Compensation is a pattern of behavior that is basically related to one’s desires and goals rather than being a means to handle some dysfunctional, subconscious impulses or needs, as is the case in most of the other defense mechanisms. However, the process is not conscious in that the person is always aware of what they are doing. It is a way that we use to make up for our real or imagined deficiencies, such as being too short or tall, not as smart as we’d like to be, not as attractive, etc. Over compensation is simply doing this too extreme. We here at LTC Tree have noticed that certain personality types often gravitate to the unlimited long term care insurance benefit period initially (I’d say about 1 out of 2 people) often because they just went through a long term care stay with their parents. We train our agents to really drill-down down with those folks and find out if they really do want and need that much coverage. 9 time out of 10 were able to scale them back a bit which saves them thousands of dollars and at the same time they are still insurance the average long term care risk.
A good example is the youngster who longs to be a good baseball player like his playmates, but is not very good. So he over compensates by dropping baseball and spends all his time studying hard and becoming the class brain. Or the young teenage girl of average looks, who longs to be the next Hollywood starlet, so she begins dressing seductively and wearing too much makeup. A very insidious form of over- compensation occurs with the classic “stage mother” who pushes her child to become the great movie star that she longed to be but never was. Or the father who desired to be a professional athlete, but never made it, so he pushes his son to achieve what he didn’t.
Some psychologists believe that over- compensation is the way that we make up for feelings of inferiority, which arise in childhood. Undoubtedly this is true in some cases, but my experience is that compensatory behavior usually arises from frustrated desires or goals. I once had a client who was a fairly well-adjusted young man in his twenties. He had the desire to be a newspaper reporter, so he enrolled in a journalism school, and spent six hard years juggling school with a full time job. Upon graduation he was elated, and immediately sought a job as a reporter. Alas, no one would hire him full time. He could only get a few free lance assignments, at which I considered him to be very good. But with the job market for new newspaper reporters being very bad, he became more frustrated and despondent.
After a long period of separation from our counseling sessions, he called me one day sounding very desperate. When he came to my office I was shocked at his appearance. Always a thin man, he now appeared as if he’d just escaped from a concentration camp, having lost thirty pounds or so. It turned out that he’d always been a dedicated jogger/runner, but as his frustration at not getting his dream job continued, he compensated by increasing his running mileage. At that point he was running over 100 miles a week! He was wearing himself out! Something had to be done.
After a few more counseling session he concluded that the running was compensating for the frustrated goal of becoming a full time, big city reporter, and he had to change the goal and quit running so much. He was able to do that, altered his goal to becoming a general, free lance writer, and began to sell articles to newspapers and magazines. Ultimately he was able to quit his full time job and become a full time writer, at which he is still successful.
In terms of long term care insurance, over- compensation arises when people buy more coverage than they are likely to need. When clients call us, seeking information and pricing long term care insurance, they typically are looking for coverage for longer periods they will likely need. They may be fearful of long term disability in their old age because of seeing others in nursing homes for extended periods of time, or have been pressured by salesmen who have not presented the facts accurately. But the latest facts are that 92% of long term care claims are for three years or less. Only 4% of claims last beyond five years. An explanation for these figures is that LTC insurance buyers tend to be healthier than the general population and take better care of themselves. We might call this compensation—but not over- compensation.
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