When a human experiences “mental pain”, they can adopt a “defence” to avoid this pain. This can lead to “damaging consequences” and set up a vicious circle.

(Malan, 1979: Paraphrase of his summary points 1 and 7 on page 15).

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

While this vicious cycle is dominant: (1) a stronger dread (2) increases the use of a defence against the dread, which (3) increases the damage caused by the defence, which (4) strengthens the dread, and then (5) the cycle repeats.

The Cyclic intervention

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

In a counselling session with client Zed, I identified a vicious cycle that drove his gambling. It was a revelation to him. (Zed is a fictional client.)

You gamble more to feel respected – that’s when you are winning.		Damage: You lose more money & respect
	You need more respect.

As we talked, I wrote keywords that he used on a whiteboard diagram under three headings: (1) what he liked about gambling, (2) what he disliked, and (3) other issues in his life. The above vicious cycle emerged from this larger diagram, and I summed it up, saying to him, “There is a cycle here: (1) the more you gamble to feel respected, while on winning streaks, (2) the more money you lose and the less respect you get at home and at work, so (3) the more you need respect, and (4) this throws you back to gamble more. This vicious cycle is making your life difficult.”

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

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 defence mechanisms to avoid what they dread. (Weinberg, 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 avoids their dread.
• 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 a link between two of the three 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.

Gambling as a defence

Gambling can act as a defence by recruiting 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.

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 talked about gambling.

A defence as a distraction from a dread

Zed’s gambling also 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., coping with having no money, trying to repay debts, and stealing to fund his gambling.

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). It linked these in a way that was a revelation to the client.

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 he was fully conscious of (1) his gambling, (2) his desire for respect and (3) 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.

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 our rapport and that Zed came to value the session.

Multiple dreads

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

During the counselling session, I wondered about another dread that could be fuelling Zed’s gambling. During the counselling session, Zed said his mother had been suggesting that he 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.

In this possible cycle: (1) Zed feared that something was wrong with his mind. To counter that fear, he (2) gambled more, chasing winning streaks so he could feel intelligent and in control, like a skilled professional, demonstrating there was nothing wrong with him. The increased gambling led to (3) greater damage with more losses and conflict, including his mother telling him he was “crazy” and needed to see a doctor. These consequences (4) reinforced his fear that something was wrong with his head, and then (5) the cycle repeated.

I did not mention this in the session because I thought it might have alienated Zed, but this could have been another amplifying feedback cycle that drove his gambling.

Anxiety

One of the main tasks of a psychotherapist is to understand the patient’s defence mechanisms in terms of (1) their defences, (2) anxiety, and (3) hidden feelings [dread], and to reveal this to the patient through interpretations.

Anxiety is a key concept for Malan. He describes anxiety as the feared consequences of expressing a hidden feeling (Malan, p. 15).

I would like to discuss this with someone.

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

Perhaps anxiety appears as a protective warning when a person is on emotionally dangerous ground, even while they are unconscious of both the hidden feeling and the feared consequences. The expectation of danger is unconscious, learned early in life, and triggered automatically. Anxiety is the conscious experience of an unconscious prediction of danger.

Another way of thinking about anxiety is in relation to fear. Fear is a useful response to a recognised threat. Anxiety, by contrast, involves similar physical arousal but without an identified threat. (Anxiety can also arise when a threat is possible or anticipated.)

Here are two ways of incorporating anxiety into this framework.

*** The vicious defence cycle produces anxiety.

The first way uses the already described vicious cycle linking dread, defence, and damage, and considers that anxiety is a response to this cycle.

A self-reinforcing cycle, linking dread, defensive behaviour, and damage, can come to dominate a person’s life. While this is happening, a real but unrecognised threat exists. They are unaware of: (1) the underlying dread, (2) the defensive function of their behaviour, and (3) the vicious cycle driving their damaging behaviour and increasing life difficulties. As the damage accumulates with no seeming threat, the result is a free-floating fear response. The vicious cycle transforms dread into diffuse anxiety.

Here, anxiety is not part of the vicious cycle, but the cycle generates anxiety.

*** Include “anxiety” in the vicious cycle.

Proposing that dread leads to anxiety seems consistent with Malan’s description of anxiety as “the feared consequences of expressing a hidden feeling [dread]”. This suggests considering the following cycle.

