Defense mechanisms: An approach from the perspective of personal construct psychology |
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Authors: | Ana Catina Inez Gitzinger Hanne Hoeckh |
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Affiliation: | 1. Center for Psychotherapy Research , Stuttgart, Germany;2. University of Konstanz , Konstanz, Germany |
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Abstract: | The psychoanalytic concept of defense mechanisms was theoretically and empirically approached from the perspective of personal construct psychology, in an attempt to investigate its cognitive components. Thirty neurotic clients of the Psychotherapeutic Center in Stuttgart, Federal Republic of Germany, were investigated by means of the Questionnaire for Defense Categories (Ehlers & Peter, 1989) and the Repertory Grid Test (Kelly, 1955). Tight construing, extremity of emotional evaluation, construal of the symptom as having positive implications, and construed similarity between certain aspects of the self were observed in clients who frequently used the defense mechanisms denial, rationalization, and turning against the object. |
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