Review of The fantasy bond: Effects of psychological defenses on interpersonal relations.

Reviews the book, The fantasy bond: Effects of psychological defenses on interpersonal relations by Robert W. Firestone (see record 2005-06592-000). In this book, Firestone has attempted to provide insight into how fantasy plays an important role as a defense mechanism. The important role of defenses is explored by being broken down into three major areas. Firestone presents these as "Core Defense," "Theoretical Issue," and "Implications for Therapy." This is a logical progression of steps that makes the book easy to follow. Under each major topic Firestone presents the subareas where the person's defenses become important. The book is well written and easy to follow. As general reading for the psychotherapist, it provides information and insights into the process of living and experiencing therapy. In order to fully understand the concepts presented, the reader should have a good, but not necessarily extensive background and/or training in the more dynamically oriented theories or therapies. Despite some minor difficulties Firestone has presented a thorough and well-written text on the role of defense mechanisms and how they interplay in our interpersonal relationships. This book is probably best geared for the graduate student and the newly established professional psychotherapist with prior training in the principles of psychodynamically oriented therapy, although experienced therapists may also find further knowledge here. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Suicidal adolescents and ego defense mechanisms

OBJECTIVES: To identify defense mechanisms that characterize adolescents with a range of suicidal behaviors and to differentiate them from nonsuicidal adolescents. METHODS: Fifty-five suicidal adolescent inpatients admitted for a definite suicide attempt were compared with 87 adolescent inpatients who had no history of suicide attempt or ideation and 81 nonpatients. Defense mechanisms were assessed by the Ego Defense Scale (EDS) which is part of a larger semistructured interview, the Child Suicide Potential Scale (CSPS), and by a self-report questionnaire, the Life Style Index (LSI). The CSPS was also used to quantity violent and suicidal behaviors. RESULTS: On the LSI suicidal adolescent patients scored higher on denial, displacement, repression, and total defenses than the nonpatients. On the EDS they scored higher on regression, denial, projection, introjection, repression, and total defenses and lower on sublimation. LSI scores on displacement (higher) and on compensation (lower) distinguished suicidal from nonsuicidal inpatients. Denial and regression correlated positively and sublimation correlated negatively with both suicidal and violent behaviors. Introjection and repression correlated with suicidal behavior only. CONCLUSIONS: Overuse of displacement is connected with increased risk for suicidal and aggressive behaviors, while sublimation is probably a protective factor. In addition, several immature ego defenses possibly amplify aggression, which then is directed against the self by the maladaptive overuse of introjection, displacement, and repression.     

Relationship of defense mechanisms to field dependence-independence.

Reexamined the relationships between defense mechanisms and field articulation using 50 male and 60 female psychiatric patients. It was found that (a) Ss who relied excessively on "global" defenses (turning-against-self and reversal) were more field dependent than Ss who relied on "differentiated" defenses (turning-against-object and projection); and (b) Ss who did not rely on any 1 defense were intermediate on field articulation. Knowledge of major defense allowed for prediction of cognitive style, but knowledge of cognitive style permitted prediction of only clusters of defenses. Characteristic defense appeared to be a function of both cognitive style and learning experience. When matched for defense style, men were more field independent than women on the Embedded Figures Test, but not on the Figure Drawing Test. Reversal was the most effective as a defense against anxiety for males, but not for females as judged by Repression-Sensitization Scale scores. (23 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Face scanning and responsiveness to social cues in infant rhesus monkeys.

Investigated the development of gaze aversion in 8 infant rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) by recording their visual fixations while they scanned pictures of monkey faces looking back at them and pictures of monkey faces looking away. During the 1st week of life, Ss inspected the 2 face-types equally. During Weeks 3 and 7, however, they inspected the faces looking back less than the faces looking away. The maturation of selective viewing was not paralleled by changes in scanning strategies (e.g., by a shift from scanning the contours of faces to fixations of internal details). The implications of early species-typical social awareness for social and perceptual development in rhesus monkeys are discussed. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rethinking the comparison of borderline personality disorder and multiple personality disorder

