Conflicts and Frustrations

1. Frustrations and conflicts

It is characteristic of the human to order his behavior, directing it towards the goals that he considers must satisfy his impulses in the search for the objectives he pursues. It is frequent, however, that man cannot fully satisfy these impulses, either due to circumstances beyond his control or, also, due to causes attributable to himself.

Sometimes we try to achieve certain goals and, when we don’t achieve them, we experience a psychological imbalance that can manifest itself in the form of frustration or conflict.

There may be restrictions within the social order or there may be restrictions within the social or economic order and even the political and even of a physical or mental nature, which prevent us from achieving the objectives that we have proposed.

Whatever the cause that makes it impossible to satisfy our impulses, the result will always be an emotional maladjustment that must manifest itself in the form of frustration or conflict that will produce a state of anxiety that can lead us to use the mental mechanisms of defense and evasion that endanger our emotional development.

In reality, the only way to achieve a functional personal adjustment is through the creation of good emotional habits.

2. The causes and effects of frustration

It is always presented as resulting from the impossibility of reaching a certain goal. Frustration appears, for example, when the performance of one person prevents the satisfaction of another’s desire. It may happen that, if on some occasion a son of a family asks his father to borrow his car and he refuses, he feels frustrated. The same thing can happen to the wife who expects her husband to fulfill responsibilities for which he is not prepared and tells his spouse so, but if she does not accept the reasons given, she will feel frustrated.

The reactions to the experiences that have left a frustrated mood are diverse. If the motive that gives rise to the frustration is weak, the subject tends to reduce the effort that he develops to achieve his object; but if the motive is strong, the subject will redouble his effort to obtain what he wants. Frustration can give rise to aggressive behavior, which will manifest itself in the frustrated person in the form of a reaction that will not only be aimed at considering that he is responsible, but also, on occasion, towards someone else who may be totally unrelated.

3. The psychological mechanisms of adjustment. Defense mechanisms.

The mental defense mechanisms begin to function from the presence of strong feelings of insufficiency of the self, it serves as a support or to present a different figure of the perception that the individual has of his own deficiencies, thus trying to cover them. When we start to think about our personal shortcomings, we experience a loss of self-esteem and we believe we are inferior to others.

Some of the general characteristics that tend to manifest in people who show an inferiority complex are the following: very marked feelings of self-inadequacy, the tendency to minimize one’s fence, lack of sociability, attitudes of excessive criticism towards others, poor responses, and inadequate when it comes to activities that involve competition, sensitivity to flattery. The feelings of inferiority of the subject can vary in degree and, in the proportion that this occurs, the defense mechanisms operate, which implies, in any case, a well-marked aggressive tendency. The defense mechanisms are the following:

• Supercompensation consists of the forced attempt to cover one’s own deficiencies and give them a different physiognomy, using, for this purpose, various means, all of which are distinguished by the affected gestures and gestures that are used.
• Rationalization consists of stating the conclusion and then looking for the arguments to support it. That means you ignore direct evidence and come to the conclusions you want to draw and hope others accept.
• The Projection consists of the tendency that someone has to attribute to others what is only particular or characteristic of him. When the individual projects his insecurity and shortcomings onto others, he tries to satisfy himself by covering up his own fears and desires, attributing them to them, because if he consciously recognized his own shortcomings, he would destroy the little security he has in himself.
• Disgusting Attitudes consist of unpleasant expressions and unpleasant poses or gestures that someone adopts to cover up their insufficiency or shortcomings.
• Identification is manifested whenever a person behaves as if he were another person to whom he feels emotionally attached. Identification implies the purpose of comparing oneself to others whose virtues, qualities, or aptitudes are admired.

4. The psychological mechanisms of adjustment.

Evasion mechanisms

The mental mechanisms of evasion are used, like those of defense, to protect the Self, and both young and old make extensive use of them. The behavior guidelines followed to seek adjustment, in this type of mechanism, always refer to distancing, which implies all possible forms of escape.

When we use avoidance mechanisms in pursuit of adjustment, our behavior is implying that we have given up fighting outright and are turning to avoidant types of adjustment that provide protection from danger.

5. Conclusion

Thanks to this topic we were able to understand what frustration and conflicts are, we believe that this topic is already important many times because we do not achieve an objective or goal that we set for ourselves, we fall into frustration. In this job, we also learned about defense mechanisms, and at the same time, we understood that sometimes we use them a lot, and at the same time this helped us to understand these problems and find a creative solution.

Finally, we can say that emotional imbalances are important issues that must be dealt with more often, since if we cannot correct them, they can cause problems in our relationships and at the same time affect us psychologically.