Hypercompensation vs compensation Let me start with the fact that compensation and hypercompensation are psychological defense mechanisms. But if compensation is a fairly adaptive (non-dangerous) defense, then overcompensation often leads to personality maladjustment. Adler, who introduced the concept of overcompensation, viewed this defense mechanism as a false path to success and usefulness. Let's figure out why. Everyone wants to feel complete. However, it happens that somewhere “it doesn’t work out” - everyone has their own gaps. Such a gap can be compensated without much harm to the psyche. I note that deficiencies can be both physical and mental, real or imaginary, i.e. subjective perception of a particular person. For example, a person who has complexes about his appearance can compensate for this deficiency with charisma and an unsurpassed sense of humor, and weak physical characteristics with intellectual achievements. That is, failures in one area are compensated by successes in another. A woman’s lack of self-realization can be compensated by her role as a wonderful mother and wife at home. Thus, something for which there is a predisposition develops. Despite the fact that compensation is a more adaptive defense of the psyche, sometimes the inability to overcome one’s shortcomings, especially physical ones, leads to its negative form - imaginary compensation - when a person speculates on his shortcomings in order to receive attention and care. Such compensation stops any personal growth. Overcompensation, unlike compensation, directs all efforts to shortcomings. Instead of developing strengths, a person begins to “train” deficient ones, trying to hide them. Most often this is an unconscious process. Overcompensation is a maladaptive mechanism in most cases. A person does not work through his inferiority complex in one area or another, but covers it with a screen. Hence the desire for achievement as an end in itself. It sounds like: “I will do anything, at any cost, to gain what I didn’t have or don’t have in order to feel complete.” It will always be about extremes and lack of contact with oneself. Depression, apathy, inability to enjoy life, not knowing what I want, even panic attacks as the flip side of the desire for false values ​​and goals. An example could be the arrogance and arrogance of an insecure person, strict demands on others of a vulnerable person, or aggression of a weak-willed person. To some extent, this actually relieves the symptom for a while. But so much effort and resources are spent that sooner or later such protection collapses. Better early and better accompanied by a psychologist. Not as painful. There are also positive examples of overcompensation, when a person does not feel the need to assert himself, but turns a disadvantage into part of his strength. Nick Vujicic was born with tetra-amelia, a pathology in which limbs are missing. Today Nick is a fully accomplished person: two higher educations, a passion for active sports, traveling around the world with the mission “Life without limits.” In 2005, Nick Vujicic was nominated for the Young Australian of the Year award. And in 2009, the guy starred in the film “The Butterfly Circus,” dedicated to his story. Ludwig van Beethoven completely lost his hearing at 26. But deafness did not prevent him from composing music. Beethoven used a special stick attached at one end to the front panel of the piano. Clutching the other end of the stick with his teeth, he “felt” the sound produced by the instrument thanks to the vibration transmitted through the stick. It was during this period of his life that the composer wrote the most magnificent works: String Quartet, op. 131; "Solemn Mass"; "The Great Fugue", op. 133 and, of course, the Ninth Symphony. Stephen Hawking, Milton Erickson... and many others worthy of respect. Unfortunately, these people are rather the exception to the rule. Psychotherapy helps to find more adaptive defense mechanisms and gradually teaches a person to do without them, establishing contact with himself 8-926-450-14-74