Few things derail a conversation – or even entire relationships – faster than someone going on the defensive. It’s a problem that plays out in many contexts, from the personal to the professional:

• You’re at a family gathering discussing a recent political election with a relative… you express scepticism about the incoming government’s ability to ‘get anything done’, and your relative’s demeanour changes suddenly. Their tone of voice becomes curt and pointed, they roll their eyes twice in the span of a minute and appear visibly annoyed. You ask if there’s something wrong, to which they snap back: ‘No. I just think this conversation isn’t going anywhere.’
• You give a colleague who reports to you some negative feedback about their work performance… During the feedback session, they initially appear warm and open but, after the negative feedback, they become cold and closed off: they start avoiding eye contact, checking their watch and replying to your questions with short, one-word answers. Since then, they seem to be avoiding you in the office and haven’t responded to several emails.
• You’ve finally broached a difficult conversation with your husband about your desire to move your kids out of their current school… Immediately your husband criticises you for being ‘selfish’ and explains how the kids will ‘be miserable and lose all their friends’. You try to explain your rationale for the move, but your husband interrupts you each time you try to speak.

It’s notoriously hard to deal with these situations because our instinctive efforts often only make things worse. Suggesting a topic change with your annoyed relative leads to a sarcastic comment about you being condescending; scheduling a meeting with a direct report to clear the air only makes things more awkward and uncomfortable; and bringing up ‘the school issue’ with your spouse the following morning just leads to another argument and strained day.

However, if you’re strategic about it, we’ve found it is possible to navigate defensiveness well. In our careers as a psychologist (Nick) and mediator (Adar), we’ve spent years assembling and refining approaches to defensiveness that actually work because they’re based on a deep understanding of the core dynamics that govern defensiveness in the first place.

In the rest of this Guide, we’re going to pull back the curtain on the psychology of defensiveness and show you some of our favourite strategies and techniques for dealing with it well – like a professional. So, whether you’re trying to improve your marriage, manage your team more effectively, or just have more civil conversations about politics, we hope this Guide will help.

A better way to understand defensiveness

When people talk about feeling defensive, it usually means how they feel emotionally after perceiving that they’ve been criticised, such as a mix of sadness, shame and anger. People also talk about getting or being defensive, which usually refers to the actions we take after feeling criticised, such as using sarcasm, criticising back or giving someone the ‘cold shoulder’ or ‘silent treatment’.

While it can be helpful to think about how defensiveness appears – emotionally or behaviourally – there’s another way to think about defensiveness that we find particularly helpful. Ask yourself: what is a person’s defensiveness trying to accomplish?

Taking this functional approach, we can define defensiveness as follows: defensiveness is a coping strategy that people use to avoid the painful feelings that come from feeling criticised – a strategy that involves shifting the blame back on to the criticiser.

For example, think back to the earlier story of the husband criticising his wife for suggesting a change of school for their kids. While he knows there’s a lot of truth to his wife’s idea, you can imagine he might feel afraid for their children about the challenge of changing schools. If he doesn’t know how to handle or process those emotions well, he might instead try to avoid them entirely by deflecting blame back on his wife and making her out to be the one who’s mistaken. So defensiveness was functioning to help him avoid his anxiety.

This functional approach to defensiveness can help you to see other people’s defensiveness more compassionately – and thereby manage how you respond, which is central to our approach.

Why your own emotions are key to dealing with defensiveness

When someone is acting defensively, it’s extremely tempting to tell them to stop. But it’s difficult for people to change how they feel. Suggesting to someone that they stop feeling defensive is both unrealistic and unhelpful because no one has direct control over their emotions. If you constantly tell a person that they should feel differently, they are (not unreasonably) going to become increasingly frustrated and resistant to your suggestions, however well intentioned.

What you can do is be more strategic in how you respond to other people’s defensiveness. This means managing your own reactions to their defensiveness. It’s not necessarily easy or intuitive, but it can be done. The reason for doing this is that, left unchecked, your own emotional reactions can inadvertently make matters worse.

For example, if you have a history of dealing with a coworker who gets defensive easily, you may understandably approach an interaction with them feeling fairly anxious – the term walking on eggshells captures this well. Moreover, your anxiety may manifest in problematic ways that end up exacerbating your coworker’s defensiveness, such as speaking quickly (which your coworker interprets as impatience) or having a lot of worries floating through your mind – including worries about them getting defensive – which lead you to come across as distracted and not fully present (which could further play into your coworker’s defensiveness and insecurities). Or, maybe, you literally get defensive in response to their defensiveness – a phenomenon we call counter-defensiveness.

