How to deal with defensiveness

Whether it’s a colleague, friend or parent, dealing with defensiveness can be challenging. When you raise a concern, the person is not open or ready to accept that there is a problem in the first place. Defensiveness can manifest in a variety of contexts, ranging from prosaic activities to more poignant ones. A co-worker may repeatedly leave his unwashed coffee mug in the conference room. When you bring it up, he brushes it off as a one-time issue. A friend is habitually late. When you text her to be on time for a lunch date, she says she can’t make it. You tell your parents that you plan to move out by the end of the month. Your father changes the topic asking whether you watched the cricket match last night.

In an article in Psyche, Adar Cohen, a mediator, and Nick Wignall, a psychologist, unpack the psychology of defensiveness and provide strategies for having more fruitful conversations when we encounter it. According to the authors, defensiveness is a “coping strategy” that people engage in when they’re unable to deal with the “painful feelings” that arise when they’re criticised; so, they throw the “blame back on the criticiser”.

In other words, defensiveness occurs when a person is unable to handle their own anxiety or discomfort. When you try to parse a person’s defensiveness through this lens, you are more likely to exhibit compassion and respond in a manner that’s less threatening to them.

Further, the authors aver that it’s pointless to tell someone to stop being defensive. Because defensiveness is a feeling, it’s impossible for the person to voluntarily curb it. In fact, telling them to do so will only increase their anxiety and frustration and make them more “resistant to your suggestions”. You also want to be careful not to trigger a never-ending cycle of defensiveness, wherein you become defensive in response to their reaction.

How you react

As you cannot change how the other person feels, your best bet is to try and tame your own emotions. The authors recommend practicing a technique called AVA, wherein you “acknowledge, validate, act”. Suppose you bring up the topic of moving out with your dad, and he shifts to another topic. Your first instinct is to get irritated and yell at him. However, you don’t want this conversation to take an unpleasant turn right from the very start.

So, the first step is to acknowledge your feelings to yourself. You are irritated and frustrated that your dad is refusing to have this conversation with you. Then validate these feelings by giving yourself permission to feel them. Tell yourself that it is okay to have these feelings as a young adult who craves autonomy. Finally, act on your values. You love your dad and do not want to jeopardise your relationship with him.

When you broach the subject of moving out, you may start with something like, “I know this is hard for you to hear. I would like to move out. That does not mean that I will stop being close to you.” While your dad is unlikely to come around immediately, positioning your desire in this way is more likely to lead to a conversation.

Your dad may say, “As if you lack anything here…” Instead of countering it with defensiveness, try to exhibit curiosity by asking, “What worries you about my moving out?” Be watchful that your tone is sincere, not sarcastic. If you anticipate another person’s defensiveness, you also need to pick the right time and place for the conversation to minimise their discomfort.

While the AVA method may not entirely alter another person’s defensiveness, it allows you to gain some distance from your emotions. As a result, you don’t get carried away by them, and are able to act in accordance with your values.

The writer is visiting faculty at the School of Education, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, and the co-author of Bee-Witched.