Common Defenses against Environmental Awareness:

• Denial: Dismissing the evidence.
• Manic defenses: Stuffing anxiety under happy thoughts.
• Scapegoating: Rejecting the bearer of bad news.
• Regressing: “I can’t do anything about it anyway” (the child position).
• Paranoia: “It’s all rigged, a hoax, a conspiracy.”
• Repression: Deliberate turning away.
• Stoic passivity: “We can live with it.” “We’ll adapt.”
• Submission to authority: “The experts will handle it.”
• Distraction: For instance, workaholism, shopping, and sports.
• Distancing: “The crash won’t happen to me/us”.
• Defaming: “Tree huggers,” flagolatry.
• Magical thinking: “Good thoughts will fix the world.”

Result: psychic numbing.

"Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring was not simply a warning against widespread pesticide use but against the deafened self, against emptiness."
~ Paul Shepherd

Authored by Craig Chalquist, PhD. Use granted by permission.