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The question concerning the nature of psychic defences in general cannot be posed without simultaneously determining 'what' these defences defend. In the present study, a distinction is made between the 'ego', as an anonymous set of possible actions and skills (apparatuses) and its narcissistic ideal (the ego-ideal), and on the other
hand the self. As opposed to being a narcissistic configuration, the self is object-related at its very centre. It is an affective-temporal structure, organized around internalized affective dispositions (ideals of the self) which constitute the most authentic hopes of the individual who is, at the same time, limited and brought back by the call of conscience (also the result of significant object representations). Given this provisional understanding of the nature of the self, the psychic defence mechanisms can be contrasted with these internalized affective dispositions. The former are always characterized by introversion to fantasy and repression, whereas the latter retain their relation to the object-(inner-) world and conform, for the most part, with the reality-principle.