The broader point is that the more self-aware you are in these situations, and the more skilfully you manage yourself when interacting with defensive people, the greater your chances of success.

This idea forms the core of our approach: the best way to manage other people’s defensiveness is to better manage yourself. In the rest of this Guide, we’ll share some things you can do to put this approach into action, thereby encouraging less defensiveness and more confidence from others.

Use the AVA method to handle your own emotions

Like so many challenging situations in life, what makes handling defensiveness so difficult is the uncomfortable emotions it triggers in you, such as anxiety, frustration or guilt. As we mentioned, if you react to those emotions impulsively – blurting out something insensitive because you’re frustrated, or forgetting to empathise because you’re anxious – it tends to only exacerbate their defensiveness and your counter-defensiveness.

When you’re feeling some strong, difficult emotions in a conversation, you need to be able to quickly and effectively make space for those emotions so that they don’t derail your best efforts.

There’s a simple but powerful technique for managing your own difficult emotions that I (Nick) call the AVA method, which stands for ‘acknowledge, validate, act’. The core idea is that responding well to your own emotions is important, but it doesn’t have to be time consuming. As long as you briefly acknowledge what you’re feeling, validate that it’s OK to feel those things, and then refocus on acting according to your values, you’ll be in good shape. In fact, this method is essentially a compressed version of the approach I use with my own clients for any emotional struggle; and while this method can be expanded into a 60-minute session with a therapist or coach, you can use it yourself in a matter of seconds to make space for your own difficult emotions so that they don’t interfere with your best intentions when handling a defensive person.

Let’s look at a couple of practical examples to see how the AVA method can work:

Using the earlier example of being in a conversation about politics with a family member who’s suddenly started interrupting you and is becoming increasingly hostile, you might apply the AVA method in your head like this: ‘OK, I’m definitely feeling a lot of anger and a bit of guilt right now (acknowledge). I don’t like feeling this way, but it makes sense given how this conversation is going (validate). Ultimately, I don’t care that much about “winning” the debate; what matters most is my relationship with this person, so I’m going to acknowledge my previous comment as insensitive as a way to try and get the conversation back on track (acting on values).’

Or taking the example of a colleague who’s giving you the silent treatment, you could apply the AVA method by taking a few minutes to jot down on paper what you’re feeling before broaching another conversation with them: ‘I’m feeling pretty confused, as well as a bit disappointed in them and maybe even a little ashamed of myself, although I’m not sure why (acknowledge). I need to remember that feeling like this is normal and understandable on some level as much as it’s uncomfortable. Someone else in this position would likely feel something pretty similar (validate). I would like to approach this situation with both strength and compassion, so I’m going to give them a day or two, then send an email asking for a meeting (act on values).’

Importantly, applying the AVA method is not about making your emotions go away. It’s about briefly acknowledging and making space for them, which takes the edge off their intensity and helps you make good decisions that are aligned with your values rather than ones that are impulsive and reactive. In turn, this will help you better navigate the other person’s defensiveness.

Use reverse empathy to get curious about their insecurities

As we mentioned, another reason defensiveness can be such a thorny problem is that many people tend to approach it with a fix-it mindset. However, immediately trying to solve the problem of someone’s defensiveness is often unhelpful because the other person ends up feeling like a problem, which only exacerbates their defensiveness! The alternative is to try to shift away from a fix-it mindset and adopt a stance of curiosity instead.

When you’re genuinely curious about a person and their defensiveness, it tends to be disarming – for them and for you. It might lead you to ask a follow-up question rather than launch into another critique. It might cause you to reconsider one of your own assumptions, and slow down your thinking. It might even lead to actually understanding the situation better and, as a result, approaching things differently. In any case, one especially useful way to get yourself into a curiosity mindset is to consider what we described earlier: that defensiveness is usually a person’s way of coping with a fear or insecurity.

Getting curious about someone’s insecurities is helpful not because it solves the problem of defensiveness; it’s helpful because it reminds you that there’s a person behind that defensiveness, and that you’ve been that same person yourself many times.

