Chapter 12, Q3

When I first started reading this chapter I was instantly attracted with the first theory that introduced, psychodymanic theory. This is a theory that says that "people experience conflict because of their interpersonal (internal, psychological, emotional, mental) states". These types of conflict are ones that can happen over overblown conflict where a situation receive more attention that it really needs. I was automatically attracted to this because I experience situations on a weekly basis with my boyfriend where we give situations more attention than it needs. We make big deals over things that actually don't really matter at all. I also might label these as misplaced conflict. This is where we argue about issues other than the ones at the heart of the conflict. I feel as if we give bigger attention to smaller situations because we are not actually identifying what is really wrong. For instance, I might get really mad at him because I feel like we don't spend that much time anymore, but instead of bringing that to his attention I will blow up over him leaving his dirty clothes on the floor. I will try to repress my feelings, which is a defense mechanism that occurs when we try not to think about our situations, and let it go but I wind up blowing up over the something non important or relevant. Leaving his clothes on the floor is something that is not a big deal to me, but because I am mad about something else that is bigger but don't want to tell him about it  I will blow up over something non important.