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An ego which attempts to save itself anxiety and renunciation of instinct and to avoid neurosis by denying reality is overstraining this mechanism. If this happens during the latency period, some abnormal character trait will develop.
ANNA FREUD (1936, p. 81f.)One of Freud's favourite sayings was: "Man muss ein Stück Unsicherheit ertragen können" (One must learn to bear some portion of uncertainty).
HANNS SACHS (1944, p. 145)
AS PART OF A LARGER STUDY OF THE FORMS AND FUNCTIONS OF FREE association, my attention was drawn to a particular pattern in the analysis of several "narcissistic" adult patients that seems to me to resemble the latency child's use of denial in fantasy. Typically, in this pattern, the patients speak freely and fluently, are involved in what they are saying, earnestly endeavoring to express all thoughts as they come; and regularly the result is a rebuttal of their own sense of inadequacy, sometimes complacent, often self-justifying and self-aggrandizing. The psychoanalyst easily recognizes that the unconscious aim of these associations has all along been to reach such a gratifying conclusion, to disarm guilt and counter fears of weakness.
Just when one expected to hear of failure, shame, and doubt, for example, one young man regularly asserted superiority, satisfaction, and certainty. In another instance, a woman's fears of sexual