This article has made a number of points that assert what is today a minority position within the fields of MPD/DID and BPD. We hope our views will stimulate attempts by others to rethink their positions and test our assertions, so that issues surrounding these two disorders can be sharpened. For the sake of the clarity of future work, we summarize in outline form the essence of our viewpoint. 1. BPD and MPD/DID have similar appearing symptoms, such as identity problems, unstable affect modulation, self-destructive behaviors, chaotic impulse control, and troubled interpersonal relationships, but they have decisive differences in underlying dynamics, process, and structure. 2. DSM tends to blur these two disorders by its emphasis on phenomenology over inner structure, thus fostering misleading conclusions when DSM criteria are used to test for comorbidity or overlap between BPD and MPD/DID. 3. BPD and MPD/DID are both described dynamically as using the defense of splitting, but we contend that the splitting in each disorder is fundamentally different from the splitting in the other. BPD uses a polarization form of splitting, whereas MPD/DID uses ego splitting or identity division. 4. Both disorders partake in the process of dissociation, but the quality of dissociation in BPD is a "low-tech" spaced out type, whereas that of MPD/DID is a "high-tech" waking dream. 5. BPD structure is also "low tech," with polarization of self, object, and relationship. MPD/DID structure is "high tech," with heavily symbolic, highly nuanced variations of self, object, and relationship. 6. Although both conditions have etiologic elements of trauma, BPD has a larger degree of developmental deficiency, with a failure to complete the task of entering a repression hierarchy of defenses. MPD/DID, by use of primary process-linked symbolic dissociation, is able to continue development to the repression hierarchy, although at a profound cost of simultaneous suspension of reality testing. BPD patients suffer from the rigid use of too few defenses; MPD/DID patients suffer from the obsolete use of too many defenses. 7. BPD patients grow up in homes in which overtly expressed aggression is more tolerated, or at least more openly experienced. MPD/DID patients grow up in homes in which the fact of aggression is kept a secret. This has consequences for the formation of psychic structure in each disorder.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)     

Galvanic skin response as a measure of patient's reaction to therapist's permissiveness.

"Frequency of a patient's galvanic skin response is shown to be inversely related to the judged permissiveness of the therapist during a series of 42 hours of psychotherapy. The GSR is interpreted as a measure of the anxiety of the patient, or his 'mobilization' against any cue threatening punishment by the therapist, such as any cue which the patient has learned to perceive as evidence of low esteem. This anxiety presumably motivates varying subtle forms of resistance and defense against the feared punishment. Several alternative interpretations of the relation between permissiveness and GSR are rejected by various findings." GSR is related to the emotional significance of the patient's speech, as well as to the permissiveness of the therapist. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influence of defense mechanisms on moral judgment development: A longitudinal study.

The influence of defense mechanisms in adolescence on moral judgment was studied using Kohlberg"s longitudinal study of boys and men. Beginning at ages 13–14 yrs and continuing for 20 yrs, the 44 Ss in this study were periodically interviewed about their moral judgments, aspirations, and relationships. These interviews were coded for defenses using N. Haan"s (1977) Q-Sort, yielding profiles of the salience of 10 mature and 10 immature defenses. Moral judgment stage scores were obtained from previous analyses. Adolescents with mature profiles of defenses reasoned at higher stages of moral judgment 10 to 20 yrs later than those with less mature profiles. Six specific defenses assessed in adolescence evidenced consistent relationships to moral judgment in adulthood. The value of embedding moral judgment research within the broader sphere of personality is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Activating posthypnotic conflict: emergent uncovering psychopathology repression, and psychopathology

An attempt was made to observe the process of repression and symptom formation. Emergent uncovering techniques were used to weaken a spontaneous repression that was produced by the posthypnotic activation of sexual impulses stemming from an implanted oedipa paramnesia. Twelve hypnotic and ten simulating subjects were used in a modified real-simulator design. Although it was not possible to 'lift' the spontaneous repression of derivatives of oedipal strivings in the course of uncovering via visual imagery, a wide variety of spontaneous symptoms were produced in the hypnotically conditioned subjects. The type of symptom was shown to be related to the degree of repression. Simulating subjects produced only a few symptoms. The manifestation of a symptom was concomitant with an increase in the GSR, but not the blatancy of drive representation. These findings were consistent with the phenomena observed using free imagery in emergent uncovering psychotherapy.     

Binocular fixation disparity in single word displays.

