Our Ways of Coping

It's amazing how adaptive the human species is. In the face of difficulty or discomfort, we may be jolted-not to succumb to resignation but to face up to the challenge. We always manage to create our own comfort zone, our own victory. Indeed, we have natural abilities for coping with life.

Even in our ordinary everyday situations, we are continuously coping. This is no more so than in our dealings with people. We hide our true feelings when we think these will not be acceptable to others. Our faces yield to social expectations while our hearts grimace, when we believe it is the practical thing to do.

Civilized society restrains the free, instinctual expression of the self. And for good reason. Society will be in shambles if every aggrieved person is free to destroy his offender. We will be no better than pigs if we didn't have social manners. But every social benefit of self-restraint is coupled with a corresponding curbing of our nature.

Any curtailment of our nature is only superficial. Underneath, we go on seeking to fully express ourselves. Repressed impulses do not just lie dormant. They become psychological tensions that continue to press for release, one way or another, in our lives, in order for our sanity to be maintained.

One way in which psychological tensions are released is in dreams. Some dreams, however, do not take place long enough to be able to resolve our subconscious sprains. Sometimes the illusory experience is too disturbing that it interrupts the dreamer's sleep. Such is the case of a nightmare-where the menacing monsters are nothing but the dreamer's own inner ghosts.

When our psychological tensions do not successfully find release in dreams, they find expression in some other acceptable, though often unconscious, ways. For instance, we create reasons to support our misdeeds, or we try to gloss it over or give it different face altogether, or direct the blame at others. We need psychological absolution for the sake of our inner equilibrium.

One way we find freedom from inner distress is by displacement. At work it is not easy to stand up to a tyrant boss. So the oppressed employee holds back his annoyance. But when he goes home he picks up a fight with his wife, who takes offense and turns her ire to their son, who gets mad at the provocation and kicks the house dog, who bites him in return. As their hearts flinch over their bleeding child, the parents unite in blaming the dog. The father may have released his anger-only that his boy, and not his boss, is the one that gets the brunt of it.

Some sports provide a legitimate way where to find an outlet for repressed negative impulses. Many executives release their frustrations on the golf course. It's safer to unleash rage onto the golf ball than on his lousy sales staff. At least, there would be no lawsuits to worry about afterwards. The same is true with tennis and, most especially, boxing.

Sublimation is another way by which we release psychological tensions. It's interesting to note that those with the highest tendency for a certain crime are usually the most active crusaders against it. Likewise, the tycoon who has an obsession for tall buildings, statues, and other monumental erections may just be sublimating his repressed sexual issues. And the technique can indeed be a source of immense gratification.

We easily spot and are even quick to condemn in others the very trait that resembles our own weakness.

This is called projection. Even if our officemate may not really exhibit the questionable behavior we imagine, we just "know" exactly that it's there somewhere and he's just covering it up. We will see what we want to see.

It is also common to grow indignant over a person who we think to be manifesting the same faults we are guilty of and want to delete from our consciousness. It is not rare to find someone who "really get on our nerves" for no reason at all. When we want to show ourselves as holy, we find it necessary to forcefully condemn sinners, lest we be suspected of being on their side. Most of our protestations expose our own guilt.

When both repression and full expression of an unacceptable impulse are not possible, we often settle for a partial settlement. If, for instance, we're introduced to someone we detest, we may squeeze the fellow's hand so hard that his fingers crack in our grip. Or, to enjoy the company of those screen nymphets whom they secretly desire, some men make do by reading Playboy, instead. But, of course, they'll swear to be interested only in the articles.

Yet the most common coping technique we use is rationalization. Upon committing a rather questionable act, we find justification for the deed to make it acceptable to others and to ourselves. One example is an insecure business executive who wire-taps the entire office phone system to know what everybody is talking about him. He rationalizes that only by monitoring all the calls of his staff could he be sure that corporate secrets were not leaked out.

One way or another, unconscious psychological tensions find accidental expression in the course of everyday life. A former film director once advised me, in very strong terms, to let go of my interest in filmmaking. "You're just not the type," he told me. "Making movies is like playing God in the process of creation. It's a task too staggering for you!"

I took those words very seriously. But my love for the movie arts persisted. As it turned out years later, the guy was probably talking to himself. He ended up as a lowly assistant in one film project of mine. He might have given me his expert advice out of an unconscious insecurity about his own talent.

A legendary writer, who was an unmarried Anglican deacon, had a particular liking for little girls. He would photograph the innocent kids, and produced quite artistic pictures of them. Soon his interest shifted to writing, and he authored one of the greatest children's classics of all time. His heroine, of course, is a little girl, named Alice. The book is Alice In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

Even the saints had to wrestle with their own dark impulses. It is human nature-the twin possibilities for good and for evil. But we can tame unhealthy urges into benevolent deeds. It seems to be our ultimate challenge to suppress the bad and uphold the good. This is, perhaps, why we have been given various natural abilities for coping, not to cow out or escape but to win. This is, perhaps, the true essence of our lives.