Turning against the self
Neurotic-level defence; secondary in McWilliams' scheme. Anger or criticism meant for someone else is redirected onto oneself.
What drives it
Keeps the relationship with a needed or powerful person safe; it feels less dangerous to be bad oneself than to see them as bad, and it preserves a sense of control (if it's my fault, I can fix it).
How it shows
Work
After being treated unfairly by a boss: “I should have seen it coming, I'm an idiot.” Self-flagellation in retrospectives. Overwork and self-punishment in place of a complaint. Listeners feel an urge to reassure, and a faint sense that someone else is being protected.
Relationships
Abused partners or children blaming themselves. Depressive self-reproach that sounds aimed at someone else. Every argument ends with the person attacking themselves, which makes it impossible to argue with them.
Self
A surge of self-hatred right after someone has let you down. Ask: if a friend described this, whom would I be angry with?
What tells it apart
Personalisation: Personalisation is a thinking error that assumes responsibility for events; turning against the self carries the heat of anger, so the self-attack is hostile, not merely mistaken.
Guilt: Healthy guilt fits a wrong you actually did and leads to repair; turning against the self appears when someone else did the wrong.
Masochistic (self-defeating) character: Masochistic character is a stable personality pattern of suffering to keep attachment; turning against the self is a single defence anyone can use in a given moment.
A test
Ask gently how they feel about the other person involved; flat denial of any anger, followed by renewed self-blame, confirms the redirection.
Questions to carry
- Asked how they feel about the other person involved, where does the conversation go next?
- Whom am I protecting when I decide it was all my fault?
How strong the research is
clinical. Clinically established; research on self-criticism and depression supports the pattern, though not the specific redirection mechanism.
Where it comes from
Sigmund Freud, 1915 and 1917; Anna Freud, 1936
On the family tree: Sigmund Freud
Sources
- Sigmund Freud, Mourning and Melancholia (1917)