It has been claimed that the recognition of words displayed in isolation is affected by the precise location at which they are fixated. However, this putative role for fixation location has yet to be reconciled with the finding from reading research that binocular fixations are often misaligned and, therefore, more than 1 location in a word is often fixated simultaneously. The accuracy and alignment of binocular fixations during single word processing have not been assessed previously. To investigate this issue, words were presented for lexical decision at locations around a central fixation point. Eye-tracking data revealed that participants often fixated inaccurately and that fixations were frequently misaligned, but that this did not affect word recognition. The findings show that binocular fixation disparity is pervasive even in single word displays and a potential source of confound for research into effects of fixation location on word recognition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eye-Fixation Patterns of High- and Low-Span Young and Older Adults: Down the Garden Path and Back Again.

Young and older adults' eye fixations were monitored as they read sentences with temporary ambiguities such as "The experienced soldiers warned about the dangers conducted the midnight raid." Their fixation patterns were similar except that older adults made many regressions. In a 2nd experiment, high- and low-span older adults were compared with high- and low-span young adults. Pint-pass fixations were similar, except low-span readers made many regressions and their total fixation times were longer. High-span readers also used the focus operator "only" (e.g., "Only experienced soldiers warned about the dangers . . .") to immediately resolve the temporary ambiguities. No age group differences were observed. These results are discussed with reference to theories of the role of working memory in sentence processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The use of subliminal psychodynamic activation in the study of repression.

To study the clinical phenomenon of repression, 33 female undergraduates were selected for the presence of high sexual guilt and divided into 2 groups. One group evidenced a high degree of personality development from which it was inferred that they were prone toward (a) the use of repression rather than more primitive defenses and (b) oedipal rather than preoedipal conflict. The 2nd group evidenced a lesser degree of personality development, thus the above inferences did not apply. The subliminal psychodynamic activation method was used with both groups to evaluate effects on repression of intensifying and diminishing unconscious conflict over sexual wishes. Ss were exposed to conflict intensifying, conflict reducing, and neutral control stimuli, each accompanied by a congruent picture both before (in 1 condition) and after (in another condition) a recall test of both neutral and sexual material. The conflict-reduction condition did not affect memory of the passages, but the conflict-intensification condition did (a) for the group with the greater degree of personality development, (b) when this condition was presented before the material to be remembered, and (c) for the recall of neutral passages. The special conditions necessary for demonstration of repression are viewed as elucidating why it has previously been difficult to show evidence of repression in laboratory experiments. (4 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Imitative learning by captive western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) in a simulated food-processing task.

Although field studies have suggested the existence of cultural transmission of foraging techniques in primates, identification of transmission mechanisms has remained elusive. To test experimentally for evidence of imitation in the current study, the authors exposed gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) to an artificial fruit foraging task designed by A. Whiten and D. M. Custance (1996). Gorillas (n?=?6) watched a human model remove a series of 3 defenses around a fruit. Each of the defenses was removed using 1 of 2 alternative techniques. Subsequent video analysis of gorillas' behavior showed a significant tendency to copy the observed technique on 1 of the individual defenses and the direction of removal on another defense. This is the first statistically reliable evidence of imitation in gorillas. Sequence of defense removal was not replicated. The gorillas' responses were most similar to those of chimpanzees. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual differences in reading to summarize expository text: Evidence from eye fixation patterns.

Eye fixation patterns were used to identify reading strategies of adults as they read multiple-topic expository texts. A clustering technique distinguished 4 strategies that differed with respect to the ways in which readers reprocessed text. The processing of fast linear readers was characterized by the absence of fixations returning to previous text. Slow linear readers made lots of forward fixations and reinspected each sentence before moving to the next. The reading of nonselective reviewers was characterized by look backs to previous sentences. The distinctive feature of topic structure processors was that they paid close attention to headings. They also had the largest working-memory capacity and wrote the most accurate text summaries. Thus, qualitatively distinct reading strategies are observable among competent, adult readers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitude towards aggression and creative functioning in patients with breast cancer

