Meetings of the New York Psychoanalytic Society

January 28, 1958. TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE PHYSICAL NUCLEUS OF SOME DEFENSE REACTION. Phyllis Greenacre, M.D.

This paper is based on clinical observations regarding the genesis of early ontogenetically determined organism defenses and their transformation into the mental mechanism of defense characteristic of the matured ego. It offers suggestions for further study of the choice and elaboration of early patterns of defense as they come to form a restraining bridge between reactions to immediate stimulations of the outer world, i.e., the direct aggressive-defensive physical responses, and the complex inner stimulation inherent with development. Autonomous defense reactions are greatly influenced by necessary dependence and independence with intricate vicissitudes, and complex developmental reactions, which can be traced clinically. Early development is divided into the following stages: 1, the period of pure physical responsiveness of the infant under complete domination and protection of the mother; 2, dominance of the primary process; 3, progressive development of the secondary process to the fourth year; 4, Oedipal; 5, postoedipal. The influence of stages two and three is the subject of this paper.

Contactual and perceptual experiences with the mother are utilized not only for sustenance, but also for solace. Withdrawal, the most primitive defense reaction, is shared with the introjective-projective and displacement mechanisms. Early withdrawal defenses at a physiological level are perhaps a prototype of avoidance and denial. Intense stimulation may be met by fatigue and sleep, later by near disorganization instead of sleep. Clinically this diffusion of stimulation appears as a feeling of haziness in regard to perception and thought. In early anal and genital overstimulation, the dispersion may lead to explosiveness, as seen in perverse character structures. With object loss, the fundamental incorporative drives in vision, orality, and touch remai