Personality and the Coping Process

Defense

One of Freud's earliest contributions was the observation that unpleasant or disturbing thoughts are sometimes kept away from consciousness (Breuer and Freud, 1893/1955). Freud's early writings outlined a variety of psychological maneuvers that individuals use to deflect, distort, or disguise undesirable thoughts and feelings. As Freud's theories evolved, the concepts of ‘defence’ and ‘repression’ came to play an increasingly important role (for more discussion on this point, see Brenner, 1957; Hentschel et al., 2004; Madison, 1956; Van der Leeuw, 1971). In his influential history on the psychoanalytic movement, for example, Freud declared that the ‘theory of repression is the foundation stone on which the structure of psychoanalysis rests’ (1914/1955: 16). Although Freud used the concepts of repression and defense interchangeably in his early psychoanalytic writings (see, for example, Freud, 1896/1955), an important modification was introduced in 1926, when Freud designated the word ‘defence’ to represent the ego's struggle with unpleasant ideas and feelings (Freud, 1926/1959). At the same time, Freud modified the concept of ‘repression’, noting from that point on in his work that it should be treated as but one type of defense mechanism.

Perhaps the next most significant event in the evolution and popularization of ideas about defense was the publication of Anna Freud's Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense (A. Freud, 1936/1946). A number of important theoretical developments can be found in this work that has attracted the attention of ensuing generations of researchers. Along with cataloguing various defense mechanisms described by her father (e.g. ‘regression’, ‘repression’, ‘projection’, and ‘sublimation’), Anna Freud introduced several new mechanisms (e.g. ‘identification with the aggressor’, ‘ego restriction’, and ‘intellectualization’). Of lasting influence was her observation that despite the existence of a variety of defense mechanisms, individuals tend to use only a narrow few. She argued, in short, that each person has preferred techniques for dealing with stressful or traumatic experiences. The idea that individuals have habitual strategies for dealing with stressful situations has not only interested researchers working with the defense mechanism construct, but many coping researchers as well (Carver et al., 1989; Endler and Parker, 1990a, 1990b; Skinner et al., 2003).

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