Discussion of Joseph Fernando's Processes of Defense1

Research into defence, one of the central topoi in the theoretical edifice of psychoanalysis, no longer constitutes the core of theoretical discussion, if it ever did, to say nothing of the concept of splitting and the more recent discourse on dissociation. What has barely been tackled since Anna Freud is a synthesis of the various defence mechanisms. One such attempt has been undertaken by Joseph Fernando, who puts forward a comprehensive theory of defences in his book. Fernando seeks less a critical discussion of existing literature on the subject than to position himself in familiar debates; his “main thrust is to develop certain new ideas, to make some important conceptual distinctions and to show how these various ideas— new and old—elate to each other and help us to comprehend clinical data” (p. 3). However, Fernando is concerned not only with new ideas of defence processes, but also with the integration of our ideas on the basic dynamics at play in the most diverse forms of defences—a task that in psychoanalysis “has not really been attempted or certainly not thought through in detail and depth” (p. 5).

Fernando is concerned that his theoretical conception will be criticized as outmoded and superseded by other concepts. He requests that readers refrain from prematurely rejecting his conception of psychic drive energy, which can be displaced and neutralized to varying degrees, and that