Concept
Defense
Unconscious operations that protect the ego from anxiety and from awareness of conflict.
Read more- Narrower concepts
- Introduced by
- Sigmund Freud
- Key works
- 2
- Related
introduced by
- Sigmund Freud 1894 Introduces defence in “Die Abwehr-Neuropsychosen” (1894): faced with an incompatible idea, the ego sets out to fend it off, and the attempt gives rise to hysterical, obsessional or hallucinatory symptoms. In Studies on Hysteria he recalls how clinical work led him to the idea.
developed by
- Sigmund Freud 1895 Describes defence as turning a strong idea into a weak one by stripping it of its affect, and tentatively extends the concept to every form of hysteria.
gave rise to
- Resistance 1895 Freud identifies the resistance met in treatment with the same force of the ego that first repelled the incompatible idea: resistance is defence as it shows itself in the work of recall.
- Repression 1895 Repression comes out of Freud's earlier theory of defence: in 1895 hysteria arises from the repression of an incompatible idea 'from the motive of defence'. Freud later let 'repression' stand for defence as a whole, and in 1926 he says so himself, bringing defence back as the general term of which repression is one kind.