Undoing is a defense mechanism in which a person tries to
'undo' an unhealthy, destructive or otherwise threatening thought or action by
engaging in contrary behavior. For example, after thinking about being violent
with someone, one would then be overly nice or accommodating to them. It is one
of several defense mechanisms proposed by the founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund
Freud during his career, many of which were later developed further by his
daughter Anna Freud. The German term "Ungeschehenmachen" was first
used to describe this defense mechanism. When translated, it literally means
"making un-happen", which is essentially the core of "undoing".
Undoing refers to the phenomenon whereby a person tries to alter the past in
some way to avoid or feign disappearance of an adversity or mishap.
Freud used undoing to explain some obsessive-compulsive
acts, such as a youth reciting the alphabet backwards to undo his sin of sexual
thoughts and feelings.
Examples
A person may intentionally push past someone in a shop,
but realizing that the person was frail, feel guilty with regards to their
behavior. They may try to undo their action by apologizing or offering to help
the person.
A girl sends a pleasant Valentine's Day card to an
ex-boyfriend with whom she broke up. The girl who sends the card feels guilty
about having hurt the other person's feelings. The message is, "I am
really not such a bad person." A boy who received such a card thought his
ex-girlfriend was being sadistic, trying to make him hurt. But Freud would
probably say her unconscious purpose was to convince herself that she was not
such a bad person.
Some other examples:
·
Lady Macbeth compulsively washes her hands after
committing murder.
·
A man who has been unkind to his wife buys her
flowers (but does not apologize).
·
A person who has barged in front of others in a
queue holds the door open for them.
·
A teenager who has been rather noisy tidies the
room without having to be asked.
Undoing in Grief
When a person has behaved negatively towards someone or
had unpleasant thoughts about that person, they may feel guilt. Afterward, they
may try and undo their actions by engaging in opposite actions or thoughts. For
example, if I said something hurtful to my best friend I may feel guilty and
try to balance things out by paying her four compliments.
Undoing can play a role in grief in a number of ways.
People commonly feel guilty for the negative things they said or did towards
the deceased loved one in the past. However, relationships don’t suddenly
become one-dimensional because a person has died; they often remain as
multifaceted in death as they were in life. Also, people sometimes die before
their loved ones have a chance to make amends, and after they die there are
very few opportunities to resolve or undo, what has been said, thought, or
done.
Further Implications
Undoing can be used to 'explain away' habits or behaviors
that are not in line with an individual's personality. For example, in the case
of a person who is well organized in the workplace, yet always forgets to pay
bills on time at home, Freudian psychologists could argue that his tardiness
with bills is an undoing of his desire to be orderly, or vice versa. Freud has
been criticized regarding examples such as this because his theory is so
complicated that most problems can be explained by another part of the theory.
For some people undoing can be used to reduce cognitive
dissonance, the uncomfortable feeling created when an attitude and an action,
or two attitudes are in conflict with one another.
In criminal profiling the term refers to a pattern of
behavior by which an offender tries to undo their crime symbolically, e.g. by
painting the face of a person killed by the perpetrator, covering up and
decorating the corpse with flowers, personal belongings and jewelry, or folding
the hands, imitating a laying-out.
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