Psychological Defences: Idealisation, Devaluation and Splitting

A friend has helped many times: collecting a parcel, listening after a difficult day, coming over when you felt lonely. Now you ask her to help you move, and she says she cannot make it on Saturday. The boxes are in the hallway, time is short, and disappointment brings a thought with it: “She never really cared.” Yesterday this person understood you better than anyone. Today the entire friendship seems to fit inside a single refusal.

An experience like this can reveal how pain changes our perception. The psychoanalytic concepts of idealisation, devaluation and splitting offer language for discussing those changes. Naming a defence does not establish a diagnosis; its recurrence, circumstances and effects on someone’s life matter. Dissociative experiences require a different kind of attention, which we will return to later.

When we first get to know someone, we may notice precisely what has been missing. They listen carefully, remember an important date and let us finish a sentence. Being with them feels calmer. Gradually, expectations can attach themselves to these real actions: this person will always understand, never refuse, never feel offended and somehow know the right answer. They have promised none of this, yet the space available for their tiredness and separate wishes is already shrinking.

Idealisation, in this context, means exaggerating positive qualities while contradictory features remain outside our attention. Admiration can become more realistic as people get to know each other. Devaluation is one possible development, rather than the inevitable ending of every relationship that begins with enthusiasm.

With the move, it helps to return to the actual agreement. Did your friend clearly agree to help and then cancel? Or did you hope she would be free without having asked? Either situation can be upsetting, but the conversations will differ. A broken promise can be discussed directly. An unspoken expectation first needs to be recognised as your own.

There may also be practical information you do not yet have. She might be working, caring for someone or protecting time she has already committed elsewhere. Finding this out does not require you to pretend that the refusal is convenient. It gives you a more accurate basis for deciding what to ask next.

“She has never helped me” briefly makes things simpler. If the friend has always been awful, there is less need to experience affection and anger together. But particular acts disappear from memory, and with them goes the chance to understand what hurts now: the refusal itself, the way it was expressed or the fear of being left with everything to do.

In the Gratitude Diary or Steps of Gratitude workbook, you can record one specific occasion of support without forcing an immediate feeling of gratitude. On an ordinary page alongside it, leave room for the present reaction: “Last month she came over when I needed company. Today I am disappointed because I was counting on her help.” Both facts remain available. Writing here offers a way to examine your account of an event; success is not measured by how many positive thoughts you produce.

The Acceptance Diary can be used for a further question: “Which part of this situation am I struggling to accept?” Perhaps it is the fact that someone close has other plans, or your own dependence on their availability. Acknowledging the situation still leaves room to ask, negotiate and arrange different transport. Where humiliation or violence is recurring, collecting good memories must not become a reason to remain in danger.

Acceptance can be quite practical. You may still wish your friend had agreed while recognising that Saturday’s arrangements now need to change. That gives the disappointment somewhere to go: into a conversation about the friendship, and separately into finding someone who can actually lift the boxes.

At the kitchen table, one person says, “You’re angry with me,” and the other replies that they are tired. The question comes again, followed by an accusation of dishonesty. The reply becomes sharper, and the first person says, “There, I knew it.” By now, the original mood is difficult to separate from a response to having feelings repeatedly assigned to you.

In Kleinian theory, projective identification describes unconsciously attributing split-off aspects of one’s experience to another person. Interaction may also encourage that person to respond accordingly. The concept varies between theoretical traditions, and an everyday scene cannot establish this mechanism with certainty. Reducing it to “absorbing other people’s emotions” would be misleading.

For the conversation itself, it is more useful to check something both people can discuss: “Your answer was short, and I thought you were upset with me. What is happening for you?” The answer might reveal tiredness or genuine resentment. Asking leaves the other person room to name their own experience, while you can explain the effect their behaviour had on you.

You might also discover that your assumption was partly right but incomplete. A partner can be tired and irritated at the same time. Once there is room for that answer, the conversation can become specific: what happened, what needs an apology and whether now is a reasonable time to discuss it.

The Boundaries Diary can provide space to prepare by separating your responsibilities from someone else’s. “I am responsible for my tone and for keeping promises. I can listen to my friend’s disappointment without cancelling every other commitment.” This is a suggested use of a free page, which you can adapt; it does not depend on a special diagnostic exercise or score.

Boundaries also include concrete agreements about time. Rather than offering a lengthy defence, someone might say: “I cannot come on Saturday, but I can help pack on Friday until seven.” The other person may remain unhappy. Their response provides information about the relationship, but the existence of disappointment alone does not make the refusal wrong.

In psychoanalytic language, splitting involves keeping good and bad aspects of experience apart when holding them together is difficult. In everyday language, we more often discuss black-and-white thinking. These ideas are related, but every harsh judgement should not automatically be treated as a clinical sign.

A colleague usually does good work but misses an error in today’s report. You can correct it, ask what happened and agree how the next document will be checked. If the immediate conclusion is “Nothing can ever be trusted to him,” a single event begins to define the whole person. A fuller view allows you to value his work while being dissatisfied with this result.

In the Self-Discovery Course Diary or online diary, you can describe a manageable incident in three separate paragraphs: what happened, how you explained it and what remains to be established. For example: “The report contained an error. I decided my colleague did not care. I do not yet know whether he saw the latest version.” A question becomes easier to formulate than a verdict. For personal writing, consider the privacy of the storage method you choose.

The next action might be very small: ask which file he used. His answer could confirm carelessness, reveal a version problem or raise another issue. Writing has not settled the matter in advance; it has helped identify what you actually need to know.

Online metaphorical cards can prompt you to describe an association: which detail in an image reminds you of this incident, and why? Bring the response back to your own situation rather than guessing your colleague’s hidden motives from a card. An image does not establish diagnoses or confirm forgotten events. If an association increases anxiety, you can stop the exercise.

Misplacing your keys after a busy day is not enough to identify a dissociative disorder. NHS guidance describes possible symptoms including disconnection from yourself or the world and memory gaps beyond ordinary forgetfulness. Recurring or frightening episodes warrant professional assessment, including consideration of other possible causes.

For everyday feelings you can comfortably work with, the EQ Emotions Diary can hold a short note about the situation, the feeling you can name and what you currently need. If the whole conflict is too much to examine, one accessible observation may be enough: “After that conversation, I feel exhausted and want some quiet.” There is no need to force a detailed reconstruction of painful events in order to fill a page.

The Planner Diary is useful for making room for rest and practical help. On moving day, that might mean lunch, a call to the removal company and a conversation with your friend once the work is finished. A planner organises available actions; treatment for dissociative conditions requires professional care rather than more diligent journalling.

It can also help distinguish a task that needs doing today from a conversation that deserves a less rushed setting. Writing “call the van company” alongside “talk about Saturday tomorrow evening” stops two different problems from becoming one exhausting argument.

Your friend may still be unable to come on Saturday, and the boxes will not disappear by themselves. But instead of “I will never ask you for anything again,” a more accurate message may emerge: “I was upset because I was counting on you. Can we talk about what we can reasonably agree to in future?” The reply will tell you more than trying to identify her psychological defence on your own.

One tool from the MriyaRun catalogue that fits your question is enough to begin. Opening every diary at once is easy, but a particular conversation usually needs a few honest observations and an action you can manage. Further writing about feelings and relationships is available in the publications section at MriyaRun.