When humans experience “mental pain”, they can adopt a “defence” to avoid this pain. This can lead to “damaging consequences” and set up a vicious circle (Malan, p 15).

I picture this as a self-reinforcing feedback cycle linking dread (mental pain), defence, and damage:

In this psychodynamic defence:

• A stronger dread tends to
• Increase the defence against the dread, which tends to
• Increase the damage caused by the defence, which tends to
• Strengthen the dread.

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For the patient “The Mother of Four”, Malan describes one vicious circle. “almost every manifestation of disturbance in this patient …. can be summarised as follows: inadequate mothering leads to resentment; resentment leads to guilt; the guilt is held a bay by compulsive giving; the giving leads to a deficit in the emotional balance of payments, which leads to more resentment and a vicious circle” (Malan, p 65, 147)

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The Cyclic intervention

The cyclic intervention that I used in the counselling session with client Zed followed this form, when you take his dread to be his need for respect, and his defence to be gambling.

Here is a brief overview of the self-reinforcing feedback cycle that emerged during my example counselling session with client Zed.

Towards the end of the session, I summed it up, saying to him:

• There is a cycle here.
• The more you gamble to feel respected while you’re winning,
• the more money you lose and the less respect you get at home and at work, so
• the more you need respect, and
• this throws you back to gamble more.
• This vicious cycle is making life difficult for you.

The method for generating and using the cyclic intervention is critical: the page describing the example counselling session details this.

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Psychodynamics

The book “Individual Therapy and the Science of Psychodynamics” (Malan, 1979, p.15) identifies central aspects of psychodynamic therapy:

• People’s consciousness of their defence mechanisms ranges from nearly fully conscious to totally unconscious. (Malan, p.15)
• People use defensive mechanisms to avoid something that they dread. (Weinburg, 1995, uses the term dread.) There are three parts to these mechanisms:
  • A hidden feeling, unacceptable impulse, mental pain, or mental conflict. (Dread)
  • Anxiety: The feared consequences of expressing the hidden feelings.
  • Defence: the way a person calms the anxiety.
• The therapist analyses the client’s situation, identifies the client’s defence mechanism, and presents this analysis to the client via interpretations.
• One form of interpretation is to draw links between two parts of a defence mechanism: dread, anxiety, and defence. (Malan, p.80)
• Therapy aims to connect the patient with “as much of his true feelings as he can bear” (Malan, p.74).

Note: You can read about psychoanalyst David H Malan on Wikipedia.

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Gambling as a defence

Gambling can act as a defence by recruiting multiple recognised psychodynamic defences, including:

• Denial: Refusing to accept reality, e.g., denying the damage caused by gambling to their financial situation and their relationships.
• Fantasy: Retreating into far-fetched scenarios to escape reality, e.g., Zed’s conviction that he gained respect through his gambling.
• Repression: The exclusion of distressing thoughts, feelings or conflicts from conscious awareness,
• Passive aggression: Indirect expression of hostility, e.g. a gambler losing food money to express anger towards a partner.
• Acting out: Expressing feelings through impulsive actions instead of words.
• Avoidance: Avoiding people, places, or situations linked to uncomfortable thoughts or feelings, e.g., avoiding home problems by taking time out at a gambling venue.

Some clients with gambling problems also become involved with alcohol, drugs, or criminal activity. Like gambling, these behaviours can also serve as defences against dread.

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A defence as an illusory solution to a dread

Zed’s defence of gambling offered him an illusory solution to his dread: his mental pain of needing respect. When he was on a winning streak, he felt like a respected, socially successful professional gambler. He was so convinced of this that he had his symbols for gambling and respect engraved on his belt, and his face lit up with excitement when he started talking about gambling. As well as gambling being an illusory solution for his dread, he had another way of shielding himself.

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A defence as a distraction from a dread

Zed’s gambling shielded him from his dread in a second way: distraction. His gambling distracted him from his awareness of his dread by capturing his full attention while he:

• gambled, e.g., deciding what horse to back and urging on his horse while it raced, and
• dealt with gambling crises, e.g., being broke, debt repayments, crime, and his arrest.

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My intervention linked defence and dread.

A psychodynamic intervention can link two of the three elements of Malan’s triangle of conflict, which consists of (1) hidden feelings (dread), (2) defence, and (3) anxiety, where anxiety is the “feared consequences of expressing these hidden feelings”. (Malan, p. 15, p. 18).

I have never thought of my counselling as psychodynamic therapy. Nevertheless, my cyclic intervention had one feature of a psychodynamic intervention; it linked Zed’s defence (his gambling) and his dread (his conscious mental pain of needing respect).

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Zed’s consciousness of his defence

People’s consciousness of a defence mechanism can range from nearly fully conscious to totally unconscious (Malan, p. 15).

Zed’s design on his belt showed how important both gambling and respect were to him, and his conviction that gambling won him respect. He was not conscious of two aspects of his gambling. He seemed to overlook how his gambling lost him respect at home and at work. Also, he found it a revelation that his gambling established a vicious cycle that escalated his gambling.

