The Ways We Get Love All Wrong: Defenses Versus Boundaries, and Adult Attachment
I haven’t met very many people in the course of my work as a therapist and coach, as well as in my personal life, that approach the process of love, without first attempting to figure out how they might protect themselves from getting hurt.
In fact, I would say, even the most adept relationship therapists and coaches, as well as the most well-practiced and self aware people I know, are rather misguided around their “boundaries”. I place the word boundaries in quotation marks here, because I don’t believe most of us actually know what boundaries are, and how to put them into practice. Instead, we confuse defensive strategies for our boundaries, attempting to exert power, control, or influence, over another’s behavior and experiences, so that we might not feel so fearful and insecure, when facing conflict, differing needs, separation, or intimacy.
Early in my psychology education, I once had a teacher describe the difference between boundaries and defenses, and almost two decades later, do I feel I now understand what he meant. From how I remember it, which is certainly, he stated that boundaries have perforation in their psychic structure, are open to influence, and are a way to communicate to another what you need, and how you might feel if they say, do, or act a certain way…
