Defence

defence (dÈfense) From his earliest works, Freud situated the concept of

defence at the heart of his theory of neurosis. Defence refers to the reaction of

the ego to certain interior stimuli which the ego perceives as dangerous.

Although Freud later came to argue that there were different 'mechanisms

of defence' in addition tO REPRESSION (see Freud, 1926d), he makes it clear that

repression is unique in the sense that it is constitutive of the unconscious. Anna

Freud attempted to classify some of these mechanisms in her book The Ego

and the Mechanisms of Defence (1936).

     Lacan is very critical of the way in which Anna Freud and ego-psychology

interpret the concept of defence. He argues that they confuse the concept of

defence with the concept of RESISTANCE (Ec, 335). For this reason, Lacan urges

caution when discussing the concept of defence, and prefers not to centre his

concept of psychoanalytic treatment around it. When he does discuss defence,

he opposes it to resistance; whereas resistances are transitory imaginary

responses to intrusions of the symbolic and are on the side of the object,

defences are more permanent symbolic structures of subjectivity (which

Lacan usually callS FANTASY rather than defence). This way of distinguishing

between resistance and defence is quite different from that of other schools of

psychoanalysis, which, if they have distinguished between defence and resis-

  tance at all, have generally tended to regard defences as transitory phenomena

  and resistances as more stable.

     The opposition between desire and defence is, for Lacan, a dialectical one.

Thus he argues in 1960 that, like the neurotic, the pervert 'defends himself in

his desire', since 'desire is a defence (dÈfense), a prohibition (dÈfense) against

going beyond a certain limit in jouissance' (E, 322). In 1964 he goes on to

argue: 'To desire involves a defensive phase that makes it identical with not

wanting to desire' (Sll, 235).