Three projective personality tests were used to assess attitude to aggression (The Identification Test), anxiety and defenses (The Meta-Contrast Technique) and creative functioning (The Creative Functioning Test) in 70 patients with breast cancer. Discriminant analyses were applied pro primo to characterize psychologically patients with a better prognosis and patients with a poorer prognosis. A second aim was to characterize psychologically older (postmenopausal) and younger (premenopausal) women. Generally, high scores on the Identification Test indicated maladaptive attitudes towards aggression among all the patients. Patients with a poorer prognosis showed responses that in healthy subjects indicate acknowledgement of aggressive impulses, perhaps suggesting lack of "defenses" against such impulses among those patients. Another way to describe it would be that patients with a better prognosis seem to have (normally nonadaptive) "defenses" against aggressive impulses while those with poorer prognosis have not. Surprisingly, the patients with a better prognosis (but not those with a poorer prognosis) gave responses classified as depression in the Meta-Contrast Technique. Typical of premenopausal patients were responses classified as anxiety as well as reaction formation on the Identification Test. Responses classified as adaptive defenses (isolation) were seen in the Meta-Contrast Technique. A surprising finding was that many of these patients were characterized by high scores on the creativity test. These original statistically significant findings of attitudes towards aggression and creative functioning in breast cancer patients are discussed in relation to the underlying nature of aggression and creativity.     

Primitive defenses and the borderline patient's perceptions of the psychiatric treatment team.

Investigated the construct validity of several self-report measures of splitting and related primitive defense mechanisms and undertook a preliminary quantitative analysis of the relation of these defenses to here-and-now social perceptions in borderline psychopathology. Based on an integrated framework of object-relations theory, psychoanalytic group psychology, and social cognition theory, the study explored associations between the use of primitive defenses by 31 adult borderline inpatients and their perceptions of the various staff roles that constitute their treatment teams. Reliance on image-distorting defenses and the holding of fragmented images of self as omnipotent and as "bad" were significantly associated with borderlines' perceived proximity to specific members and subgroups of their treatment teams. Results further validate selected measures of primitive defenses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Organizational, work, and personal factors in employee turnover and absenteeism.

Critically examines research over the past 10-12 yrs concerning factors related to turnover and absenteeism in work situations. On a general level, overall job satisfaction was consistently and inversely related to turnover. In an effort to break down the global concept of job satisfaction, various factors in the work situation were analyzed as they related to withdrawal behavior. 4 categories of factors, each representing 1 "level" in the organization, were utilized: organization-wide factors, immediate work environment factors, job-related factors, and personal factors. Several variables in each of the 4 categories were found to be related fairly consistently to 1 or both forms of withdrawal. An attempt is made to put the diverse findings into a conceptual framework centering around the role of met expectations. Methodological considerations and future research needs are also discussed. (83 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introversion, neuroticism, and conditioning.

73 university students were tested with 50 acquisition and 20 extinction trials in a finger withdrawal procedure using a strong electric shock as the unconditioned stimulus and a tone as the conditioned stimulus. The GSR was conditioned to the tone simultaneously. While there were high correlations between acquisition and extinction scores for each conditioning procedure, there were no significant correlations between the 2—a result inconsistent with the presence of a strong general factor of conditionability, and possibly related to the fact that one type of conditioning depends merely on "contiguity," whereas "drive reduction" is important for the other. None of the conditioning indices were significantly correlated with introversion, neuroticism, or manifest anxiety as assessed by various questionnaires, or with an independent psychiatric rating of anxiety based on an interview. (28 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Defense processes can be conscious or unconscious.

Comments on an article by P. Cramer (see record 2000-15774-007) which discussed renewed interest in the concept of defense mechanisms. The author dissents from two proposals made by Cramer: (1) that defense mechanisms are used nonintentionally and (2) that they are necessarily unconscious processes. It is argued that Sigmund Freud's position—that defense, including repression, could be conscious or unconscious—is the viable position. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationship between GSR and speech disturbances in psychotherapy.

"… the relationship between points of emotional arousal or anxiety as defined by the GSR and the occurrence of speech disturbances in psychotherapy [was investigated]. Synchronized GSR and verbal recordings… provided the basic data." Speech disturbances were maximal at times coincident with GSR deflections and decreased in frequency on either side of GSR deflections. Additional validity is provided for both speech disturbances and the GSR as measures of momentary changes in anxiety level in psychotherapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Defense mechanisms, psychosomatic symptomatology, and conjugate lateral eye movements.

Classified 28 right-handed male undergraduates into left movers, right movers, and bidirectionals according to the characteristic direction of their eye movements in response to questions. The 3 groups were compared on their preferential use of defense mechanisms and on the number of psychosomatic complaints. Left movers scored higher on a defense mechanism cluster that included repression and denial, whereas right movers scored higher on the defense clusters of "projection" and "turning against others." Left movers reported more psychosomatic symptoms compared to right movers. Bidirectionals scored between these groups on all measures. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)