What is spiritual bypassing? Many people use spirituality to avoid difficult feelings and problems. They meditate to push away anger, take refuge in yoga to avoid confrontations, or try to attract abundance with manifestation techniques instead of addressing their financial problems. This is called spiritual bypassing. Psychotherapist John Welwood noted in the 1980s that spirituality … Read more
When life is unpleasant or upsetting, people often use fantasy as a way to escape reality. Fantasy is one of the defense mechanisms or coping mechanisms the brain can use to escape reality. What is a defense mechanism? When you have difficult emotions or impulses you often look for ways to deal with these unwanted … Read more
Splitting is a defense mechanism in which you view something, someone, or yourself as “all good” or “all bad.” A person who splits sees the world in terms of black or white, all or nothing. It is an inability to integrate positives and negatives into one whole; often you alternately idealize and devalue something or … Read more
