Does getting close to others have to involve the risk of getting hurt?
The hedgehog’s dilemma, sometimes also called the porcupine’s dilemma, is one of those satisfying metaphors that perfectly sums up its subject. It has its roots in the thinking of German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, who proposed that, even with the best of intentions, humans harm each other when they attempt to have intimate relationships. Published in the book Parerga and Paralipomena in 1851, Schopenhauer’s parable of the porcupines is the basis of the hedgehog’s dilemma. And it goes something like this...
On a winter’s day, a group of porcupines were huddled up closely together to protect themselves from the freezing cold. However, it wasn’t long before they felt the prickles of each other’s quills, which made them move apart again. But once they were apart, the cold began to seep back in. The porcupines found themselves caught between being cold or being spiked by each other’s quills – that was, until they found the optimal distance from each other that they could be a bit warmer but still not spike each other. In this zone, they could offer each other mutual warmth and comfort without intruding on each other in a painful way – however, they weren’t fully satisfied on either front.
If the story sounds pretty pessimistic, that’s because it is – a gloomy worldview was something Schopenhauer is known for, with some even labelling him as a 19th-century nihilist (nihilism is the view that human existence, and ultimately life, is meaningless). He concludes that it’s not possible to have it all, and the parable ends with the advice: keep your distance.
Despite this pessimism – or, perhaps due to it – something about this parable struck a chord, as it has been returned to throughout the centuries. The tale was quoted by Sigmund Freud in his 1921 book Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego – he even had a model porcupine on his desk, though he’s also the reason for the metaphor’s transition from porcupines to hedgehogs. Over the years, social scientists have also studied the dilemma and used it as part of the analysis of the experiment results. And in 2015, the award-winning short film, Henry, narrated by Elijah Wood, became a striking re-telling of Schopenhauer’s parable.
So that’s the theory, but what does this look like in our everyday lives? Anecdotally, most people will be able to point to an experience in their lives where a close relationship has caused them emotional harm. It might have been a long-term friendship which suddenly came to an end, a romantic relationship rocked by betrayal, or even a family member who caused harm and hurt over a lifetime. Because these are the people closest to us, they’re also the relationships which can have the deepest impact when they go wrong. But should we let these experiences block us from letting our guard down in the future? Schopenhauer’s advice would probably be, yes. But science would say otherwise.
In a study published in the journal PLOS Medicine, a meta-analytic review of 148 studies that looked at individual’s mortality, with a total of 308,849 participants, found that those with stronger social relationships had a 50% increased likelihood of survival. Additionally, according to the National Institute on Aging, the health risks of prolonged isolation are equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day – making Schopenhauer’s advice to ‘keep your distance’ concerning, to say the least.
Bringing down your defences
If you’ve been hurt before, it might be that your ‘quills’ are up, and you’ve fallen into defence mode. Hilary Sanders is a psychodynamic couples therapist, and she points to some examples of common defence mechanisms such as going blank when particular issues are raised, and meeting observations with the assumption that it is criticism.
“Defences are often recognisable when the response seems disproportionate to the here-and-now trigger, indicating that the reaction is coming from a much earlier, and possibly buried, incident or wound,” Hilary explains.
“Most of these defensive reactions originate from early experiences of attack (bullying, criticism, unfair labelling, undermining, etc.), where the child or adolescent is overwhelmed and has to try to survive the onslaught of feeling bad and inadequate for making parents angry or upset, or of being turned against by peers,” Hilary continues. “Some of the ways to survive in the short-term are to dissociate, to pretend not to mind, to be very compliant, or sometimes to be furiously angry. But if the chosen response becomes habitual it can be problematic, because there is no conscious choice involved in an automatic response.”
If these behaviours sound familiar to you, it may be that you’re living in defence mode. In addition to the health risks that come about with social isolation, when we push others away we can end up missing out on some of life’s greatest joys.
“In therapy, if the clients can be helped to see the defence, and the original source of the coping strategies (by tracking back through the history and narrative), and they can be encouraged to be kind and compassionate to the part of themselves that developed the strategy, then they have a chance to change and not just repeat old behaviours,” Hilary explains. “They might get enough thinking space to consciously notice the feeling, remember the source, feel understanding, and respond differently.
“In couples, ideally they come to know their partner’s history of defence better, too, and then can be more thoughtful in response to hitherto apparently provocative behaviour. If this is mutual, a more harmonious atmosphere is achieved, with more mature ways of relating, and less ‘ping-pong’ cycles.”
That said, if this is something you feel you want to work on personally, Hilary has a word of warning: “Defences need to be respected and not demolished in one fell swoop. Removing one brick at a time from the wall is very important.
“Recognising the pattern of one’s defences is the first step in being able to lower them consciously, and also to recognise the defences of others. It is also a very important part of being a competent therapist. If we can’t hear the music behind the words of our clients’ defences, how can we help them to do the same?”
While Schopenhauer’s pessimism is what started the hedgehog dilemma, at the heart of this metaphor is the human desire to be close to one another. Yes, there are risks in being vulnerable but, unlike hedgehogs, humans don’t come with the spikes built in. So, when we learn to lower our defences for safe, loving people, there’s a chance we actually can have it all.
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