The Neurosis of a Liberal Contender

Sigmund Freud, father of modern Psychology may have espoused some wacky theories dealing with hysteria and how it's tied in with the uterus, but he did manage to develop a list of unhealthy coping skills used when all else fails. Known as ego defense mechanisms, Papa Freud described them as tactics used when id and superego are fighting it out. Often, defense mechanisms are utilized in a healthy productive way, but if used over and over again, they can lead to the inability to address one's own reality and self-responsibility.

Denial and repression are often used as examples of ego defense mechanisms. Appropriately used, these can help an individual deal with the initial stages of trauma. If prolonged however as a means of coping and the trauma isn't addressed, the individual has the potential to develop anxieties, depression and possibly obsessive-compulsive disorders.

Some identified ego defense mechanisms are more serious than others and are indicative of a deep level of neurosis. An example is the neurotic defense of reaction formation. One of the earliest and most unstable defense mechanisms used against impulses or urges that are unacceptable to the ego. Defined as the transforming of an unacceptable impulse into its opposite, and is often characteristic of obsessional neuroses. Overuse of this defense mechanism or frequent use at an early stage during the development of the ego, it can become a permanent character trait.

Reaction Formation occurs when a person feels an urge to do or say something and then actually does or says something that is effectively the opposite of what they really want. It also appears as a defense against a feared social punishment. If I fear that I will be criticized for something, I very visibly act in a way that shows I am personally a long way from the feared position. A common pattern in Reaction Formation is where the person uses ‘excessive behavior’, for example using exaggerated friendliness when the person is actually feeling unfriendly.

Here's a real life example: From the Globe and Mail

"Liberal MP Joe Volpe is calling on the Senate to amend the Federal Accountability Act to prohibit people under 18 from donating money to political parties after the House of Commons failed to impose such a restriction.

Mr. Volpe was criticized this spring when his campaign for the Liberal Party leadership accepted donations from 11-year-old twins. He returned $27,000 he had received from the twins and three other minors and said he had created a precedent that should become the law of the land.
Mr. Volpe sent a letter last week to the Opposition Leader in the Senate, Liberal Dan Hays, calling for the legislation to include tougher rules.

"In the course of the debate, we established in Canada a sense that the spirit of the law is that no one under the age of 18 would make a political contribution. I lived to that standard by giving the money back," Mr. Volpe said in an interview yesterday."

Classic reaction formation!................and what does this tell us of this potential Leader of the Liberal party? This is a man who accepted money from minors for his political leadership coffers, then stated that he had no idea of the underlyingly glaring manner of underscoring the maximum allowed for political donorship, turned around quickly after he realized the gravity of the situation. He gave the money back and now has become the spokesman for donor reform? He is NOW ardently trying to lobby the Senate to pass a bill to cover his hypocritical ass.

Guess what Joe? You're dead in the water. Even if the Liberals were stunned enough to vote you in as Leader, do you think the Canadian public would offer you a BLANK CHEQUE to run our country after this latest money/frauding escapade that your party has become known for? Doubt it. Look in the mirror buddy and think about it! Once you lose the public trust, once you lose the perception of integrity (cause I don't really think real integrity existed), it's time to visit an employment counsellor to complete a career interest inventory.

Or.............you could hire someone to do your slimey dirty work........... Gee I wonder what slick coercion falls under?

Do-anything-you-can-to-win-while-playing-on-the-emotions-of-others?

Hmmmm............Projection? Displacement or simply sociopathic? Definately manipulative and dirty. It's up for debate...... From the Globe (I encourage you to read the whole article and for fun........ the reader's comments.)


"Politics is like sales: You've got to have the right message; you've got to have the right product," said Jim Karygiannis, MP for Scarborough-Agincourt and national campaign co-ordinator for leadership candidate Joe Volpe. "You've got to be in the right place at the right time with the right delivery. And you've got to jump on an opportunity."

On Thursday, Mr. Karygiannis hit the road in an 800-kilometre semi-circle with stops in Ottawa, Montreal, Prescott, Ont., Trenton, and Toronto, in a Volpe-campaign "mop-up operation" to pester and cajole organizers. On the highway to Montreal, he drives behind a five-ton truck, smoking a cigar and bellowing into his BlackBerry.

"Those two -- I want you to go in and clean house. No holds barred. I want nothing standing," he tells the caller. "You have my extreme blessing. I want that so bad I can taste it."

Mr. Karygiannis -- called Jimmy K in political circles -- has just given the go-ahead to all-out organizing in two ridings held by Liberal MPs -- although he won't say which ones.

At a Tim Hortons in south Ottawa, he plays guess-the-nationality as a man walks through the parking lot. He shouts a greeting in Tamil, and discovers the man is from Guyana.

Mr. Karygiannis tells him that he visited Guyana after floods there last year, when Canada provided aid, and the man, who identified himself only as Mr. Ali, starts to chat.
"Let me ask you something. Do you think it's time that Canada had an ethnic prime minister?" Mr. Karygiannis asks. Joe Volpe is ethnic, somebody who immigrated to Canada just like us, he tells him. He asks if Mr. Ali wants to join the Liberal Party, and Mr. Ali gives him a telephone number so that an organizer can call. "And I have a lot of family," Mr. Ali says.

Later, Mr. Karygiannis remarks on his "killer closing line" -- "Is Canada ready for an ethnic prime minister?" -- and explains how it's done. "It takes 30 seconds to zero in on an individual and figure out if you can sign them up, if you've got something in common with them."
For him, it's where people come from.

An MP since 1988, Mr. Karygiannis has assiduously courted ethnic communities, and has visited dozens of countries such as Somalia and Sri Lanka, often after natural disasters -- so often that his critics call him an international ambulance chaser."

If Joe Volpe is the poster boy for Grit politics and these are the professionals he has running his campaign, I will remain my happy Red Tory self thank you very much.

"The expectation that every neurotic phenomenon can be cured may, I suspect, be derived from the layman's belief that the neuroses are something quite unnecessary which have no right whatever to exist.

Whereas in fact they are severe, constitutionally fixed illnesses, which rarely restrict themselves to only a few attacks but persist as a rule over long periods throughout life."

Sigmund Freud.