Displacement
Neurotic defence; mental inhibitions level on the DSM-IV scale; secondary in McWilliams' scheme. A feeling is redirected from the person or thing that caused it onto a safer target.
What drives it
Lets the feeling out without risking the relationship or power structure that produced it: the board can't be shouted at, the team can.
How it shows
Work
A leader humiliated by the board is savage with the team that afternoon. Fury over a small process error after a big loss elsewhere. The target feels the anger is out of proportion and somehow not about them, which is correct.
Relationships
A bad day at work comes out as a row about the dishes. Anger at a parent shows up as hostility toward the partner's family. Phobias can be displaced fear, with dread landing on a manageable object.
Self
Irritation too big for what triggered it, aimed at someone with less power than whoever upset you earlier.
What tells it apart
Projection: Projection attributes your feeling to someone else; displacement keeps the feeling as yours but aims it at the wrong target.
Anger as a secondary emotion: Secondary anger covers a softer primary feeling such as hurt; displacement is about the target rather than the layering, and the two often co-occur.
Scapegoating: Scapegoating is a group process that singles out one target over time; displacement is individual, and the target can change daily.
A test
Ask what happened earlier in the day; if the anger shrinks once the earlier event is named, it was displaced.
Questions to carry
- Earlier in the day, before the outburst, what happened that couldn’t be answered back?
- Who gets the anger I can’t safely give to the person who caused it?
How strong the research is
moderate. A clinical concept whose core claim is supported by experimental work on displaced aggression (Marcus-Newhall, Pedersen and Carlson, 2000 meta-analysis).
Where it comes from
Sigmund Freud, 1894 and 1900
On the family tree: Sigmund Freud
Sources
- Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900)