While this cycle is dominant: (1) increased dread (2) increases anxiety, which (3) increases use of the defence, to temporarily reduce the anxiety, which (4) increases the damage caused by the defence, which (4) increases the dread, and then (5) the cycle repeats.

My concern about his cycle is that the purpose of the defence is to suppress consciousness of the dread, so the strongest causal link is between dread and the defence.

Psychodynamic defences as vicious cycles

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

Denial

The defence of denial readily forms a vicious cycle.

While this denial cycle is dominant, (1) an increase in a problematic behaviour, say gambling, leads to (2) greater shocks caused by the gambling. The shocks can briefly pause the gambling; however, when the person resumes gambling, they (3) increase their ability to deny the impact of these gambling shocks, (4) increase their gambling, and then (5) the cycle repeats.

Projection

The defence of projection can also generate a vicious self-reinforcing cycle. Projection occurs when a person experiences an impulse, feeling, or trait that they find unacceptable, disowns it, and attributes it to someone else. Consider the hypothetical example of Peter, who projects his hostility towards others.

While this vicious cycle is dominant, (1) Peter’s dread is that he cannot accept his own feelings of hostility toward others. For him, hostility is wrong and dangerous. He (2) increasingly projects his hostility onto others, perceiving others as hostile toward him. He becomes more hypervigilant, suspicious, and emotionally guarded, scanning for signs of threat. Increasingly, when he anticipates hostility, he withdraws pre-emptively to protect himself. His behaviour (3) increasingly damages his relationships with others. Others grow irritated by his guardedness and distance and respond with annoyance, withdrawal, or rejection. Their reactions confirm Peter’s expectations. He interprets their reactions as unprovoked hostility directed at him, which, for him, confirms the terrible nature of hostility. This confirmation (4) increases the dread of his own hostility, and (5) the escalating cycle repeats. Over time, the defence that initially protected Peter from confronting his own hostility increases both his hostility and others’ hostility towards him.

The dread, gambling, and damage cycle

Is the dread, defence, damage cycle an amplifying feedback cycle? Here, I examine one example of this cycle, the vicious cycle driving problem gambling, to see if it makes sense as an amplifying feedback cycle.

While this cycle is dominant, (1) dread leads to (2) increased gambling to defend against the dread, which leads to (3) increased damage due to the gambling, which leads to (4) increased dread, and (5) the cycle repeats.

I have examined two classic examples of amplifying feedback processes on separate pages: the Audio Feedback Cycle and the Arctic Sea Ice Spiral. Despite the gambling cycle being significantly different, I conclude that it is also an amplifying feedback cycle – and suspect that this is true for other defences.

Time taken by the gambling cycle

The time taken to move around the gambling cycle is highly variable as both gambling and the damage are intermittent and erratic.

• A person gambles when they have the impulse, time, and money. Life often delays gambling, e.g., family involvement, work, sleep, and illness.
• The gambling damage occurs during gambling and after, sometimes a long time after the gambling. A single gambling loss can cause damage several times. For example, a gambler loses money (damage) and the next day cannot pay the rent (damage). Then, two weeks later, the gambler’s partner discovers that the gambler has not paid the rent (more damage).
• Each increase in damage sends a separate pulse of activity around the cycle, reinforcing the dread and anxiety and increasing the pressure to gamble.

Partially active cycle

Still considering the example of the gambler not paying the rent: after the loss, the gambler has no money and cannot gamble, so the dread-to-gambling link is inactive. During this period of no gambling, the damage mounts as the gambler fails to pay the rent, and their partner discovers the unpaid rent, so the gambling-to-damage link is active. The cycle will often be partially active, with one link active while another is inactive. Having one inactive link does not make this cycle dormant.

Overall dominance

Despite both gambling and gambling damage being intermittent, over a period during which a person’s need to gamble strengthens, this cycle is dominant overall, producing increases in gambling, damage, and dread.

Key terms

Here are some terms I use to describe amplifying feedback cycles.

Stopping the gambling cycle

If this vicious gambling cycle existed alone, the dread and defensive gambling would both have to drop to zero, and stay at zero, to stop the gambling. This is because any slight occurrence of dread or gambling would reactivate the vicious cycle with its increases in dread, gambling and damage.

