Like all defense mechanisms, reaction formation is a process that protects the person from acknowledging or accepting information that contradicts the person's definition of who they are.
People who use reaction formation as a defense have discovered that they can disown unacceptable impulses by enacting their opposite.
Intimate relationships such as marriage (and therapy) threaten the definition of 'I' because they occasion a broader range of impulses and feelings than most situations do.
Not all serenity, dominance, submissiveness, and chastity is a reaction formation. As always, we can't tell the meaning of a behavior from its topography.
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