Rationalization

In 1822, Stendhal in his treatise "About Love" formulated amazing reflections on crystallization as the main mechanism of falling in love:

"Let the mind of a lover work for twenty-four hours, and this is what you will see… In the salt mines of Salzburg in the abandoned depths of these mines, throw a tree branch, bare over the winter; two or three months after its pull out, covered with sparkling crystals; even the little twigs, not more than a foot tit, adorned with countless moving and dazzling diamonds; the former branch it is impossible to know. "What I call crystallization is a special activity of the mind, which extracts from everything it encounters the discovery that the object it loves has new perfections. Having fallen in love, the most reasonable person no longer sees any object as it really is. He loses the sense of the probable and, exaggerating the slightest signs of the beloved's location, believes in what he wants to believe."

The same thing, but simpler and shorter, wrote A. S. Pushkin in 1828 to the wonderful Sashenka Osipova: "Ah, it's not difficult to deceive me, I'm happy to be deceived myself!". Alexander Sergeevich knew that people tend to deceive themselves. He knew that people easily believe what they like to believe. Or profitable. Or convenient.

A hundred years later, Sigmund Freud began to write about the same thing. He wrote about the mechanism of psychological protection, which he called "rationalization", namely that people regularly and skillfully lie to themselves for their own benefit. But if Stendhal and Pushkin considered this not even a Vice, but a sweet human weakness that causes a knowing smile, then Freud was not going to joke and qualified rationalization as a mechanism of psychological protection.

"Rationalization is a psychological defense mechanism in which only that part of the perceived information is used in thinking, and only those conclusions are made, thanks to which one's own behavior appears as well controlled and does not contradict objective circumstances. In other words, it is the search and selection of a rational explanation for behavior or decisions that have other, unconscious reasons" (Wikipedia).

Yes, Freud is right: people lie to themselves more often than Stendhal and Pushkin wrote about it. People easily and happily deceive themselves in order to plausibly explain facts that are inconvenient for them or to present normal things that they may be ashamed of. People tend to manipulate, adjust their understanding of what is happening to them to their desires, to what is convenient for them.

Rationalization makes it possible to whitewash and justify yourself, and make everyone else guilty. Those husbands and wives who are at war with each other after a divorce will always explain to you why they have no other choice and that there is a terrible person there.

We first come up with something, and then forget that we invented it ourselves and are happy to believe in our idea as in the truth.

A famous example of rationalization is Aesop's fable "the Fox and the grapes". The Fox can not get the grapes and retreats, rationalizing that the grapes are "green".

• "All women are fools!» - most often and loudest of all it is shouted by men who are bypassed by worthy women.
• "People don't change" - philosophically state usually those who can't cope with themselves.

A very old observation from a Distance: if a paratrooper begins to be lazy, first he writes more formal reports. Then he writes them less often. After that, he starts skipping individual meetings at a Distance. And when he leaves the Race, he never explains his laziness and disorganization. No, it's not about him, it's about the Distance: "It just doesn't suit me!".

Cowardly people call their behavior cautious, aggressors in life always explain that they are forced to protect themselves, and those who have not learned – or are tired - to love and care, tell everyone about the terrible triangle of Karpman "Savior-Persecutor-Victim".

In the Karpman triangle, it is not those who love and care, but those who do it without a head or not correctly.

Rationalization is a reality, but the attitude to it in psychoanalysis and in the syntonic approach is different. For psychoanalysis, this is a given that you just need to accept. This is an internal, unconscious mechanism sewn into us, which works for us in spite of our will and consciousness, works for everyone and always. This is not done by you, but by your psyche. That's how we work. We can't not do this!

No, that's not true. In the synton approach, we look at it differently.

Rationalization is a habit learned in childhood to invent in your favor.

If as a child you played only in daughter-mothers and similar children's role-playing games, where the game has no strict rules and requires more free imagination to invent reality on the go, then you come up with it easily and, perhaps, you believe in what you have come up with. Well, Yes, after that, psychologists will state that you are characterized by the phenomenon of rationalization, and ordinary people will say more simply:"liar".

If you had games with clear rules as a child and learned that those who try to lie and circumvent the rules are called zhukhals and are kicked out of the game, you are most likely not accustomed to lying and have a reputation for honesty among people.

You may have developed a bad habit of lying for other reasons. If the mother (or grandmother) often swears, but easily regrets, if the child starts to complain to her, then what do children quickly start to do? Make up and complain about anything, just not to be guilty. And the grandmother is sorry, the grandmother likes to feel sorry, so she teaches the child to lie.

Or maybe, in some family, a child saw as a child how dad lies to mom, and mom composes and lies to dad on the go, and perceived this as the norm… If a child grew up in an atmosphere of domestic lies, he will lie to protect himself, because he is simply ill-mannered.

You don't need to write deep psychology where there is bad pedagogy.

Rationalization is just a bad habit, and bad habits need to be broken.

You need to get rid of bad habits, because otherwise, sooner or later someone will want to get rid of you.

Try it on yourself. If your accountant tells you about the status of your account and lies to you, explaining it by the peculiarities of your psyche and the unconscious mechanism of rationalization, you know what you will do.

Wean yourself from lying to yourself, there is nothing particularly difficult here, especially for those who study at the University of practical psychology, there is no. When you rationalize, the smart people around you see it elementary – and will tell you about it. Just ask!

If you didn't learn to distinguish fairy tales from reality as a child, we will learn it now. If your behavior upsets you, tell yourself: "Mistake!" and hug yourself. Everything will be fine, and there will be no need to lie to yourself. And gradually we will become smarter and wiser, we will make mistakes less often, and we will simply not need rationalization.