i'm fascinated by what you have said, Donatien. Most notably the following bits:

Quote Originally Posted by DONATIEN
In the real world, many times we find ourselves out of our depth and have to improvise, using those resources we have to deal with what is occurring. Like the hermit crab, we cobble together defenses into a protective shell, which in most of us affords sufficient self confidence to learn the skills we need to pursue our lives.

These defenses, defensive tricks really, the ones that worked successfully at any rate, become so automatic that we are no longer aware of them. Like a hidden piece of software they continue to work “protecting” us as they have always done, only now as ( relatively!) successful adults, they are actually limiting our choices unnecessarily , since although those defenses that we developed when children were the best we could come up with at the time,they are far more primitive, rigid and limiting than responses that we now use regularly in specific aspects of our lives. Indeed they may stick out like a sore thumb, to others if not to ourselves. As the psychiatrist R.D, Laing put it ( get you brain in gear folks):-

-” The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice; and because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little that we can do to change; until we notice how failing to notice is shaping our thoughts and deeds”.
i think this limited thought and action often causes us to mess up relationships and opportunities and only then do we notice our own behaviour. i don't necessarily think this is always "submissive or appeasing" though, speaking personally my own insecurities and...past issues often manifested in anger, it was a pure defense mechanism, but it prevented anyone from getting really close to me..and, in the mean time, pushed people away because they were hurt by it.

i don't much wanna go into it any more than that, but i just wanted to say i liked what you had written very much.

sl