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Rapport

Rapport refers to the degree of emotional connection between the patient and therapist. An increase in rapport shows that the therapist’s interpretation is appropriate, and vice versa (Malan, p. 20).

Initially, Zed seemed reluctant to be in my office. His surprising and positive response to the intervention showed that it deepened the rapport between us and that Zed came to value the session.

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Multiple dreads

A person often has multiple hidden feelings (Malan, p. 84).

During the counselling session, I wondered about other dreads that could be fuelling Zed’s gambling. During the counselling session, Zed said his mother had been pressuring him to see a doctor about his head injury, and I could see that he was fully against that idea. I wondered whether he was frightened the doctor might say there was something wrong with his head. I did not mention this in the session because I thought it might have alienated Zed, but it was another possible driver of his gambling and amplifying feedback cycle.

Defence: Zed gambles more for the wins, to feel like a smart professional gambler		More Damage: Zed knows he’s losing money and feels crazy.
		More Dread: Something is wrong with my head

In this cycle:

• Zed was frightened that something was wrong with his head, and this tended to
• Increase his gambling to experience winning streaks and to feel smart, like a skilled professional gambler who had nothing wrong wth his head, which tended to:
• Increase the gambling damage. For example, a few times when he could not pay his share of some household bills, his mother had yelled at him that he was crazy and pressured him to go to the doctors. This tended to:
• Increase his fear that something was wrong with his head.

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An alternative cyclic intervention

Rather than identifying a focused dread, such as needing respect, I often identified the client’s gambling as a distraction from their underlying problems or stress. As shown in the session with client Zed, the diagram below would be placed within the cobweb diagram, including the words the client used to discuss their life.

Defence: More gambling to distract from stress		More Damage: lose more money
		Greater Stress

In this cycle:

• people gambled to distract themselves from stress; however,
• they would lose money while gambling, which tended to
• increase these stresses, so
• their gambling would increase.

Clients often found this understanding of their gambling a relief, and they would happily return to counselling.

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Anxiety

Malan describes anxiety as the feared consequences of expressing a hidden feeling (Malan, p. 15).

I do not know enough about this and would like to discuss it with someone. Here are my thoughts.

When a hidden feeling is unconscious, how can a person be aware of the consequences of expressing it?

Fear is a response to an immediate and identifiable danger—such as a lion charging toward you—whereas anxiety is a similar physiological and emotional response to a threat that is anticipated, vague, or only possible.

From this perspective, anxiety could arise when a self-reinforcing “dread cycle” develops. A person may observe the harm caused by their defensive actions, and become anxious because they are scared of this mystery within themselves: they (1) do not understand, or may not even be conscious of, the underlying dread, and (2) do not realise the cyclical dynamic that links their dread, their defensive responses, and the resulting damage.

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Psychodynamic defences as vicious cycles

Many accepted psychodynamic defences can form a vicious cycle. Here are two examples.

Denial

The defence of denial readily leads to a vicious cycle.

More gambling		More Gambling Shocks
		Defence: More denial

In this denial cycle, (1) an increase in a problematic behaviour like gambling tends to (2) lead to increased damage that can even shock the person, which the person then (3) denies, which then allows them to (4) increase the problematic behaviour.

Projection of hostility

The defence of projection can also lead to a vicious cycle. Projection is when a person has an impulse, feeling, or trait, finds it unacceptable, disowns it, and sees it in another person.

Projection: Others are hostile towards me. Withdrawal. Suspicion.		Damage: Peter saw others’ responses to him as undeserved hostility
		Dread: Unacceptable hostility

For a pretend person, Peter, who projected hostility, the cycle was:

• Dread: Peter was hostile but found this unacceptable.
• Defence: Projection: Peter saw others as being hostile to him and could withdraw from them. He became hypervigilant, suspicious, and cold, watching for signs of this hostility. He could also pre-emptively withdraw from others in anticipation of their hostility.
• Damage: People respond to Peter’s defences with irritation, withdrawal, or anger, negative responses. Peter saw this as unprovoked hostility, which (1) strengthened his feeling that hostility was unacceptable, and (2) confirmed that others were hostile towards him.

Many psychodynamic defences form a vicious cycle.

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Wind up

Malan’s psychodynamic model, especially his “triangle of conflict”, involves working through layers of defences and anxiety to reach the underlying hidden feelings and impulses (dreads).

The cyclic intervention presented here is grounded in psychodynamic concepts and was an effective means of establishing rapport and exploring the factors driving the client’s presenting problem.

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Counselling Pages & References

The introduction to my counselling pages includes:

• Links to the other counselling pages, including those describing how this approach relates to other counselling practices and theories, see the top of the introduction page
• References for all the counselling pages, at the end of the introduction page.

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Loaded 6 Dec 2025; Updated 22 Jan 2026.