Repression and substitutive formation: the relationship between Freud's concepts reconsidered

This paper examines Freud's concept of repression and the relationship between repression and substitutive formation as it presents itself in Freud's writings. The author shows that Freud gives at least four different meanings to the term "repression": Freud uses it interchangeably with defense, as a consciously intended forgetting, as a specific unconscious mechanism of defense, and to describe the consequence of defense mechanisms leading to substitutive formations. The inconsistencies in this relationship are discussed and clarified, and Freud's economic and linguistic attempts at founding repression are subjected to critique; the need of a primal repression as a necessary condition for repression proper is pointed out. In developing Freud's linguistic foundation of repression further, the author presents defense as a semantic displacement. Ideas are excluded from the realm of the concepts that belong to them historically. These presentations become unconscious, that is, repressed, in that they can no longer be identified as "cases" of these conceptual internal contents. At the same time they are displaced into the extensions of concepts whose internal contents do not belong to them originally. It is by virtue of the internal contents of these concepts that the displaced elements as substitutive formations once again attain consciousness, albeit a false one. The author suggests dismissing repression as a specific defense mechanism of its own; to reversing Freud's thesis that repression, as a rule, creates a substitutive formation into its opposite; and recognizing that the mechanisms used to build substitutes, as a rule, create repression.     

Defense mechanisms in psychology today. Further processes for adaptation

Although the concept of the defense mechanism was rejected from academic psychology for a number of years, recent empirical studies show renewed interest in defenses. Cognitive psychologists have confirmed the existence of unconscious psychological processes, a requisite for defenses. Developmental, personality, and social psychologists have all found evidence for defense mechanisms that explicate psychological functioning. The relevance of this new information for clinical practice is discussed.     

Defenses, Personality Structure, and Development: Integrating Psychodynamic Theory Into a Typological Approach to Personality

Psychodynamic theory does not conceptualize motivated unconscious defenses primarily in terms of individual traits. Rather, a person's mechanisms of defense are understood in terms of his or her personality structure and level of psychological development. This paper outlines the way in which this perspective has been integrated into a configural approach to personality assessment. The six-group typology based on the Weinberger Adjustment Inventory (WAI) identifies higher-order personality organization through the intersection of self-reported high/low distress and high/moderate/low self-restraint. The framework incorporates a developmental perspective by assessing affect regulation in conjunction with the internalization of self-regulatory controls. The primary defenses of prototypic members of each of the six groups are highlighted, and hypothesized links to personality traits, stages of ego development, attachment styles, and proneness to specific personality disorders are discussed.     

防御机制研究概述

20世纪90年代以来,研究者们对防御机制和无意识过程的兴趣再次增强,出现了一系列实验和临床研究。文章简要回顾了防御机制的研究历史,然后概述当前学术领域和临床实践中对防御机制的研究。     

Abwehr, Verdrängung und Ersatzbildung

The author investigates the relationship of defence, repression and substitutive formation as it presents itself in Freud’s writings. He shows that Freud gives at least four different meanings to the term “repression”: Freud uses it interchangeably with defence, as a consciously intended forgetting, as a specific unconscious mechanism of defence and to describe the consequence of defence mechanisms leading to substitutive formations. The inconsistencies in this relationship are discussed and clarified and Freud’s economic and linguistic attempts to justify repression are subjected to critique as well as the need of a primal repression as a necessary condition for repression proper. In developing Freud’s linguistic justification of repression further, the author presents defence as a semantic displacement. Ideas are excluded from the realm of the concepts which belong to them historically. These presentations become unconscious, i.e. repressed, in that they can no longer be identified as “cases” of these conceptual internal contents. At the same time they are displaced into the extensions of concepts whose internal contents do not belong to them originally. It is by virtue of the internal contents of these concepts that the displaced elements as substitutive formations once again attain consciousness, albeit a false one. It is suggested that repression as a specific defence mechanism of its own should be dismissed, to reverse Freud’s thesis that repression as a rule creates a substitutive formation into its opposite and to understand that the mechanisms used to build substitutes as a rule create repression.     

