Undoing (psychology) - Further Uses

Further Uses

Undoing can be used to 'explain away' habits or behaviours that are not in line with an individuals' personality. For example, in the case of a person who is well organised in the workplace, yet always forgets to pay bills on time at home, Freudian psychologists could argue that his tardiness with bills is an undoing of his desire to be orderly, or vice-versa. Freud's theory has been criticised because of examples such as this because his theory is so complicated most problems can be explained by another part of the theory.

For some people undoing can be used to reduce cognitive dissonance, the uncomfortable feeling created when an attitude and an action, or two attitudes are in conflict with one another.

In criminal profiling the term refers to a pattern of behaviour by which an offender tries to undo their crime symbolically, e.g. by painting the face of a person killed by the perpetrator, covering up and decorating the corpse with flowers, personal belongings and jewellery, or folding the hands, imitating a laying-out.