The human psyche has many defense mechanisms that help us cope with difficult life situations or get through bad days. One of these psychological mechanisms is devaluation, which is a way of unconscious defense that allows a person to reduce or completely deny the importance of things, events, emotions, people, and achievements. This mental mechanism is triggered when a person is at risk of destroying his or her own self-esteem and experiencing inner pain.
How does devaluation manifest itself in everyday life?
- Devaluation manifests itself on a behavioral level. When a coworker is late for an important business meeting, it shows that he or she does not value other people's time.
- This also includes devaluing an agreement. If a person promised you something and gave his word to fulfill something, but as a result did not do what he promised.
- The devaluation manifests itself in gifts. This is exactly the case when you are given completely unnecessary gifts. The person giving it to you didn't bother with the choice at all and didn't even try to think what kind of gift would be nice for you.
- People can also devalue themselves. Such people are willing to do a lot of work for a small salary, do not value their time, are in a relationship with a person who does not respect them, etc.
Depreciation in the parental family
The roots of psychological devaluation most often need to be found in childhood. Often one of the parents in childhood, had a lot of criticism, reproaches, humiliation from his relatives, and being an adult tries to raise their own self-esteem through the devaluation of their child, who can not object and defend themselves.
Also, this problem can be observed in a family where one child is singled out and the other is ignored. For example, the parents or one of them loves only the daughter, and treats the son coldly, or vice versa.
In such situations, parents have a simple explanation for what is happening: "this child is naughty, learns worse, does not meet our expectations, etc.". In the process of growing up, such a child develops a psychological disorder, which is expressed in the devaluation of themselves and others.
Depreciation in relationships
Is your significant other not thrilled with your work? When you try to talk about your feelings, in response you hear: "Oh, yes, this is not a problem. There are children starving in Africa, and you worry because of someone else's words." Have you ever had such situations? Well, these are signs that your personality and feelings are being devalued.
How to protect your sense of self worth?
Try to understand why you are being devalued
What is the reason for this behavior? You yourself gave a reason for this or the offender has an inferiority complex who is trying to assert themselves at the expense of the fact that you are offended.
Don't take the offender's words seriously
If you are offended, do not look for the reason only in yourself. In this situation, a person most likely triggered a psychological defense mechanism based on their own complexes and fears. Therefore, do not blame yourself and pay special attention to it.
Protect yourself from devaluation
In this situation, it is best to stop the relationship with a person who does not appreciate you. If the devaluation comes from relatives, then in this case it is worth setting personal boundaries. You can also turn devaluation into humor. Through humor, you can internally disagree with what the offender said and defuse the negative situation.
Show your displeasure
If you are offended by someone's words or actions, do not keep it quiet, on the contrary, express your dissatisfaction. By doing so, you will let the offender know that you do not agree with their statements, opinions, etc. This is a difficult and long, but necessary process to strengthen our personality and relationships.
