Protecting the Self: Defense Mechanisms in Action

399 Pages·2006·1.56 MB·English

by  Phebe Cramer PhD

PROTECTING THE SELF

Protecting the Self
Defense Mechanisms in Action
PHEBE CRAMER
THE GUILFORD PRESS
New York London
©2006TheGuilfordPress
ADivisionofGuilfordPublications,Inc.
72SpringStreet,NewYork,NY10012
www.guilford.com
Allrightsreserved
Nopartofthisbookmaybereproduced,translated,storedin
aretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,
electronic,mechanical,photocopying,microfilming,recording,
orotherwise,withoutwrittenpermissionfromthePublisher.
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
Thisbookisprintedonacid-freepaper.
Lastdigitisprintnumber: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Cramer,Phebe.
Protectingtheself:defensemechanismsinaction/PhebeCramer.
p.cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN-13:978-1-59385-298-6(hardcover:alk.paper)
ISBN-10:1-59385-298-3(hardcover:alk.paper)
1. Defensemechanisms(Psychology)2. Defensemechanisms(Psychology)—Testing.
3. Psychology,Pathological. I.Title.
BF175.5.D44C735 2006
155.2—dc22
2006005148
AAbboouutt tthhee AAuutthhoorr
About the Author
Phebe Cramer, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and Professor of Psychology
at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. She is also on the
editorial boards of the Journal of Research in Personality, the Journal of
Personality Assessment, and the European Journal of Personality. Dr.
Crameristheauthorofanumberofresearcharticlesandbooks,including
Storytelling, Narrative, and the Thematic Apperception Test. Her research
takes a developmental approach to the study of defense mechanisms and
personal identity.
v

