Resistance, *by Jessie Moncrief and Alan Brenner

Symbols of Endurance, Adaptation, and Creative Adjustment are ubiquitous.

Humans make meaning of what they see, hear, taste, feel and touch. What meaning did you make when you first saw this picture?

There are many explanations for what we see. A man outside a building, wearing a suit. His eyes are covered, his mouth open, his hand pushed away from his body.

Is he afraid? Is he trying to ignore something? Is he resistant? Guarded? Closed-off? Unreceptive?

Maybe the sun is in his eyes. Or perhaps something unexpected is happening just outside the frame.

Like this person’s response, our internal defenses are constructed at the precise moments when life feels unpredictable or unsafe. They rise to guard us—sometimes quietly, sometimes urgently—against emotional storms we are not equipped to face.

What if this man were simply:

Contact-avoidant

Experiencing ambivalence

In self-protection

Maintaining control

Boundary-protective

Risk-averse

In a defensive posture

Honoring Resistance: From Obstacle to Intelligence

Resistance is one of the most powerful—and misunderstood—forces in human change. In therapy, families, organizations, and culture at large, resistance is often treated as something to eliminate, override, or push through.

But what if resistance is not the problem?

What if it is information?

What if it is intelligence organizing around safety?

What Is Resistance?

Resistance includes any behavior, emotion, or thought pattern that slows or interrupts a change process. It can appear as avoidance, deflection, minimizing, intellectualizing, withdrawing, shifting topics, or even excessive compliance.

On a personal level, it might look like staying on the couch scrolling on a cold winter night instead of attending a social event. Interpersonally, it may show up when a partner shuts down during conflict or a child refuses vegetables without explanation. In organizations, resistance often emerges in response to a new leader, policy, or procedure.

Despite its negative connotation, resistance is not inherently bad. In Gestalt language, it is often a creative adjustment—a behavior that once helped us survive or manage our environment as best we could.

Resistance forms when something in us is trying to protect, fortify, or endure. It arises precisely when life feels unpredictable, overwhelming, or unsafe.

Instead of asking, “How do we eliminate resistance?” we might ask:

What is this protecting?

A Brief Experiential Pause

Before going further, pause.

Sit back. Feel your feet on the ground. Notice your breathing.

Recall a time you felt resistant—your own or someone else’s.

What behaviors were present?
What emotions?
What images arise?

Now notice what happens in your body as you remember.

Where do you feel tension? Heat? Distance? Collapse? Holding?

Resistance is not abstract. It is embodied.

The Hidden Wisdom of Resistance

Ancient traditions understood this. Taoism speaks of Wu Wei—non-forcing, moving with what is rather than against it.

Western idioms echo the same wisdom: “go with the flow,” “let it be.”

Forcing change rarely produces integration. More often, it produces backlash.

Gestalt theory reframes resistance as a contact style—an adaptive way of navigating the environment. There is energy in resistance. It is not the absence of motivation; it is motivation pointed toward safety.

When we fight resistance, it hardens.
When we honor it, it begins to speak.

The Cost of Ignoring Resistance

In our change-driven culture, resistance is often dismissed as noncompliance or lack of motivation. Research consistently demonstrates that failing to address resistance leads to negative outcomes across systems.

Avoidance amplifies emotional load. Unspoken grief intensifies. Conflict deepens. Defenses solidify into rigid patterns.

What is suppressed does not disappear.
It reorganizes.

To understand this fully, we can examine resistance at three interconnected levels: personal, interpersonal, and organizational.

Personal Resistance: The Pressure That Builds

A metaphor I often use is the shaken soda bottle.

If you keep tightening the cap while continuing to shake it, pressure builds. And builds. And builds.

For many people, what we call “symptoms ‘; are pressure that never had a safe place to release. Resistance, in this frame, is not a flaw. It is the lid trying to keep everything intact.

Research on emotional suppression shows that avoiding or inhibiting feelings increases internal distress, anxiety, depression, and somatic symptoms. When resistance is ignored or pushed through, fragmentation often follows. New symptoms emerge to carry what was never metabolized.

