Mr. Yang’s career was successful and his family was happy, so he didn’t seem to have any worries. It was not until he sought help from the psychology department that he finally understood the cause of his insomnia and finally solved the problem of insomnia. 1, strange thing: living an enviable life but serious insomnia Mr. Yang runs a small company, earning a lot of money, and his wife is wise and smart, his daughter is studying in college, life is enviable. However, in the past 2 years, his sleep has been getting worse and worse, so that he has no sleep at night and is depressed during the day. At his wife’s urging, he went to many hospitals and underwent a lot of tests, but no problems were found except for slightly high blood lipids. Mr. Yang had to resort to sleeping pills in order to sleep for three or four hours. However, because he was worried that long-term use of sleeping pills would make him dependent, he stopped taking them for a few days every now and then. However, after he stopped taking sleeping pills, he had to take sleeping pills again because he was sleepless almost all night and had obvious irritability during the day, and he felt that the effect of sleeping pills was getting worse and worse, and the company’s operation was also affected. In order to solve the problem of insomnia, Mr. Yang sought treatment everywhere, and even went online to buy some unnamed drugs boasting miraculous effects, resulting in money spent tens of thousands of dollars, but the sleep has not improved. Finally he came to the psychology department, and with the help of a psychiatrist, he finally gradually got rid of the dependence on sleeping pills and improved his sleep, and resumed his normal life. 2, the reason: 3 million yuan to lend his brother business almost all losses During the psychiatric treatment, the doctor learned an important piece of information: previously, Mr. Yang has lent his brother 3 million yuan to do business, but his brother does not have business acumen, loss of a mess, almost lost all the money. The wife has a lot of opinions on this matter, she has always opposed her husband to lend money to his brother to do business, and Mr. Yang is only two brothers, since childhood is the brother to take care of the brother, in the family parents are always a problem to find Mr. Yang to solve, the brother is also through the parents to Mr. Yang to borrow money, and after the brother loss, parents and brother are silent about borrowing money, even if Mr. Yang’s wife mentioned this matter They even borrowed more money from Mr. Yang on the grounds that they needed to invest more money in order to earn back the lost money. Mr. Yang himself also kept quiet about his brother borrowing money. At first, Mr. Yang did not feel that the matter of borrowing money was directly related to his sleep, and later, in the course of continuous treatment, he gradually realized his true attitude on this issue. 3, analysis: lending money to his brother actually put him in conflict Yang’s sleep problem seems strange, but in fact it is the result of a common psychological disorder. On the one hand, Mr. Yang played the role of “parent” in the relationship between his parents and younger brother’s extended family, and the eldest brother was the father. On the other hand, his younger brother had already started a family, and Mr. Yang had his own family, and each of them had their own independent life, so Mr. Yang also had similar responsibilities and concepts for his own small family. confused the boundaries of the two families. This conflicting conceptual level of consciousness is often accompanied by a clear emotional reaction at the beginning of its formation. Mr. Yang clearly realized that his brother, who had little ability, was unlikely to succeed in borrowing money for his business, but his long-standing sense of responsibility caused him to sacrifice the interests of his own small family and his own objective judgment, while bringing about his deep guilt toward his wife and daughter, and his resistance to his brother’s and parents’ behavior. These emotions were expressed in his impatience with his brother and parents, and his silence in protest to his wife. 4. Root cause: Psychological defense mechanism makes the conflict “change its face” to insomnia Under the conflicting psychological state, Mr. Yang activated his psychological defense mechanism. Under normal circumstances, people often instinctively react to negative emotions brought about by conflict at the conscious level in a variety of ways, either to eliminate these reactions or to protect the normal psychological functions affected by overly negative emotions, which is called “psychological defense” in psychology. There are many common psychological defense mechanisms, such as repression, projection, passive aggression, complaining, fantasy, withdrawal, somatization, sublimation, humor, reaction formation, avoidance, idealization, pseudo-altruism, isolation, denial, expectation, etc. When people encounter unresolvable conflicts at the level of thinking, they often deal with the conflicting issues in these forms to ensure the stability of the overall state of psychological functioning. Yang was precisely in such a state, when he was faced with conflicting ideas left and right, he unconsciously used psychological defenses such as repression, avoidance, fantasy, and isolation, etc. Through these treatments, the conflict at the level of consciousness no longer became a problem within his field of vision, just as an iceberg floating on the surface of the water was pressed below the surface. Once he encountered the problem again, he would consciously restore his inner peace temporarily by listening to God, maybe his brother would earn the money back soon, and wait for the matter to be discussed. However, the repressed conflict does not really disappear, just like the iceberg beneath the surface of the water, it sometimes changes its face and reappears in another form, such as various physical discomfort, insomnia, etc.. Although these new problems have changed their faces, the core of their anxious conflict has not changed. Wai Chiu-kuo pointed out that occasional insomnia triggered Yang’s concern about his health, and the excessive concern further affected his sleep, and he gradually developed many unhealthy sleep behaviors, and insomnia became the focus of Yang’s life, while the conflict of borrowing money seemed to be gradually ignored as a result. Therefore, in a sense, the insomnia problem was a “morphing” of Mr. Yang’s previous inner conflict related to the money borrowing, and the use of sleeping pills only temporarily relieved his temporary problem, but did not relieve the conflict at the root. Moreover, the irregular and unscientific use of sleeping pills often leads to dependence on sleeping pills. 5, advice: the relationship between the extended family and the small family should be clear From Mr. Yang’s experience we see that role confusion, unhealthy psychological defense and behavioral response, is the key to his insomnia. So, how should Mr. Yang go about it when he encounters his brother borrowing money from him? The psychotherapist does not have a clear answer for Mr. Yang. The key is for Mr. Yang to be clear about the boundaries of extended family and small family relationships in dealing with these matters, and to find the right and appropriate way to solve the problem positively. If Mr. Yang is really aware of these relationships, he can make healthy choices and thus prevent the emergence of psychological problems.