The Use of Hostility as Defense

Children learn the necessity of protecting themselves against the environment by not exposing their true thoughts and feelings. In time this deception is practiced also against that part of the psyche which represents the environmental attitudes. Thus the individual himself may be taken in by an emotional attitude of his own which is a defense against the exposure of a quite different, basic emotion. It is an important function of the analyst to distinguish these defensive attitudes from the underlying emotions. We have all become alert, as analysts, to the rôle of love and erotic 'transference' as disguise for anxiety. We have learned to regard this anxiety in large part as a 'danger signal' or defense against hostile impulses.

Surely in theory we have precedent for regarding hostility itself as an attitude which may also be used to conceal a deeper state of feeling. The formula for paranoia is a case in point. Ernest Jones, in Fear, Guilt and Hate,1 clearly implies that when hate is the top layer of affect, it is being used by the patient to conceal a deeper layer of fear or guilt, which in turn defends against a deeper layer of 'ego-dystonic hate'. 'There are few emotions in life that can give the subject such intense conviction of being in the right, that carry with them such a complete sense of self-justification, as anger; the acme being reached in what is called righteous indignation' and, 'The conscious reaction of hate is an attempt to deal with the guilt, or rather the impotence it has caused.'

So, with no claim for originality, I nevertheless feel that it is in order to remind ourselves that hostility may be defensive. Currently we are used to thinking that negative transference must be interpreted early in analysis and that positive transference may be passed over and will take care of itself. unless it