally paranoid and enormously exhausting.
In these cases, we find ourselves in a situation where, with all the tact and respect in the world, we can help re-educate them and that, little by little, they can adopt a calmer, more confident and realistic vision of life.
Promote confidence.
For this positive re-education to be effective it will be necessary for the person in question to trust us. If we work on this aspect, it is possible that the defensive responses will gradually decrease as their internal fear of being hit decreases.
Subsequently, this new state and its new ways of acting will serve as a valid and safe reference to act with the rest of the world.
Animate and optimize your vision.
One of the best ways to re-educate your behavior is transmit joy to them, show them the good that exists in life and in people and how, in reality, the danger can become something insignificant, random and with a very low probability of occurring.
Thanks to the trust that the person will be depositing in us, this new, much more hopeful vision of life will be permeating in his interior, transforming him internally and breaking the chains that tied him to the trap of the answer defensive.
Set limits.
Taking all of the above into account, it is important show him that there are certain limits that cannot be crossed. Although we can be patient with his defensive behaviors and see him as a victim of his own injuries, this in no way justifies free will for his behaviors.
In the same way, delimiting clear limits will help the person to abandon certain responses that, more than helping him, will be enslaving him to a paranoid life full of fears. Caring for others with patience and dedication can help to cope with a person's past hurts. If you need help to achieve it, in this article we explain How to have more patience.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to How to deal with someone who is defensive, we recommend that you enter our category of Social psychology.
Bibliography
- Delahooke, M. (2021). "Beyond behavior". Editorial Anaya Multimedia.