A Personal Example

I witnessed this in my son.

He entered kindergarten late. There was no gradual orientation—just a sudden immersion into a new building, new expectations, and developmental demands he was not quite ready to meet.

He could not cry. He could not run. He was scared.

So he adapted.

He tightened his small body and pushed through. He became overly compliant to avoid reprimand. What looked like maturity was, in part, self-protection.

At home, the responses around him were mixed: minimizing, intellectualizing, deflecting. No one intended harm. But the pace of change outstripped his nervous system’s capacity.

He made it through the year. But later came somatic complaints, quiet avoidance, panic attacks in college, and eventually suicidal ideation.

Not because he was weak.

Because the original resistance—the fear, the overwhelm—never had room to complete.

As a Gestalt-informed parent, I do not see pathology. I see unfinished business. I see a creative adjustment that once worked and now needs revision.

When he names what he feels instead of pushing it down, the pressure decreases. The cap loosens. The system regulates.

Resistance honored becomes integration.

Interpersonal Resistance: What Grows in Silence

What happens individually also happens relationally.

Avoided tensions in couples and families behave like organisms in a petri dish: left unattended, they multiply.

Decades of research from The Gottman Institute demonstrate that minimizing, deflecting, and stonewalling are early predictors of relational breakdown. When one partner consistently shuts down or redirects, connection slowly erodes. Over time, small conflicts feel explosive because accumulated pressure has no outlet.

In families, the question shifts from “Who is the resistant one?” to “What need is being signaled?”

Resistance in relationships often marks unmet needs, misattunement, or imbalance.

Naming it early prevents escalation later.

Organizational Resistance: The Paradox of Forced Change

The same dynamics scale upward.

Research suggests that 60–70% of organizational change initiatives fail. Many studies identify inadequate leadership support, lack of psychological safety, and poorly managed resistance as primary factors.

When change is rushed or forced:

● Productivity decreases
● Absenteeism rises
● Engagement drops
● Mistrust spreads

When resistance is honored:

● Feedback becomes data
● Dissent strengthens strategy
● Adoption rates increase
● Turnover decreases

Resistance, in this context, functions as quality control.

Poorly managed resistance is costly.
Well-managed resistance is intelligent adaptation.

Sociocultural Pressure: When Systems Explode

At a societal level, chronic suppression has consequences.

When individuals, families, or communities have no culturally acceptable way to express overwhelm, fear, grief, or anger, pressure seeks release—sometimes destructively.

Honoring resistance means noticing early signs of strain before rupture becomes the only available outlet.

Four Steps to Leverage Resistance

1. Curiosity Over Combat

Shift from “How do we eliminate this?” to “What is this protecting?”

2. Resistance as Information

Every form of resistance carries data about values, fears, identity, or autonomy.

3. Pace and Timing

Resistance often signals that change is moving faster than integration can occur.

4. Inclusion Rather Than Exclusion

Inviting resistant voices into the process strengthens outcomes at every level.

Reframing Resistance

Resistance is not the opposite of change.

It is part of the change process.

At its core, resistance says:

“Something matters here.”
“Slow down.”
“I need safety.”
“I’m not ready.”

When we stop battling resistance and begin listening to it, transformation becomes less violent and more sustainable.

Resistance is not an obstacle to overcome.

It is the doorway into deeper understanding—of the self, of the relationship, of the organization, and of the culture we are collectively shaping.

References

Gross, J. J., & Levenson, R. W. (1997). Hiding feelings: The acute effects of inhibiting negative and positive emotion. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 106(1), 95–103.

Hayes, S. C., Wilson, K. G., Gifford, E. V., Follette, V. M., & Strosahl, K. (1996). Experiential avoidance and behavioral disorders: A functional dimensional approach to diagnosis and treatment. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64(6), 1152–1168.

Chawla, N., & Ostafin, B. (2007). Experiential avoidance as a functional dimensional approach to psychopathology: An empirical review. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 63(9), 871–890.