# Displacement:  Games People Play



## David Baxter PhD (Nov 29, 2012)

*Games People Play*
by Neel Burton, M.D., in _Psychology Today_
November 29, 2012 

*The ego defense of displacement.* 

Displacement is the redirection of feelings and impulses towards someone or something less threatening. The classic example of displacement is the person who has had a bad day at work. Instead of taking out his frustration on his boss or colleagues, he stores it all up until six o’clock. He then goes home, bangs the door, kicks the dog, and picks up a quarrel with his spouse.

Displacement can give rise to a chain reaction, with the victim unwittingly becoming a perpetrator. In the example above, the angry man’s spouse might then hit one of their children, perhaps rationalizing her behaviour by thinking of it in terms of a punishment. The next day or month or year, the child might go to school and bully one of his classmates ‘just for fun’.

Displacement commonly concerns anger and frustration, but can also concern other feelings and impulses. Thus, a person who feels lonely outside of a meaningful relationship might spend a lot of time with a placeholder or caressing and cuddling a dog or cat, and a person who is emotionally or sexually attracted to a person of the same sex but finds this completely unacceptable might ‘take it out’ on partners of the opposite sex. This ‘taking it out’ on less threatening objects often has a dual function, not only to release pent up frustration but also to reinforce the person’s supposed heterosexuality, an ego defence called reaction formation ('overdoing the opposite thing'). A more mature response might be to convert or ‘sublime’ the repressed feelings and the frustration into constructive activities such as sport, study, invention, or art.

Displacement also plays a role in scapegoating, in which uncomfortable feelings such as anger and guilt are displaced and projected onto another, often more vulnerable, person or group. The scapegoated person is then persecuted, providing the person doing the scapegoating not only with a conduit for his uncomfortable feelings, but also with pleasurable feelings of piety and self-righteous indignation. The creation of a villain necessarily implies that of a hero, even if both are purely fictional. A good example of a scapegoat is Marie Antoinette, Queen of Louis XVI of France, whom the French people called L’Autre-chienne—a pun playing on Autrichienne (Austrian woman) and Autre chienne (other bitch)—and accused of being profligate and promiscuous. When Marie Antoinette came to France to marry the then heir to the throne, the country had already been near bankrupted by the reckless spending of Louis XV, and the young foreign princess quickly became the target of the people’s mounting ire.

An ego defence that is related to displacement, and that might be considered to be a special form of displacement, is ‘turning against the self’, in which impulses (commonly anger) directed at another person or other people are considered frightening or unacceptable and so redirected upon the self. Turning against the self is common in people with depression, and particularly so in people with suicidal ideation. Indeed, it can be said to underlie almost every case of completed suicide.



Neel Burton is author of _The Meaning of Madness (eBook)_, _The Art of Failure: The Anti Self-Help Guide (eBook)_ and _Hide and Seek: The Psychology of Self-Deception (eBook)_.

_Hide and Seek: The Psychology of Self-Deception (eBook)_ is *FREE* on Amazon.com from 28 Nov to 2 Dec.


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## Katieann (Nov 30, 2012)

When I look back over our family history... there have been many connections with suicide: my cousin, my mother's cousin, our family doctor, when I was a little girl, our neighbour's son (across the street), our neighbour's son-in-law (next door neighbour), another neighbour a few streets up, my mother's friend's son...my niece's boss...have other people noticed this? We grew up in an average suburban neighbourhood...

In one of the books I've been reading, suicide is described as being in a compulsive hurry for personal transformation....and I guess that the waiting period is too utterly painful for them...but pain can pass... does pass... and time can be a friend...if they can only get over that hump and see that little light at the end of the tunnel....:ladybug:

---------- Post Merged on November 30th, 2012 at 08:08 AM ---------- Previous Post was on November 29th, 2012 at 10:22 PM ----------

How did I manage to forget two more suicides...?The girl my husband dated before we met and married - and my husband's cousin within the past couple of months... although with Asian culture, suicide has been sadly more ingrained in their culture... considered better to do away with yourself, rather than be a social failure... But that is a place where the only "yardstick" often is only the social one. 

Well... let's all get our own twinkly yardsticks, shall we? :bee:


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## Daffodil (Jun 23, 2013)

I am guilty of displacement. One day I had a bad day at work and I came home and saw my roomate in the living room, immediately after which I started to bitch her out for no reason. I was aware that I was being unreasonable but I couldn't help it. Weeks later, she mentioned to me, that I am crazy, and said "how" . She said, for example you have a bad day at work then you take it out on me. Surprising how she was aware of what I was doing

My father is very guilty of this, but never in 30 years, has he ever accepted any responsibility, he always blamed me and my sibling as well as his ex wife, our mother, for his life's problems.


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## Darkside (Aug 15, 2014)

A lot of self delusion goes into my displacement.


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## Retired (Aug 16, 2014)

Darkside said:


> A lot of self delusion goes into my displacement.



According to the article, the remedial strategy would be:



> to convert or ?sublime? the repressed feelings and the frustration into constructive activities


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## Darkside (Aug 16, 2014)

Steve said:


> According to the article, the remedial strategy would be:



The first step for me has been to realize and accept the repressed feelings. I am sometimes hours into displacement (kicking the dog) before I realize how I am acting.


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## Retired (Aug 16, 2014)

> The first step for me has been to realize and accept the repressed feelings.



Are you receiving counseling to help you in this regard?  



> I am sometimes hours into displacement (kicking the dog) before I realize how I am acting.



If you notice a repetitive pattern or trigger that brings on this behaviour, you might use that knowledge to work on aborting the behaviour.  

This strategy has been helpful for me in aborting angry reactions in certain situations, when seeing the situation develop and then applying a mental brake.


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## Darkside (Aug 16, 2014)

Steve said:


> Are you receiving counseling to help you in this regard?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thanks Steve. I have worked on it for years. I stopped counseling in March because I thought I had gone as far as I could and had to start doing instead of talking. 

One of the things I have learned to do in order to do put on the mental brake is to carry a coin in my pocket to rub when I feel myself in a situation that might cause an angry reaction. It works sometimes ... no, actually it works every time if I remember to do it. 

An incident happened the other day that has made me think maybe I need to go back into counseling again. I didn't lose my temper, but i was angry and I knew it. I held it inside and tried to focus on how my body felt (knot in my stomach, a bit light headed, heart racing, etc.) but I noticed I said a couple of things to innocent people that I probably shouldn't have said. They weren't cross or combative words but just inappropriate to the circumstances.

It was a bit of a wake up call.

For years and years I thought this feeling was fear, and part of it may be fear, but it is also rage. Some of the physical reactions are the same but in this case there was nothing to be afraid of ... it was just pure rage over what I "thought" someone had done.


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