A little trick we use for getting curious about someone’s insecurities is called reverse empathy. Traditionally, empathy is the act of putting yourself in someone else’s shoes to understand them better. The problem we’ve often found with that idea, though, is that we frequently don’t really know what it’s like to be in that person’s shoes! But what we almost always can do is to imagine a time when we were in a similar situation and how it felt. That’s reverse empathy. And it’s a powerful way to diffuse defensiveness by fostering connection and understanding.

Here’s how it might work using our example from earlier about the husband who got defensive when his wife suggested switching their kids’ school. Imagine you’re the wife, and after a second failed attempt at broaching the conversation, you take a little time to reflect and do some reverse empathy. You consider how your husband is feeling: a lot of things, to be sure, but mostly he seems to have a lot of fear about your kids having a hard time transitioning out of one school and into another. So, you imagine a time when you too felt afraid for your kids. A memory comes up of their first day of school and how nervous you were that your daughter would have a similar experience to you on your first day of school – feeling lonely and ashamed because no one wanted to play with you. As you think through that memory – both as a kid and as a new parent being scared for your kid – you find yourself sympathising with your husband’s current fears. And, while you’re still angry that he expressed his fear in such a rude way, you do feel a strand of connection and start to have a few ideas about how you might use that connection to re-initiate the conversation.

So, especially when a person’s defensiveness seems very strong and disproportionate to the situation, try using some reverse empathy to try and understand what exactly they’re feeling insecure about.

Use strategic vulnerability to connect with a defensive person

What about more chronic forms of defensiveness that extend beyond a single awkward conversation? How should you deal with a person who seems to be consistently defensive, either about one issue or just in a general way?

Our experience is that persistent or chronic defensiveness is often symptomatic of a lack of connection and intimacy; that is when some people feel persistently disconnected and alone, especially around people they believe they should feel more connected to, chronic defensiveness is a way to cope with this disconnection, by deflecting blame and fault on to others. Painful as this dynamic may be, if the person in question is someone you care about deeply or need to work with, seeing defensiveness from this perspective offers a potential solution.

If disconnection and loneliness are at the root of someone’s defensiveness, then it makes sense that finding ways to authentically connect and build intimacy with them should help. One especially powerful way to do that is through vulnerability, which means intentionally sharing your own fears, pains or insecurities in such a way as to foster connection, trust and intimacy. Now, a lot of people hear the term vulnerability and get put off by its slightly woo-woo vibes and the fears of over-sharing. But stick with us for a minute because there’s a way to do vulnerability that’s less scary than it seems and more likely to be helpful. We call it strategic vulnerability. Strategic vulnerability means using vulnerability in a thoughtful and incremental way to enhance connection and intimacy with another person.

Here’s how it might work using the example from earlier about the manager and their direct report who was being defensive after some negative feedback. Imagine you’re the manager and, after some reflection, you realise that a big part of your colleague’s insecurity and resulting defensiveness likely stems from the imbalanced power dynamic between you both. While this power imbalance is inevitable to some degree in a work context, it might be possible to lessen its negative impact by using some strategic vulnerability. For example, you might make it a point to share an error you made recently during a team meeting, which models that imperfection is normal and not shameful in this culture as long as we acknowledge and try to learn from it. Another way to use strategic vulnerability might be to acknowledge a mistake, especially in the event that triggered the defensiveness. So, you might begin a follow-up conversation with your direct report by apologising for being too curt in your feedback because you were rushed, and in the future, commit to dedicating ample time for feedback.

Of course, like any of our suggestions, strategic vulnerability isn’t a magic bullet. It’s unlikely to fix a situation instantly (although it might!). Rather, it becomes truly powerful when you commit to it as a small but consistent practice. Because, when another person sees you committed to it over time, they are likely to feel more trust and safety with you and, as a result, be less likely to become defensive.

Anticipate and plan for defensiveness ahead of time

So far, we’ve shared ways to handle someone’s defensiveness when it arises in the heat of the moment. But there may be occasions when you know you need to make a proposal or request to someone who is likely to be defensive (if someone has felt or behaved defensively before, there’s a good chance it could happen again). In such cases, there are steps you can take to anticipate and plan for these encounters ahead of time.

