Notes on the Theory of Defense

Freud's conception of defense is one of the cornerstones of psychoanalytic theory. In the hierarchy of psychoanalytic concepts, it is at the apex, together with those of the unconscious, the instinctual drives, and the development and structuralization of personality. In the area of therapy, since 1926 it has superseded the theory of repression. The theory of defense had a revolutionizing impact on psychoanalytic technique due to Anna Freud and her book, The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense(1936); familiarity with this work is a prerequisite for the understanding and clinical application of the theory of defense.1

In 1896, Freud described defense as "an attempt to repress an incompatible idea which had come into distressing opposition to the patient's ego" (p. 162). Yet, in 1926, Freud wrote:

In the course of discussing the problem of anxiety I have revived a concept or, to put it more modestly, a term, of which I made exclusive use thirty years ago when I first began to study the subject but which I later abandoned. I refer to the term 'defensive process'. I afterwards replaced it by the word 'repression', but the relation between the two remained uncertain. It