On Finding Out How We Don't Know Ourselves in Therapy and Counselling. (On Defences, Part Eight)

Our series on defence mechanisms in counselling and psychotherapy continues with this post on the defence of dissociation. 

Compared to some of the other defences, dissociation is less well known amongst the general public, despite it being very common (at least in mild forms.) We dissociate a little bit when we zone out, and become mentally absent from the situation in which we are physically present. The association between our mental presence and physical presence is disrupted - hence dissociation. More severe dissociation can lead to actual physical numbness, inability to feel one's body. As emotional and mental life become seperated, in dissociation we may also  not be able to feel our emotions. We may feel unreal, or quite distance from a situation unfolding around us. Another variant of this is de-realisation, in which the situation around us begins to feel unreal, like a dream or a movie. 

Like other defences, we use dissociation to distance ourselves from uncomfortable emotions. Often people who dissociate are aware of a link between their anxiety building up, and beginning to dissociate. Possibly the strongest form of dissociation is the controversial diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder, in which parts of one's identity become separated off from other parts. This was once called multiple identity disorder, which would be the topic of a whole other post. 

When the client begins to dissociate in a psychotherapy or counselling session it is usually a sign that anxiety has become too intense to tolerate in other ways. Hopefully your psychotherapist or counsellor will notice this, or, it may be helpful to tell your therapist if you notice that you're beginning to dissociate. Most clinicians know basic grounding exercises that they may talk you through at this point, to help you reorient yourself to being aware of your body in the present moment, or perhaps to re-orient yourself to the external reality of the room in which you're sitting at that time, by noticing things such as the walls or the furniture around you. For most people this quickly helps reduce the dissociation, and is a useful practical skill to learn to deal with dissociation in one's daily life.