See first: “de·com·pen·sa·tion [dēˌkämpənˈsāSH(ə)n/] – the failure to generate effective psychological coping mechanisms in response to stress, resulting in personality disturbance or disintegration, especially that which causes relapse in schizophrenia.” … " the term refers to the inability to maintain defense mechanisms in response to stress, resulting in personality disturbance or psychological imbalance."
Compensation would seem to be the opposite, but there is (observably) also *over-*compensation, which can look like “contrarian narcissism.”
Seeing all three at different times in my own behavior in response to stress, I am able to see it in others as well. Some just collapse into Seligman’s “learned helplessness” (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness) and “give up.” Some become negativistically (or “nihilistically”) hyper-assertive and insist that others agree with them about “how awful everything is.” (Does it seem empowering to them somehow? It did to me when I was more nihilistic.) Some seem to neither de-compensate nor over-compensate and just “get real.”