PPrreeffaaccee
Preface
I
n 1991, I published a book titled The Development of Defense
Mechanisms: Theory, Research, and Assessment. In that book, I presented
atheoryofdefensemechanismdevelopmentinwhichdefenseswerecharac-
terized as becoming predominant at different chronological periods of de-
velopment, and in which each defense was characterized as having its own
developmental history.
Thistheory,nowsupportedbyempiricalresearch,focusesonthreede-
fensemechanismschosentorepresentthreedifferentdevelopmentalperiods.
Of the three, denial, a cognitively simple mental operation, is used most
frequentlybyyoungchildrenbutdeclinesinpredominanceasthechildgrows
older.Projection,adefenseofgreatercognitivecomplexity,increasesinuse
duringlatechildhoodandbecomespredominantbyadolescence.Thethird
defense,identification,ofevengreatercomplexity,increasesslowlythrough-
out childhood and becomes most important during late adolescence when
issues of identity development are central to the individual. Each of these
defenses has its own developmental history, and the way in which each
defenseismanifestmaychangewithincreasingmaturity.Afulldiscussionof
thedevelopmentaltrajectoryofthethreedefensesisprovidedinChapters3,
4, and 5 of the present book.1
In the earlier book, I also reviewed the existing research studies of de-
fenses. While my thinking about the developmental theory has changed
very little, the research literature from the past 15 years has burgeoned;
more than 2000 empirical studies of defense mechanisms were published
between1990andtoday.ArecentreviewofresearchwiththeDefenseStyle
Questionnaire (Bond, 2004) cites more than 60 studies that have focused
vii
viii Preface
on the use of this single assessment method to study the role of defenses in
psychopathology and therapy.
Theconceptofdefensemechanismshasarichhistory,fromtheearliest
papers of S. Freud (1894, 1896, 1915, 1926), who described defense as a
mental operation that kept painful thoughts and emotions out of aware-
ness, through the work of A. Freud (1936) and Fenichel (1945), who
focused on defenses as mechanisms for “warding off” anxiety and guilt
feelings. Subsequent theorizing of Loewenstein (1967), Lampl-de Groot
(1957),VanderLeeuw(1971),andWallerstein(1967)stressedthattheuse
ofdefensesispartofnormalmentaldevelopmentandnotnecessarilyanin-
dication of pathology.2
While the theory of defense mechanisms was being developed in psy-
choanalytic writings, academic psychologists were attempting to create ex-
perimentalparadigmstostudydefensemechanismsinthelaboratory.From
1930 to 1960, these studies focused on the defenses of repression and pro-
jection, using experiments involving learning, memory, and perception.
Eventually, this work was strongly criticized. What had initially appeared
asexperimentalsupportfortheconceptofrepressionwaschallengedasbe-
ing due to processes of attention and response suppression, while apparent
support for projection was relabeled as the process of attribution.
Although this criticism brought an end to the experimental study of
defensesuntilfairlyrecently,clinicianswerenotswayedbythenegativecri-
tiques. Rather, they considered the experimental studies to lack ecological
validity.3 Further attempts to create paper-and-pencil self-report measures
ofdefenses(e.g.,Byrne,1961;Gleser&Ihilevich,1969;Haan,1965;Joffee
& Naditch, 1977) were unfortunately limited by both conceptual and
psychometric problems (see Cramer, 1991a; Davidson & MacGregor,
1998).
Morerecently,therehasbeenasignificantchangeinthemethodsused
to study defense mechanisms. Reliance on the earlier questionnaires that
asked for direct self-report on the use of defense behaviors has been sup-
planted by methods that rely on clinical observation and ratings. Also new
questionnairemethodshavebeendevelopedandrefined,resolvingsomeof
the earlier problems with self-report approaches.
Giventheverylargenumberofnewresearchstudies,Ihavelimitedmy
discussion in the present book to those investigations that study defense
mechanisms,ascontrastedwithdefensiveness,whichisbetterconsidereda
personalityorresponsestyle.Ifocusprimarilyonthoseinvestigationsusing
observational ratings, including my own method for coding defenses from
narrative material, and the interview-based Defense Mechanism Rating
Scale (Perry, 2001). I have also included research using the very popular
DefenseStyleQuestionnaire(Bond,1992;Andrews,Singh,&Bond,1993).
Inafewcases,becauseofaninterestingorlittleresearchedtopic,Ihavein-
Preface ix
cluded studies using other methods to assess defenses. The details of these
measures, including advantages and disadvantages, are discussed in Chap-
ter 16.
Within the topic of each chapter, I have generally grouped studies by
thesemethodsofinvestigationandthenhavedeterminedwhetherdifferent
methodsleadtothesameordifferentconclusions.Giventhedevelopmental
focus of my thinking about defense mechanisms, I discuss research carried
out with children and adolescents separately from that carried out with
adults. Among other reasons, this organization reflects the understanding
that defense immaturity is a concept relative to the age of the person being
studied; thus denial is an immature defense for a 20-year-old but not for a
5-year-old.
Since my earlier book reviewed defense studies published prior to
1990,thecurrentbookfocusesoninvestigationspublishedsince1990.Ina
fewcases,researchpublishedpriortothistimeisincluded,eitherbecauseit
wasinadvertentlyomittedfromthepreviousbookorbecauseitisessential
for understanding the more recent work.
When the earlier book was published, I had already been working in
this area of scholarly study for more than 10 years. But, in another way, I
wasjustbeginningmyexplorationofdefensemechanisms.Sincethattime,
empirical studies of defenses—my own and those of others—have ex-
panded into new areas of inquiry. I have also had the good fortune to be
able to carry out several longitudinal investigations of how defenses influ-
ence personality development over time. These latter opportunities oc-
curred through the gracious sharing of information from the Block and
Block(1980)longitudinalstudyofchildrenfromage3toage23andfrom
the Institute of Human Development Intergenerational longitudinal study
of development from early childhood to late adulthood (Eichorn, Clausen,
Haan, Honzik, & Mussen, 1981). In both cases, Thematic Apperception
Teststorieshadbeencollectedbuthadremainedlargelyunexamined.Iwas
able to code these stories and thus obtain measures of defense use that
couldbeexaminedinconjunctionwiththeextensivelongitudinaldatathat
existedfortheseindividuals.Asyouwillseefromtheworkreportedinthis
book,thereisstillmuchtobelearnedandunderstoodaboutdefensemech-
anisms.Ihopethisgatheringtogetherofcurrentknowledgewillcontribute
to further investigation.
I thank colleagues and students who have expressed interest in my
work on defenses. They have contributed to the growing body of knowl-
edge showing that the analysis of narrative material through the use of the
DefenseMechanismManualisaninformativeandvalidmethodforassess-
ing defenses. This has been a source of continuing motivation for my own
work. I am especially grateful to Dr. Sarah Hampson and Dr. Rainier
Riemann, whose invitation to be a keynote speaker at the 11th European
x Preface
ConferenceonPersonality,heldinJena,GermanyinJulyof2002,servedas
the catalyst to write this new book.
Finally, the production of the book was handled skillfully by the staff
atTheGuilfordPress.IthankespeciallySeniorEditorJimNageotteandSe-
nior Production Editor Anna Nelson for their many helpful suggestions in
bringing this book to completion.