Let’s return to our earlier examples of the colleague who became defensive upon receiving your critical feedback and to the relative whose defensiveness over politics threatens to end your relationship. In both cases, let’s say that a couple weeks later you need to engage with these same people again. You are coordinating a family get-together and you need your relative to look again at the planned meeting place because, while it’s very near to their home, it’s a long way from yours. In the case of your direct report, imagine you need them to modify or correct something in their work. In both cases, you know there’s a likelihood these people will feel or behave defensively. Here’s how to plan for these encounters:

• Write down your request clearly and simply, then rehearse it. Read it aloud as though you’re speaking to the person and, as soon as you finish, try to imagine their reaction to the request as you’ve made it. Was there a particular word or phrase that might have ignited their defensiveness or distracted them from the request itself? Can you remove that word or phrase while retaining the essential aspects of the request? Rewrite the request, read it aloud, imagine the reaction, and keep editing until the request feels safer from defensiveness. Obviously, you’ll never be able to control or guarantee a non-defensive reaction by your counterpart. But, with a little planning ahead of time, you can increase your odds dramatically. Now, putting the request aside, develop two things you’ll say to this person in the 48 hours before you make your request: one compliment and one question.
• Give them a sincere compliment. You might point out your direct report’s timely and insightful comment in a recent meeting or your relative’s tidy front yard. If this feels artificial or forced, remember that recognising or validating someone’s positive trait or contribution is a powerful way of defusing defensiveness. What’s important here is that this compliment is authentic, so choose something that’s real for you (so it can feel real to them). The purpose of the compliment is to neutralise some of the negativity of previous interactions so that your next step can do its magic.
• Next, ask your counterpart one genuinely curious, open-ended question. To arrive at the question, ask yourself: what is this person passionate about? What brings up their energy? What are they talking about when they are at their most animated and expressive? Your question could be about a sports team, a pet, an author. A mode of transportation. A plant on their desk. The topic of your question needn’t be universally meaningful or particularly momentous; it simply needs to focus on something they care about (and that you are even marginally interested in hearing about). If you find it difficult to identify a question to ask your counterpart, then this is a valuable opportunity because finding curiosity when you don’t feel it immediately and effortlessly is a powerful skill in all sorts of contexts – from family rooms to boardrooms and just about everywhere in between. Give yourself time to identify something you’d genuinely like to hear about, and then express that curiosity by asking a question.
• As you listen to their answer, look for opportunities to ask a few additional questions. Try to find some new curiosity somewhere in the exchange. If you can’t locate something you genuinely want to know more about, ask a follow-up question anyway (and then keep scanning for where you’re curious). If they say the plant on the desk is ideal for low-light conditions, ask if that means it needs less water, too. If you learn their dog destroys a new toy in a couple hours, ask to see a picture of the little rascal. You may not be terribly interested in what you’re hearing (at first), but your effort will be well spent; at a very low cost, with very low risk, you are essentially pressing the reset button on your relationship after earlier defensiveness caused it to crash. And, who knows, you might learn something. You might even find a new way to connect with this person. And since a stronger connection means more trust which means less defensiveness – it’s worth the effort.
• Now make your request. Ask for what you need simply and clearly (drawing upon your earlier preparations). And a sincere thank you never hurts.

Of course, we can’t always anticipate or plan for defensiveness. But, in our experience, it’s possible far more often than we realise, especially once we shift to a more proactive mindset around defensiveness – one where we’re looking for opportunities to manage it well rather than instinctively avoiding it.

As you consider implementing some of the techniques we’ve suggested, don’t forget to zoom out and appreciate the big picture: the reason we want to be thoughtful and bold in our approach to other people’s defensiveness is that deeper, more satisfying relationships are on the other side. Both of us have seen many examples – both personal and professional – where the experience of working through defensiveness well didn’t just resolve the conflict but actually transformed the relationship: the ‘cynical and bitter’ uncle in the family who became a trusted confidant after working through some political defensiveness; the ‘problem employee’ who went from ‘on the way out’ to ‘all star’ track in the organisation after a difficult conversation about their defensiveness lead to a breakthrough; the ‘stale’ marriage that regained some of its vibrancy because both partners were able to rebuild trust by working through their mutual defensiveness.

Adar’s question to Nick: how can we get better at managing our own defensiveness?

Alongside the AVA method described earlier in the Guide, another technique I’ve used in the past – both with myself and my clients – is to inventory your defensiveness triggers.

Given how simple it is, it’s been surprisingly helpful.

