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Key points
- Ego defense is at the heart of most criticism.
- Ego defense masks self-doubt and lowers self-value.
- An ego in need of defense never quite feels authentic.
- Ego defense that uses negative labels evokes resentment, if not contempt.
As a child growing up in a violent home, I often wished and prayed for peace and safety. I thought I was hopeful; I had learned in church that the Lord wanted us to be hopeful. It wasn’t until years later, when I started my practice of couples therapy, that the realization came to me. I had conflated hoping and wishing. I wished that my life would get better.
The distinction between hoping and wishing is important. When we seem to feel “hopeless,” we’ve spent too much mental energy wishing.
Wishing seems to be about the future, but it’s embedded in present feelings and memories of losses, pain, and mistakes. The degree to which wishing is tied to memories is apparent in the frequent use of the word to mean the same as regret:
“I wish I’d prepared more.”
Hope is about the future, about how we want to be in the world, with a sense that we can do something to become the person we want to be. Hope sails on a sea of values. Wishes are about preferences and feelings.
Adults who no longer hope or wish risk sinking into despair. But most avoid the depths of despair with ego defense.
Ego defense is less about values, preferences, and feelings than how we want others to think of us. Hope is about doing the right thing; ego defense is about trying to get others to think we’re doing the right thing. Hope makes us feel better. Ego defense perpetuates feeling offended.
We defend the ego through argument, criticism, sarcasm, and coercion. We criticize and otherwise devalue others when offended by their actions or inactions. When the ego feels threatened, the primary behavioral goal is to defend it with a stern offense (attack or counterattack), irrespective of truth and fairness. When the ego feels threatened, facts are either weaponized or disregarded.
Hope elevates discussions; ego defense degrades them. Hope inspires hope; ego defense causes resentment.
In defense of the ego, we ignore the principle of emotion reciprocity, which holds that we’re likely to get back what we put out. When we get back what we put out, we feel unfairly criticized for “speaking truth.”
“You’re critical and offensive; I merely tell it like it is.”
In the throes of ego defense, we end up telling it like it isn’t; accuracy and truth are the earliest casualties of ego defense.
Ego defense eventually depletes hope. It diverts emotional energy from what we can do to become the way we want to be in the world and wastes it on attempts to convince others that we are what we want to be.
In its proactive form, ego defense looks like impression management. To some extent, we all try to manage the impressions we make on others. (Think of how different you are when alone.) The bigger the ego, the more effort it takes to manage impressions.
Internally, ego defense shields us from self-devaluing shame. Although it feels bad, shame motivates us to try harder to be successful. In love relationships, it motivates conciliation, compassion, kindness, and affection. When ego defense insulates us from shame, we’re likely to be less successful, conciliatory, compassionate, kind, and loving. We’ll be harder to love. Failure to use the dread of shame as motivation for improvement depletes hope.
The most intractable arguments in relationships are not about hopes and values. Virulent arguments are ego conflicts; that is, both parties are defending their egos. In ego conflicts, truth, facts, and values are less important to partners than proving they’re right.
Ego Defense vs. Disagreement
Disagreement is respectful, with the goal of negotiation to gain cooperation. Negotiation is hopeful when the outcome of cooperation will benefit both parties, at least in the long run.
Ego defense is disrespectful, self-righteous, or punitive, with the goal of gaining submission to one partner’s presumably greater intelligence, insight, analysis, intuition, virtue, and so on.
Ego Defense and Self-Value
Self-value is like self-esteem but different in important ways. Self-esteem is how we feel about ourselves. Self-value is more behavioral; it is how we treat ourselves. With high self-value, we treat ourselves as objects of value. If you own a DaVinci painting, you treat it with care, maintaining optimal room temperature and humidity and shielding it from direct lighting; your treatment of the painting is commensurate with its value.
When self-value is high, we try to eat well, eliminate drugs, drink moderately, and sleep well. We’re open to learning, growing, generating interest, taking time for enjoyment, engaging with friends, and supporting loved ones. In short, we’re hopeful. Ego defense impairs all of the above.
An ego in need of defense never quite feels authentic. We feel authentic when perceptions, coping habits, core emotions, assumptions, beliefs, judgments, and values align. That never happens in ego defense.
The best possible outcome of ego defense is getting others to think we’re successful, which is different from feeling successful. Even feeling successful is shallow and ephemeral without hope.
How to Transcend Ego Defense
To maintain hope and positive meaning:
- Stay true to humane values.
- Eliminate negative labels.
- Reserve judgment; be more curious than judgmental.
When interacting with others:
- Show respect.
- Argue to learn, not to win.
- Focus on behaviors or ideas, not character.
When we practice the above, ego defense is unnecessary. The urge to defend the ego yields to a more compelling desire to feel authentic and hopeful.
