it turns out telling people "you're doing that as a defense mechanism" is not the best way to get them to put down said defense mechanism... even if you're right😵💫
it turns out making confident declarations about anyone's state (regardless of how right you may be) almost always—
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it’s nearly always only used as an invalidation - the implication, intended or not, is “this is a defense mechanism therefore it’s not real / valid” when, of course, the whole point of a defense mechanism is that it’s defending something
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people don’t want to stop defending what they’re defending! so instead one can build trust by demonstrating genuine curiosity in what is being defended, and genuinely respecting it. easier said than done of course 😅
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from a certain height conflict boils down to “i can’t listen to what you’re defending without feeling like i’m giving up on defending what i’m defending”
and resolution boils down to “we believe that everyone can defend what they’re defending, simultaneously”
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the secret third option!!! literally the galaxy brain path.
praying i get to experience that kind of successful conflict resolution soon.. 🙏🏿
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best of luck 🙏
fwiw in my experience it's much easier for a third-party facilitator to do this sort of trust-building than for either person in the conflict to do it. if you're in the conflict you're busy being in it on your side