However, the gambling cycle occurs alongside many other feedback cycles, as described on my humans and feedback page. To stop problem gambling without eliminating the dread, the gambler can strengthen other feedback cycles that compete with gambling or oppose gambling.

All unconstrained amplifying feedback cycles become self-limiting as they eventually exhaust a needed resource. When a gambler is unable to constrain their own gambling, the unconstrained gambling cycle eventually exhausts a needed resource and pauses itself. For example, the gambler can (1) run out of money, (2) lose their freedom through imprisonment, or (3), in despair, end their life by suicide.

Measurability

A major difference between the gambling cycle and other cycles, such as the audio system cycle and the Arctic sea ice cycle, is that two of the gambling cycle variables are not measurable: unconscious dread and gambling damage. This does not invalidate the gambling cycle as psychotherapeutic theories must rely on such constructs, e.g. Malan’s “unacceptable feelings”.

Also, other classic vicious cycles include factors that are hard to measure. For example, community fear can drive a run on a bank.

This cycle has two factors that are hard to measure: (1) community fear, and (2) signs of bank stress. Despite these hard-to-measure factors, this vicious cycle does show one way in which a bank can collapse. The lack of direct measurability of factors in a vicious cycle does not invalidate the cycle.

Intermittency of gambling & gambling damage

Both gambling activity and the resulting damage are intermittent. Consider a person who gambles for 1 hour a day as they develop a problem. This amounts to seven hours per week, which is a lot of gambling and yet only 4% of total time. The causal link between dread and gambling is therefore inactive most of the time.

By comparison, an audio feedback loop is effectively continuous, with each causal link being active nearly 100% of the time while the feedback shriek escalates.

However, this continuous activity is not a necessary feature of amplifying feedback.

The current melting of Arctic sea ice is intermittent, active only when there is sunlight and temperatures are warm enough to melt ice, yet an amplifying feedback cycle drives it. Also, the evolution of life on Earth is intermittent due to unpredictable processes like gene mutation, yet evolution occurs, and, again, an amplifying feedback cycle drives it.

Amplification can occur despite intermittent causal links. In gambling, each intermittent episode of gambling activity tends to increase intermittent gambling damage, which tends to increase stored dread, which increases the pressure to gamble. The cycle “stores” its effects between activations.

Intermittency only slows the rate at which a feedback cycle amplifies.

Wind up

As a counsellor, I found it clinically useful to help clients recognise that their gambling is not crazy, but a misguided attempt to solve a problem that, perversely, intensifies the problem. In systems terms, I reframe their problem gambling as an amplifying feedback cycle linking (1) a dread, (2) their gambling, and (3) the resulting damage, which (4) deepens the dread.

David Malan asserts that a psychodynamic defence can form a vicious cycle, and when gambling is conceptualised as such a defence, the above gambling cycle suggests a link between (1) a dread or unacceptable feeling, (2) a defence, which produces (3) damage, which (4) intensifies the dread. The defence does not resolve the underlying conflict; it sustains and escalates it. This generalisation reformulates a key aspect of Malan’s psychodynamics in terms of systems theory.

Having examined this gambling cycle and several classic examples of amplifying feedback, I conclude that the gambling cycle is indeed an amplifying feedback cycle. The intermittent gambling cycle is, of course, psychological, and differs in surface features from physical systems such as Audio Feedback and the Arctic Sea Ice Spiral; however, the underlying structure is the same: a self-reinforcing loop in which each element strengthens the next.

Conceptualising gambling in this way has practical value. It offers:

• A readily understandable and non-judgemental way for a client to understand a problem that is overwhelming them
• A tested way of assisting clients
• A constructive framework for counsellors, helping them uncover the dynamics driving the client’s presenting problem, which can increase rapport
• An analysis that seems consistent with psychodynamic theory.

I developed a method of counselling that involved identifying vicious cycles that came to dominate my client’s lives. This suited my work with problem gamblers, as demonstrated by the counselling session with client Zed. I have presented three examples of classic psychodynamic defences and how they can form similar vicious cycles. These defences were: denial, projection, and fantasy/illusory solutions – and other defences can also generate vicious cycles. This suggests that amplifying feedback cycles may be a general feature of psychodynamic defences. If so, the systems perspective outlined here may be useful far beyond problem gambling, offering a useful bridge between systems theory and psychodynamic practice.

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.

Loaded 6 Dec 2025; Updated 22 April 2026.