In this article https://www.b17.ru/article/32926/ I have already touched upon the mechanisms of idealization-devaluation, but in the context of marital relationships. Now I would like to discuss the meaning of using such a mechanism in a broader context. To illustrate, the idealization-devaluation link looks like this. First I am on earth, and THEY are in heaven. And I will never reach them. They will never accept me. They are perfect, I am disgusting. They have everything I want, but it doesn't cost them any effort. They are high-flying birds, and I am an ostrich. I cannot be like them, but I can draw from their opinions a guide to action and try to live according to their precepts. Thus, I myself will become a little more ideal. At some point (more on this a little later), everything changes rapidly. I still stand on the ground, but THEY turn out to be risen from hell. And everything that seemed ideal to me was a mask hiding their true monstrosity. Now they are nonentities, and compared to them I am nothing and even wow. Perhaps (and for sure) you have encountered something like this in your life. We all, to one degree or another, idealize when we fall in love, when we study, when we find like-minded people. This becomes a problem when a person disappears behind the mechanism. That is, idealization becomes primitive, not at all corresponding to what the idealized person conveys. In my opinion, there are many meanings in this connection. That is, what this mechanism exists for: the opportunity not to face one’s anger associated with difference. Instead, experience righteous anger; - shift responsibility for your own choices to the guru; - feel self-worth through comparison with external figures, since this feeling is lost inside; - liberation from shame through faith in perfection. But the main meaning, it seems to me, is much broader . And often reflects a way of living called NOT MEETING. If we are at different levels, then we will never meet. This means you can avoid the pain that your very first close relationships once carried. Pain that had nowhere to escape, nowhere to go. An adult forgets that he has grown up. That now he can leave. Finding himself in a childish position, he protects himself from new wounds. The ambush turns out to be that only in proximity can the previously accumulated pain be lived through. This means not carrying it with you, like a snowball, into every new relationship. But in order to enter into a relationship, you must first see the Other. With its imperfection, non-ideality, and therefore liveliness. And then sometimes it turns out that the Other is not hostile, but the hostility is my own. And it serves as a proactive defense for me: I will reject so as not to be rejected. You can reject in different ways. This is not always the end of a relationship. Idealization and devaluation are also one of the forms of such care. And also these are addictions, depression, psychosomatic symptoms, ignoring. Escaping from pain that belongs to the past, but has not been fully lived, a person makes the choice NOT to live. A very scary choice, filled with shame, powerlessness, helplessness, hopelessness and despair. But, unfortunately, no one can choose otherwise for him. In therapy, it is sometimes possible to return this unconscious decision Not to live and Not to be present in relationships into the zone of awareness. And then it becomes possible differently. Through pain to life.