Inhibiting affects are unpleasant, so we learn to cope with defensive affect. Defensive affect helps with coping, but not with processing the original emotion and source stimulus. Often, we get “stuck” in a cycle of inhibiting and defensive affects, restricting our emotional range while also preventing us from operating in core state. Our “home base” becomes an inhibiting affect, like anxiety, and we mask that from ourselves and our social groups via defensive affect.