Defense mechanisms and morality: a link between isolation and moralization

The relationship between morality and perceptual defense mechanisms was studied. Three new scales were constructed to measure different aspects of morality: moralism (the tendency to evaluate everything in terms of right and wrong), conscience (strength of feelings of right and wrong) and reparation (inclination to repair the damage one has caused). Perceptual defense mechanisms were measured with Kragh's Defense Mechanism Test (DMT). Three hypotheses about relationships between morality and defense mechanisms, derived from psychoanalytical literature, were tested on 54 male University students. Results show positive correlations between the defense mechanism isolation of affect and moralism, and between identification with the aggressor and reparation. Total amount of perceptual defense correlated positively with moralism. It is argued that the psychological study of morality should take unconscious processes into consideration.     

Drives and objects - notes on the change of drive theory

Freud’s drive theory has been questioned since the 1940s when Fairbairn created a metaphor of the mind that is not based on the tripartite model and drive theory. His work inspired others to elaborate on the significance of internal object relationships. According to the object relation theory, internal object relations are dynamic structures capable of generating meanings and action. Consequently, two distinct metapsychologies were created.The aim of this article is to show how the interaction of theories has initiated revisions of classic drive theory. Freud’s concept of drive and three synthesizing viewpoints between the two perspectives are discussed. Otto Kernberg addresses affects as a primary motivational system; the mother–infant relationship organizes affects to drives. Joseph Sandler adheres to classic drive theory but proposes that the ego’s attempt to protect the mind against psychic pain is as important as drive derivatives in motivating the mind. Laplanche proposes that the unconscious of the care-giving adult is the crucial factor for the constitution of an infant’s unconscious and drives. For Freud and Klein, drive is inherent. Contemporary writers, like Loewald and Laplanche, conceive drive as a function of the mind that is born out of the same matrix of interaction with the other elements of the mind.     

Why,Mrs. Robinson? The Seduction of Teenage Boys by Women in Classic Films

Utilizing three classic films, and psychoanalytic developmental theory, this paper explores the conscious and unconscious reasons why older women become sexually involved with teenage boys. After a presentation of aspects of young adult and midlife female development and a psychodynamic explanation for the developmental similarities between adolescence and menopause, each of the three films is summarized. The dynamics behind the women’s behavior, as presented in the films, are discussed. The third section of the paper discusses similarities and differences among the three women and the negative effects on the boys’ development.     

Defense,dreams and rationality

Are some mental activities rational but unconscious? Psychopathological symptoms, it is said, have a sense — they are seen as “compromise-formations” which express the “intentions” of agents even though the agents are totally unaware of “bringing about” such symptoms. Philosophers, who often claim that such a conception is simply contradictory or incoherent, have shed little light on the puzzles and apparent paradoxes that surround the issue. It is argued here that Freud's two models of explanation — the mechanistic and the intentionalistic — each fail to provide a basis for an explanatory account of the phenomenon of unconscious defense. An examination of the problem of dream “composition” helps explain why Freud's dependence upon “rational homunculi” is inappropriate and misleading. Finally, an alternative model which depends neither upon Freud's version of mechanism nor upon his lavish anthropormorphism is suggested. Ladies and Gentlemen, — It was discovered one day that the pathological symptoms of certain neurotic patients have a sense. On this discovery the psychoanalytic method of treatment was founded. It happened in the course of the treament that patients, instead of bringing forward their symptoms, brought forward dreams. A suspicion thus arose that the dreams too had a sense.     

A Critical Appraisal of Self-Report Defense Mechanism Measures

Defense mechanisms have been a source of both fascination and frustration for most personality researchers because they are conceptually intriguing but their assessment is often problematic. To aid personality researchers in integrating defense mechanism theory into personality research, we review and critique the major existing self-report defense mechanism measures: the Coping and Defending Scales (Joffe & Naditch, 1977); the Defense Mechanisms Inventory (Gleser & Ihilevich, 1969); the Life-Style Index (Plutchik, Kellerman, & Conte, 1979); and the Defense Style Questionnaire (Bond, Gardner, Christian, & Sigal, 1983). We conclude that no self-report measure adequately assesses the defining features of defense mechanisms. We offer a number of person and situation variables that must be considered when evaluating any defense mechanism measure, and we conclude that the comprehensive assessment of defense mechanism use will likely require measures obtained from multiple sources.     

