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[[Psychotic ]] defenses are [[psychic ]] [[processes ]] involving [[unconscious]], or more-or-less [[conscious]], attempts to deal with [[reality]]. They take the [[form ]] of [[disavowal ]] or [[withdrawal ]] as the [[subject ]] tries to avoid or circumscribe conflicts encountered in his [[relationship ]] with the [[external ]] [[world]].In "The Neuro-[[Psychoses ]] of Defense" (1894a), [[Freud ]] wrote: "There is, however, a much more energetic and successful kind of defense. Here, the ego rejects the incompatible [[idea ]] together with its [[affect ]] and behaves as if the idea never occurred to the ego at all.But from the [[moment]] at which this has been successfully done the subject is in [[psychosis]]" (p. 58)—to which he added in 1896 that "<i>[[projection]]</i>," as a "defensive [[symptom]]," [[signified]] "<i>distrust of [[other]] [[people]]</i>" (p. 184).The chief psychotic defenses in Freud's view were <i>[[foreclosure]]</i> (<i>[[Verwerfung]]</i>, reformulated by [[Lacan]] in 1956), <i>projection,</i> and <i>delirium.</i> All of these were in evidence in Freud's [[analysis]] of the [[case]] of President [[Schreber]] (1912a).The <i>disavowal</i> (of reality) as a defense (1927e) was described in the context of the [[castration]] [[complex]], particularly in the case of [[fetishism]].