{"id":29743,"date":"2015-11-04T08:00:15","date_gmt":"2015-11-04T16:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/?p=29743"},"modified":"2024-03-06T17:26:10","modified_gmt":"2024-03-06T22:26:10","slug":"is-being-thick-skinned-your-strength-or-your-weakness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/is-being-thick-skinned-your-strength-or-your-weakness-1104155","title":{"rendered":"Is Being ‘Thick-Skinned’ Your Strength or Your Weakness?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GoodTherapyYou\u2019re strong. You\u2019re thick-skinned. You don\u2019t take it personally when someone vents emotional distress on you.<\/p>\n

These are admirable, useful qualities. Having thick skin makes it easier for people to be themselves with you, and for you to be with other people. It allows you to hear the message beneath the emotion<\/a>, protecting you from the outburst. If you didn\u2019t have thick skin, you could be emotionally overwhelmed<\/a> or your ego<\/a> could be crushed by the anger<\/a> or criticism<\/a> of others.<\/p>\n

But everything has two sides. The potential negative side of being thick-skinned is being too permissive and accepting verbal abuse. The worst-case scenario is your thick skin keeps you in relationships that devolve into physical abuse<\/a>. It\u2019s important to consider when a strength has become a weakness.<\/p>\n

Here are some questions worth asking when you feel your thick skin being tested:<\/h3>\n
    \n
  1. Is the person displacing anger on you? <\/strong>An example of displacement is when a person is angry at a\u00a0coworker\u00a0but yells at the dog. It usually occurs when people can\u2019t express anger at the person or entity they\u2019re actually angry at: a boss, a parent, an unjust society. It happens sometimes, but if it happens often, you may have become the dumping ground for another person\u2019s anger.
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    Find a Therapist<\/a><\/h2>\n\t
    \n\n\t\t\t\n\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\tAdvanced Search<\/a>\n\t<\/form>\n<\/div><\/li>\n
  2. Is the person\u2019s expression of anger or criticism an attempt to repair a problem? <\/strong>Anger can alert us to the fact we\u2019re unhappy about something. An expression of these feelings can be an attempt to improve your relationship. When a person\u2019s expression of anger or criticism is controlled and respectful and the goal is improvement, a thick skin is valuable in helping you remain open to hearing what the other person is trying to communicate.<\/li>\n
  3. Is the person\u2019s anger or criticism an attempt to hurt you? <\/strong>Instead of trying to improve the relationship, sometimes the goal is to hurt you. It\u2019s never OK for someone to try to hurt you. Your thick skin could be detrimental if it allows you to ignore hurtful behavior.<\/li>\n
  4. Is the anger mild or high intensity? <\/strong>The intensity of anger runs on a spectrum from calm, respectful communication<\/a> to red-faced shouting that is disrespectful and threatening. Your strength is a weakness if it\u2019s allowing you to tolerate dangerous and disrespectful outbursts.<\/li>\n
  5. Is this anger coming at me typical behavior for this relationship or is it a rare outburst? <\/strong>If hostility toward you is typical and frequent for your relationship, your tolerance is too high. Even if you think you can take it, the anger and criticism can take a toll on your health and mental well-being<\/a>. A high-intensity incident, even if rare, is cause for concern and shouldn\u2019t be ignored.<\/li>\n
  6. Is the experience of tolerating other people\u2019s anger isolated to one relationship or do you experience it in multiple relationships? <\/strong>If multiple people are getting upset with you about the same thing, then that could be an indication you have a problematic behavior you should confront. On the other hand, if multiple people\u2014your boss, your neighbor, your friends\u2014are all displacing their anger on you, then your thick skin may have unconsciously made you into a safe target for other people\u2019s aggression<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The bottom line is other people shouldn\u2019t hurt you. You might be able to take it, but maybe you shouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    People often say they are \u201cthick-skinned\u201d as a testament to their resilience, which can certainly be a good thing. But there\u2019s another side worth considering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2882,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[542],"tags":[425,231,31,387,413,25,411],"class_list":["post-29743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-articles","tag-aggression-violence","tag-anger","tag-psychotherapy-practice","tag-communication-problems","tag-emotional-abuse","tag-psychotherapy-issues","tag-sensitivity-to-critiscism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2882"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}