‘Freud's speculations in ethnology’: A reflection on anthropology's encounter with psychoanalysis

In the early 20th century, many analysts – Freud and Ernest Jones in particular – were confident that cultural anthropologists would demonstrate the universal nature of the Oedipus complex and other unconscious phenomena. Collaboration between the two disciplines, however, was undermined by a series of controversies surrounding the relationship between psychology and culture. This paper re‐examines the three episodes that framed anthropology's early encounter with psychoanalysis, emphasizing the important works and their critical reception. Freud's Totem and Taboo began the interdisciplinary dialogue, but it was Bronislaw Malinowski's embrace of psychoanalysis – a development anticipated through a close reading of his personal diaries – that marked a turning point in relations between the two disciplines. Malinowski argued that an avuncular (rather than an Oedipal) complex existed in the Trobriand Islands. Ernest Jones’ critical dismissal of this theory alienated Malinowski from psychoanalysis and ended ethnographers’ serious exploration of Freudian thought. A subsequent ethnographic movement, ‘culture and personality,’ was erroneously seen by many anthropologists as a product of Freudian theory. When ‘culture and personality’ was abandoned, anthropologists believed that psychoanalysis had been discredited as well – a narrative that still informs the historiography of the discipline and its rejection of psychoanalytical theory.     

Bindungstheorie und Psychoanalyse

Bowlby’s attachment theory and more recent versions of it are examined from an epistemological viewpoint and subjected to questioning on whether they are in line with central psychoanalytic concepts. It is argued that Bowlby’s basic tenets regarding attachment theory, which later attachment theorists never seriously questioned, do not conform to scientific standards, and that psychoanalytic issues such as the dynamic unconscious, internal conflicts, the interaction between drive wishes and defence in establishing substitutive formations are either ignored or not treated in sufficient depth. In the light of this, the assertion that psychoanalytic criticism of attachment theory arose from mutual misunderstandings and is outdated nowadays stands the matter on its head: psychoanalytic criticism can only be regarded as outdated if either psychoanalysis, or attachment theory or both are misunderstood.     

A pragmatic defense of Millianism

A new kind of defense of the Millian theory of names is given, which explains intuitive counter-examples as depending on pragmatic effects of the relevant sentences, by direct application of Grice’s and Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory and uncontroversial assumptions. I begin by arguing that synonyms are always intersubstitutable, despite Mates’ considerations, and then apply the method to names. Then, a fairly large sample of cases concerning names are dealt with in related ways. It is argued that the method, as applied to the various cases, satisfies the criterion of success: that for every sentence in context, it is a counter-example to Millianism to the extent that it has pragmatic effects (matching speakers’ intuitions).     

Basic Assumptions Concerning Human Nature Underlying Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (Rebt) Personality Theory

In this article it is argued that all major theories of personality, including the currently developing REBT personality theory, rest upon certain basic philosophic assumptions concerning human nature made by the theorist. If REBT theory preferably is to develop into a more comprehensive theory of personality, then it would be helpful in that effort to identify the basic philosophic assumptions underlying it. For that purpose Ellis' basic assumptions in this regard are here identified, articulated, and documented. Theoretical and treatment implications are also explored. In the case of each philosophic assumption it is briefly indicated how Ellis' position on that assumption may translate into the theory and practice of REBT.     

Alpha synchronization as a brain model for unconscious defense: An overview of the work of Howard Shevrin and his team

Howard Shevrin and his team have developed a stringent subliminal priming methodology, which experimentally approximates a situation of an internal, mental triggering of unconscious defense. Through a series of four studies they thus are able to bring evidence for this type of unconscious defense. With event‐related potentials, three clinical studies show how synchronization of a specific brain wave, the alpha wave, known for its inhibitory function, is also induced by subliminally presented conflictual subject‐specific stimuli. Therefore, alpha synchronization could serve as the brain mechanism of unconscious defense. The results only make sense if we suppose the existence of a dynamic unconscious, which has inherited childhood conflicts, and with privileged connections to neurotic symptom characteristics. Moreover, by showing that the unconscious conflict phrases, inferred by clinicians from clinical interviews, have a similar brain behavior, Shevrin and his team provide evidence that these inferences are not simply clinician‐dependent subjective interpretations but also imply some form of independent mental reality. Finally, interpretation of the results has led us to propose two distinct physiological mechanisms for defense: one, unconscious defense, by alpha synchronization in connection with the drive derivatives, and another, repression, based on the indications of reality in connection with the ego.     

