Emotional Scale/Strategies of Repression

(Final success – Identity change)
EXHILARATION
ENTHUSIASM
CHEERFULNESS
STRONG INTEREST
CONTENTMENT

MILD INTEREST
COMPLACENCY
BOREDOM
AMBIVALENCE
IMPOSED UPON

REBELLION
HOSTILITY
ANGER
HATE
RESENTMENT
SECRET HOSTILITY
ANXIETY
FEAR
DESPAIR
PROPITIATION
GRIEF
BLAME
SHAME
APATHY
DISENGAGEMENT
(Final Failure)

In looking at the emotional scale, we can see that in the upper levels, the person’s
strategy involves movement towards: being causative – confronting and handling any
barriers that prevent understanding – and being in control. Midway down the scale,
actions are directed against the perceived obstacles or threat, with destructive intention.
Towards the bottom of the scale, the direction of motion reverses away from the
situation; the person is mostly being the effect of it – instead of handling it, he is mostly
avoiding it. p. 178

Strategies of Repression

• Failure to perceive. The learning cycle may be interrupted at the point of
perception; the person may sub-consciously filter the sensory input, may cease to
pay concentrated attention, may look away or may faint.

• Failure to interpret. The person may have perceived the reality but refuses to
make the ‘obvious’ interpretation or to think further about it.

• Failure to verify. Even if an interpretation is in mind, the person may find this
too uncomfortable and refuse to verify (or disprove) it.

• Failure to accept. The person may fail to accept something that he ‘knows’ and
Transforming the Mind Chapter Six: The Open Focus State 179
has found out is true. The interpretation is invalidated – this is the defense
mechanism of denial. Alternatively he may validate another (previously rejected)
interpretation and feel unable to decide which is ‘correct’, in order to
procrastinate the decision.

• Delusion. Repression is often aided by the introduction of delusion: distorting,
altering or fictionalizing an acceptable interpretation of the facts. Rationalization
is a form of delusion – various reasons and justifications that avoid the crux of
the matter, the uncomfortable truth.