‘Freud’ at Psychology, Philosophy and Real Life

Our conceptualizations of the situations we find ourselves in can not only place us at a disadvantage, but can literally do us harm.

Knowing the kind of person you’re dealing with can give you valuable insight into the types of values they’re likely to hold, their dominant attitudes and beliefs, and their typical modus operandi when it comes to dealing with other people.

Effective manipulation tactics simultaneously put others on the defensive while also obscuring or denying the malevolent intent of the person using them. Such tactics are particularly effective on neurotic individuals — especially those who always want to think the best of people and who strive hard to understand what would make a person behave in a problematic way.

Disordered characters engage in certain behaviors that are so “automatic” that it’s tempting to think that they do them unconsciously. Besides that, on the surface, these behaviors so closely resemble defense mechanisms at times that they can easily be misinterpreted as such.

Splitting refers to the unconscious failure to integrate aspects of self or others into a unified whole. The age old conscious and deliberate game of “dividing and conquering” is not the same as splitting.