ABSTRACT
As we saw in Chapter 1, children‧ ways of dealing with emotional conflicts vary. It is not hard to imagine the emotional distress so many children experience when, for whatever reason, they find that they are unable to do tasks that others find easy. The child with dyslexia is confused by the difficulty he or she finds with reading. The child with a hearing loss feels excluded from everyday conversations. And the child who cannot keep up physically with his or her peers feels different and left out. Children, like adults, use defence mechanisms to deal with the regrets, anxiety and conflicts that they experience. The most common defence mechanisms are:
compensation – finding areas of strength to focus on enables the learner to obtain support and positive feedback from others; for example, issues of learning difficulties are avoided through being ‘clever at art’
regression – the learner uses infantile ways of expressing anxiety; for example, crying
displacement – the releasing of negative emotional tension that the child would prefer not to face – the playground bully can be releasing a wide range of frustrations that he or she cannot consciously face
projection – placing one‧ faults some distance away from oneself. This occurs when an individual sees unliked aspects of himself or herself in others – children who seem not to get on can be similar to each other
repression – allowing anxiety-inducing events to be forgotten. This protects the child from having to take any decisions relating to the event, and from facing the anxiety associated with it. A repressed child is likely to be passive and obedient
intellectualisation – avoiding the pain of feelings by thinking through one‧ emotions rather than experiencing them for what they are; for example, a boy left out of the football team avoids crying by talking only about the skills he needs to develop
denial – when an experience is avoided rather than experienced. This can be seen, for example, in the child who will no longer talk about a very special friend who has moved away from the area
reaction formation – the turning of a negative emotion on its head. An unacceptable impulse is mastered by an exaggerated expression of its opposite. A child who is obsessionally tidy and organised, for example, could be masking a desire to let go and be messy.
