Blog 96 Defense, Dementia and The Contact Rebus

The Defense and The Positive Core

The essential function of the defense is to make contact and receive life energy in the positive core. Therefore you can instead use the term contact rebus.

The humanistic approach and the positive core I described in my latest blog, “Dementia and the Humanistic Approach,” is shared with many methods in humanistic psychology. As mentioned in earlier blogs, the theory is general and can be applied to everyone. However, the view that resistance is an indirect way of bonding with others and getting help is special for Motivational Work. With this in mind, we will focus on how you can use it with dementia patients.

The Contact Rebus

To explain the dynamics, I will bind together the humanistic approach and the defense. As I have already said, I will replace the term defense with contact rebus (Motivational Work, Part 1, pages 94 – 400). For those unfamiliar with the word rebus, you can read my blogs, nr 13 and nr 16, to deepen your understanding. In brief, it is a kind of enigma, an indirect and hidden way of contacting somebody else.

Everyone uses Contact Rebuses

The whole of humanity uses contact rebuses, especially when you are under stress or pain. If you are well-functioning (manifestly motivated) or, put another way, if you have sufficient life energy, you only use rebuses in stressful situations. On the other hand, some people have a low degree of life force (latently motivated). They constantly capitalize on contact rebuses. In other words, there is always a hidden meaning in their communication.

How to meet Latently Motivated

The greatest challenge is to meet the latently motivated. They are in great need of life energy, and they receive it when they communicate contact rebuses. The reason that the latently motivated have a low level of life force is that they are in great pain. They want life energy to mitigate their agony.

Destructive Contact Rebus

Therefore, their contact rebuses are destructive. It is a way to get rid of their torment without having to experience it; in other words, a hidden catharsis of the pain. At the same time, the destructiveness makes the contact rebus more demanding for others. You are seen, people react emotionally, the society might contact you (police, hospitals, social institutions, etc.).

The Contact Rebus augments Life Energy

The contact rebus increases the life energy you can receive from someone else. You get a more decisive confirmation if you have a destructive behavior and are still met with a positive response. It takes more life energy to respond to an indirect and negative communication than to react to an honest, constructive message. A case will clarify the function of the contact rebus.

The Case

Agatha, 72 years old, has been diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s. Her symptoms have aggravated, and she now lives at an institution for dementia patients. For 30 years,  she has been married to Jim,75 years old.

Negative Contact

Jim visits his wife every week. She seems unhappy to see him and complains about how lonely she is. No one pays her a visit. When Jim points out that he comes every week to see her, Agatha does not answer but looks dissatisfied. Instead, she continues to moan about her life situation. She wants something interesting to happen in her life, like travel abroad. When her husband informs her that she is too sick to travel, she looks disappointed and repeats her wish to make a journey.

Seeing The Contact Rebus

At first, Jim feels frustrated and sad that his wife is not happy to see him and ignores his opinions. After a short while, he understands that it is a contact rebus. She does not mean what she says. Now he can detect his wife’s need for strong positive confirmations. From now on in the conversation, he shows that he is committed to her.

Agatha has a great need to be given positive confirmation, so she can strengthen her positive core. By being critical and negative, she can have more life energy transmitted to her than by being nice.

Plan B: Dumping Anxiety

She has an alternative option if she does not get positive energy from her husband. She can obtain relief by dumping her anxiety and sadness on her husband. If Jim cannot withstand the discarding of emotional debris from Agatha, he carries her pain with him when he leaves. The disadvantage is that her positive core is not strengthened, and she must always test. Her backpack of sorrows is filled up every day. Furthermore, there is a risk that Jim will not come to her so often because it is too painful for him.

Protection Suit

Seeing Agatha’s defense as an indirect cry for help protects Jim from taking her reaction personally and receiving her anxiety. On the contrary, he perceives a positive message from his wife and answers her need for confirmation. Also, he can understand that he is essential to his wife. She feels so secure with him that she dares to risk their relationship.

Agatha’s Pain

Agatha uses contact rebuses. The pain and apprehension are severe in her because of her dementia. At the same time, the brain is damaged. It leads to her having reduced psychic energy to deal with her anguish. In turn, the result is a weakened positive core. The dilemma is that she cannot restore the lost life force.

A dementia patient has a constant need for life energy. It is the same desperation as drowning. Therefore, Agatha is sending contact rebuses the whole time. Like all other latently motivated persons, she is unaware of utilizing them.

The Function of The Defense

There is also a defense function in Agatha’s contact rebus. In her conversation with her husband, she denies her disease and life situation. In that way, the resistance helps her to survive, but the primary purpose is contact and receiving life energy.

The Inevitable Pain

Even if Jim acquires protection against dumping, it is essential to note that there is absolute and existential agony. He knows that his wife has a disease for which there is no cure, ending with her death. Nonetheless, the theory of the contact rebus can comfort him. Jim can alleviate her pain so that she is less lonely and has less anxiety.

The Next Blog

In the next blog, I will demonstrate how contact rebuses can work together and make it harder to retain a protection suit.

Contribute to Research

Dementia is a terrible disease, bit by bit, you lose your loved one, and you cannot stop it. I hope you all will contribute to the research on Alzheimer’s dementia.

P.S. Right now, you can get all four books on Motivational Work for free as an e-book if you apply for a Kindle unlimited membership at amazon.com. D.S.