Evidence of the Psychometric Integrity of the Creative Personality Scale using Item Response Theory Models

Gough’s Creative Personality Scale (CPS) has been very widely used to assess creative personality characteristics, and many researchers have argued that it is associated with strong reliability and validity evidence. However, findings vary considerably across the samples used in each study, suggesting that an analysis using the item response theory framework would provide more useful evidence of the instrument’s psychometric integrity. Results suggest that the CPS is multidimensional, and some items have low discrimination indices. Additionally, significant correlations between participants’ trait estimates (i.e., estimated creative personality) and their engagement in a range of creative activities indicate that the CPS is associated with convincing evidence of criterion-related validity.     

The construct of the ‘mana personality’ in Jung’s works: a historic-hermeneutic perspective. Part I

According to Jung, the ‘mana personality’ represents an archetypal phase of the individuation process of remarkable interest in psychological, hermeneutic and theoretical terms. This figure is characterized by a high initiatic potential that fosters the approximation of the consciousness of the Self. At the same time, it entails a risk of psychic inflation or of ‘similarity to God’. In this article, divided in two parts, I deal with those aspects through a reconstruction of the development of this notion within Jung’s published works, adopting a primarily chronological and, secondarily, thematic approach moving from a textual analysis of relevant passages. In this first part, I consider some passages which deal mainly with the risks of the assimilation of the unconscious in ‘La structure de l’inconscient’ (1916) that preceded the successive proper treatment of the mana personality’s notion presented, and here examined, in ‘The relations between the ego and the unconscious’ (1928). Successively, I take into consideration some further issues related to it discussed by Jung in ‘The structure of the psyche’ (1928/1931), ‘Archaic man’ (1931), and ‘Nietzsche’s Zarathustra’.     

Emotional Communication and the Unconscious in the Analytic Setting

ABSTRACT

One type of unconscious communication is conceptualized as a form of emotional communication, the channel of communication that conveys information about a person’s emotional state through the nonsymbolic expression of feelings and is experienced as feeling in the receiver. Some of the analyst’s feelings are attuned responses to the patient’s unconscious communications; others are disjunctive and related only to the analyst’s unconscious. Attuned feelings can be identified by their congruence—similarities, consistencies, and analogies—with the patient’s verbal material, which reveals the meaning that the analyst’s feeling has within the patient’s subjectivity. Attuned feelings also have a meaning within the analyst’s subjectivity. Two cases are discussed, one in which the analyst experiences the patient’s unconscious communication within the symbolism of one of her own childhood memories. The other illustrates the risk of confusing disjunctive feelings emanating from the analyst’s own unconscious with unconscious communication from the patient.     

Constructing a theory of the triple typology: Some (second) thoughts on nomothetic and idiographic approaches to personality

Our fundamental scientific task is to convert observations of particular persons behaving in particular ways in particular situations into assertions that certain kinds of persons will behave in certain kinds of ways in certain kinds of situations, that is, to construct triple typologies or equivalence classes—of persons, of behaviors, and of situations—and to fashion theories of personality that relate these equivalence classes to one another. It is argued that the different approaches to the study of personality are distinguished from one another not by whether they are idiographic or nomothetic but by the strategies they employ for constructing—or ignoring—each of these three types of equivalence classes. The likely attributes of a successful interactional theory of personality—one that would embrace the entire triple typology—are proposed and discussed.     

?Omnipr?senz��

Excessive urge for free individual development even beyond moral law and social rules is discussed as part of the aftermath of severe political repression and traumatization. It is proposed to describe these phenomena which have not yet been sufficiently considered in the scientific literature as ??omnipresence??. In terms of psychoanalytic understanding these mechanisms result from specific unconscious defense activities. The relationship to other defense mechanisms, e.?g. of anal, phobic, paranoid and manic nature, is outlined, and illustrated by a short case vignette. The article ends with a differentiation between omnipresence as described above on the one hand and the phenomena of media-moderated expansion of individual development and acceleration typically and generally found in postmodern societies, on the other hand.