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In this paper we will report upon the development and validation of a Rorschach scoring manual designed to assess defenses in patients who function at the borderline level of personality organization.
The concept of defense represents the earliest statement of the dynamic point of view (A. Freud, 1936). In the initial stage of theory formation, the unconscious was identified with the repressed and the displacement of psychic contents was regarded as the essential clinical phenomenon. Thus, as Leeuw (1971) has noted, defense had to be conceptualized before the concept of the unconscious could be introduced.
Several authors (Rapaport, 1958; Hoffer, 1968; Leeuw, 1971) have summarized and outlined the various conceptions of defense presented in Freud's writings. In an initial period,