Bullying
Cross Posted From my Journal
Before getting into bullying its necessary to understand some of the unconscious defence mechanisms mainly Reaction Formation and Projection. These mechanisms are unconscious and at the time of use, the person is very unaware of their use. It's a protective mechanism, protecting their unconscious ego. In Freudian terms it is refusing to recognise and unacceptable part of themselves, that is, unacceptable to their conscious mind.
Projection is ascribing your faults to others. For example "I'm not the one with the problem you are."
Reaction Formation is where are people express the exact opposite to what they really are. The example given in the textbooks is that over the male stud who has multiple female partners. Underneath it all the person is homosexual and by presenting to the world a face of being the exact opposite, he is proving to himself and everybody else that is not.
Another example would be to tell somebody that they were stupid in an effort to make themselves look smart. This would be considered a combination of projection and reaction formation. The person underneath these defence mechanisms secretly fears that this stupid.
When you apply this to bullying particularly when it comes to people with Asperger's Syndrome the person in secretly fears the target because in time the bully will be shown up to the person he really is. What the body will do is make the target looks stupid firstly buy making the person feel guilty about who wore what they are and their inability to be on everybody else's level and then try and get them to justify themselves. Every justification gives the bully handle on the target. Will once again I have the picture in my mind of Gulliver and the Lilliputians where Gulliver is tied and staked down by these nasty little bullies, the ropes that they use to represent the target's own words. The bullies have a wonderful way of twisting the meaning of what the target says and as a result extracts more justification, it goes on exponentially. The more you try and clarify your position, motivations or intentions, the more ammunition you give the bully. People with Asperger's Syndrome are very easy targets because there are already set up as outsiders and to emphasise their estrangement reinforces the bullies status within the group. Our naivete also makes this an easy target in actual fact they fear us, and the best defence against this fear is attack. They fear us because we have no need to belong and therefore we cannot be manipulated in some ways easily so they need to use other ways to manipulate us and make us a non-threat. Those of us who do want to belong get made fun of to elevate the status of the bully within the group, a gain because they fear us.
The thing that makes the target susceptible is the generally speaking the target is don't like people to feel bad so the give explanations in an effort to make not being able to comply with people's requests more comfortable to the requester.
Target is usually have a very strong cents of looking at their own actions and scene where they may have been able to do things better. In other words will often examine their own behaviour and look for faults before they look at others behaviour looking for faults. This would in normally be considered a very admirable traits, but when confronted with somebody who has issues with themselves as described above admirable quality becomes a liability.
It is from this principle that the two keys were evolved.
1. Don't let the person make you feel guilty.
2. Never justify yourself.
The unconscious defence mechanism is can be tested, a positive response is an overly fast and or emotional response. The example is when the person is projecting "I'm not the one who's the problem you are" if you challenged this statement with " are you sure?" The response would be fast and snarky " of course I'm sure do you think you are?'(Turning that the problem around to you, trying to make you feel guilty, trying to make you justify yourself.)
There are lots of defence mechanism is 16 in fact that these are just two, that very common in the bully. What it shows is that the bullies underneath the shell are weak in significant easily threatened insecure that individual's. This can be tested by challenging the bullies on any of those points and watching from the "overly fast response."
For those of you who have difficulty with this concept and wish to contest it, please do. There are exceptions to every generalisation. I'm offering this as a general idea to the sole purposes of showing some kind of pattern to this somewhat perplexing behaviour. Noticing patterns are what we are all good at it.
Before getting into bullying its necessary to understand some of the unconscious defence mechanisms mainly Reaction Formation and Projection. These mechanisms are unconscious and at the time of use, the person is very unaware of their use. It's a protective mechanism, protecting their unconscious ego. In Freudian terms it is refusing to recognise and unacceptable part of themselves, that is, unacceptable to their conscious mind.
Projection is ascribing your faults to others. For example "I'm not the one with the problem you are."
Reaction Formation is where are people express the exact opposite to what they really are. The example given in the textbooks is that over the male stud who has multiple female partners. Underneath it all the person is homosexual and by presenting to the world a face of being the exact opposite, he is proving to himself and everybody else that is not.
Another example would be to tell somebody that they were stupid in an effort to make themselves look smart. This would be considered a combination of projection and reaction formation. The person underneath these defence mechanisms secretly fears that this stupid.
When you apply this to bullying particularly when it comes to people with Asperger's Syndrome the person in secretly fears the target because in time the bully will be shown up to the person he really is. What the body will do is make the target looks stupid firstly buy making the person feel guilty about who wore what they are and their inability to be on everybody else's level and then try and get them to justify themselves. Every justification gives the bully handle on the target. Will once again I have the picture in my mind of Gulliver and the Lilliputians where Gulliver is tied and staked down by these nasty little bullies, the ropes that they use to represent the target's own words. The bullies have a wonderful way of twisting the meaning of what the target says and as a result extracts more justification, it goes on exponentially. The more you try and clarify your position, motivations or intentions, the more ammunition you give the bully. People with Asperger's Syndrome are very easy targets because there are already set up as outsiders and to emphasise their estrangement reinforces the bullies status within the group. Our naivete also makes this an easy target in actual fact they fear us, and the best defence against this fear is attack. They fear us because we have no need to belong and therefore we cannot be manipulated in some ways easily so they need to use other ways to manipulate us and make us a non-threat. Those of us who do want to belong get made fun of to elevate the status of the bully within the group, a gain because they fear us.
The thing that makes the target susceptible is the generally speaking the target is don't like people to feel bad so the give explanations in an effort to make not being able to comply with people's requests more comfortable to the requester.
Target is usually have a very strong cents of looking at their own actions and scene where they may have been able to do things better. In other words will often examine their own behaviour and look for faults before they look at others behaviour looking for faults. This would in normally be considered a very admirable traits, but when confronted with somebody who has issues with themselves as described above admirable quality becomes a liability.
It is from this principle that the two keys were evolved.
1. Don't let the person make you feel guilty.
2. Never justify yourself.
The unconscious defence mechanism is can be tested, a positive response is an overly fast and or emotional response. The example is when the person is projecting "I'm not the one who's the problem you are" if you challenged this statement with " are you sure?" The response would be fast and snarky " of course I'm sure do you think you are?'(Turning that the problem around to you, trying to make you feel guilty, trying to make you justify yourself.)
There are lots of defence mechanism is 16 in fact that these are just two, that very common in the bully. What it shows is that the bullies underneath the shell are weak in significant easily threatened insecure that individual's. This can be tested by challenging the bullies on any of those points and watching from the "overly fast response."
For those of you who have difficulty with this concept and wish to contest it, please do. There are exceptions to every generalisation. I'm offering this as a general idea to the sole purposes of showing some kind of pattern to this somewhat perplexing behaviour. Noticing patterns are what we are all good at it.