Summary
Contents
Subject index
`[The client material]... stimulated thought and reflection... Clark presented a large number of very tricky case studies and illustrated all manner of different and interesting ways of responding to clients who find it difficult to engage with the process of counselling. Furthermore, this is done in the framework of a model of counselling which integrates humanistic, psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioural theories in a most interesting and convincing way. In the end, I learned quite a lot and found myself pondering the case histories days later' - Counselling, The Journal of the British Association for Counselling The understanding of defence mechanisms is vital to counsellors and psychotherapists, particula
Chapter 8: Reaction Formation
Reaction Formation
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,
And vice sometime's by action dignified.
—William Shakespeare, 1595/1917, Romeo and Juliet, act II, scene iii, lines 21–22
Most individuals wish to appear to be reasonably solicitous and scrupulous in their everyday interactions with other people. On a social level, expressions of kindness and honesty in word and deed represent essential qualities in civil and harmonious relationships. At the same time, persons may demonstrate oversolicitude and excessive conscientiousness in exchanges with others that mask or obscure their subjective intentions. In response to threat, individuals may employ the defense mechanism of reaction formation to fend off socially unacceptable or prurient tendencies through the expression of diametrically opposing behavior. Reaction formations also involve exaggerated and excessive responses of a person's effort ...
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