A defensiveness trigger is something that precipitates defensiveness in you. It’s not necessarily the cause of your defensiveness – ultimately, it’s our interpretation of the events in our lives that causes how we feel emotionally – but it does reliably predict when you will get defensive. For example: getting feedback from your in-laws about parenting strategies may be a defensiveness trigger. Or getting critiqued for your ideas in meetings by Shelly, who always seems condescending somehow. It might even be driving home from work on that one stretch of the bridge because you like to keep to the speed limit while everyone else is flying by it.

As with any self-improvement aspiration, awareness is the first step. Creating an inventory of defensiveness triggers is a powerful way to expand your awareness of the when, where, what and why of your defensiveness. And the more aware you are of your defensiveness, the easier it is to anticipate it and respond to it well rather than getting mindlessly caught up in it. The real beauty of this tip is that it’s easy because it doesn’t involve anyone but you.

To get started, create a note in the notes app of your phone and call it ‘Defensiveness Inventory’. Then, any time you notice yourself getting even a little bit defensive, quickly open up your phone and jot down what happened and how you felt. For example: ‘Felt angry after Jerry criticised our approach to handling Evie’s tantrum at dinner.’ Or: ‘Felt annoyed when I got off the bridge driving home from work.’

Do this for a couple weeks, periodically reviewing your list, and you’ll be shocked at how much more aware you are of your own defensiveness, how much better you are at controlling your defensive behaviours and, maybe most importantly, how much more empathy you have for other people in your life who get defensive with you.

Nick’s question to Adar: how can we create organisational and family cultures with less defensiveness?

At work or at home, creating a particular culture is slow and unpredictable work. But it can be done. An essential component of any culture-building effort is a generous and ongoing amount of high-quality time together. Gradually, this can build two types of confidence: first, confidence in ourselves, at the individual level, because each person feels increasingly comfortable; and, second, confidence in the relationships as people earn one another’s trust over time.

Taken together, this leads to a sense of belonging or a feeling of togetherness, which can decrease defensiveness. If a person feels they belong and trusts the people around them, they are far less likely to feel or act defensively. And just as importantly, they’re far less likely to behave in ways that cause others to feel or act defensively.

Another way to lower defensiveness in group settings, be that families, workplaces, neighbourhoods, teams, faith communities and so on, is to say the good things, too. So often we rush past opportunities to point out when something has gone fantastically well, or even fairly well, or when a milestone was reached without a hitch. If we are miserly with expressions of gratitude but we swoop in quickly with corrections and critiques, maybe it’s no wonder people get defensive. In the day-to-day moments, try saying more to affirm and appreciate the effort people make.

Consider going a step further than a quick ‘good job’. If you want a person to absorb a recognition or affirmation of some kind, give it some specificity. Describe the positive impact of their efforts in some concrete way. For example: ‘When you [briefly describe the effort they made which you appreciated], it makes it possible for us to [point to a company or family goal their action supported] so I really just want to thank you for your efforts.’

Remember, people tend to hear criticism more loudly than the criticiser intended, they remember it more clearly than positive or neutral encounters, and repetition fuels an exponential rise in their impulse to deflect, to shut down or to fight back. So, a final way to create a culture or system with low levels of defensiveness is to save the critiques and complaints you say out loud for the issues you can honestly classify as being in the top 25 per cent of your concerns. Find a way to let the rest go.

Adar’s 1st pick: the article ‘The Frenemy Within: Making Peace with Defensiveness for Better Relationships’ (2025) by Jenn Mahony offers a complimentary approach to understanding and navigating defensiveness well.

Nick’s 1st pick: the book The Fearless Organization (2018) by Amy Edmondson is the seminal work on how to create psychological safety within teams and organisations in order to unlock greater levels of innovation and potential.

Adar’s 2nd pick: the short video of my TED Talk ‘How to Lead Tough Conversations’ (2019) illustrates my own unique approach to navigating any type of difficult conversation well.

Nick’s 2nd pick: my article ‘The AVA Method: How to Process Emotions in a Healthy Way’ (2025) offers a deeper dive on the AVA method that Nick and I introduced in this Guide, and how to use it to manage any difficult emotion in a productive way.

Adar’s 3rd pick: the book I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times (2022) by Mónica Guzmán is a wonderful guide to expanding our curiosity in order to find common ground with anyone.

Nick’s 3rd pick: the Psyche Guide ‘How to Be Angry’ (2024) by Ryan Martin is fantastic. It’s full of evidence-based strategies for managing our own anger well, which is frequently one of the biggest obstacles to working through defensiveness.