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The term "defense" refers to all the techniques deployed by the ego in conflicts that have the potential to lead to [[neurosis]]. In the [[sense ]] in which [[Freud ]] first used the term, defenses are [[unconscious ]] because they stem from a [[conflict ]] between the [[drive ]] and the ego or between a [[perception ]] or [[representation ]] ([[memory]], [[fantasy]], etc.) and [[moral ]] imperatives. The function of the defenses is thus to support and maintain a [[state ]] of [[psychic ]] [[stability ]] by avoiding [[anxiety ]] and [[unpleasure]]. The [[concept ]] of defense was broadened somewhat when Freud attributed an important [[role ]] to the [[reality ]] [[principle ]] and to the [[superego]]. Melanie [[Klein ]] then formed the more radical view that the defenses [[exist ]] within an archaic ego.

In his [[letter ]] to Wilhelm [[Fliess ]] dated May 21, 1894, and concerning his [[interpretation ]] of the [[neuroses]], Freud introduced the concept of defense in connection with the [[notion ]] of psychic conflict: "What is warded off is always [[sexuality]]" (1985c [1887-1904], p. 75). In reference to the emergence of anxiety, he argued that [[sexual ]] tension turned into anxiety when it was not psychically elaborated and thereby transformed into [[affect]]. Freud attributed this phenomenon to, among [[other ]] things, a [[repression ]] of psychic sexuality, that is, to a defense. In his letter to Fliess dated May 30, 1896, he linked repression with defense by emphasizing, "[[Surplus ]] of sexuality alone is not enough to [[cause ]] repression; the cooperation of defense is necessary" (p. 188).

In "Further Remarks on the Neuro-[[psychoses ]] of [[Defence]]" (1896b), Freud deepened his [[analysis ]] of defense as arising from the conflict between the drive and the ego, the [[conscious ]] [[agent ]] of repression. Freud considered the defense as the "nuclear point" (p. 162) in the psychic mechanism of the neuroses. With [[regard ]] to how [[symptoms ]] arise, he detailed more clearly how the unconscious psychic mechanism of defense resulted from the conflict of a representation with moral imperatives.

In "Repression" (1915d), Freud emphasized that the mechanism of defense "cannot arise until a sharp cleavage has occurred between conscious and unconscious [[mental ]] activity—that the [[essence ]] of repression lies simply in turning something away, and keeping it at a distance, from the conscious" (p. 147).

Much later (1926d), Freud observed that after he had abandoned the term "defensive [[process]]" for thirty years and replaced it with the term "repression" (without clearly explaining the possible connection between these two [[concepts]]) (p. 163), there were "[[good ]] enough grounds for re-introducing the old concept of defence" (p. 164). In fact, Freud had never entirely abandoned the term, since he discussed the [[denial ]] of [[castration ]] (albeit initially without using the term "denial" [[[Verleugnung]]]) in relation to [[children]]'s theories of sexuality (1908c) and little [[Hans ]] (1909b). Freud discussed denial more explicitly with regard to [[fetishism ]] (1927e), a concept that plays a pivotal role in his [[work]], and in his paper on [[negation ]] (1925h), which he defined as representing "a kind of [[intellectual ]] acceptance of the [[repressed]], while at the same [[time ]] what is essential to the repression persists" (p. 236). Thus, "the [[content ]] of a repressed [[image ]] or [[idea ]] can make its way into [[consciousness]], on condition that it is negated" (p. 235). Freud also discussed [[sublimation]], a concept that was already [[present ]] in "[[Leonardo ]] [[da Vinci ]] and a memory of his [[childhood]]" (1910c) and that reappeared in The Ego and [[the Id ]] (1923b) in connection with the ego [[energy]], which Freud stipulated as involving "a desexualisation—a kind of sublimation" (p. 30).

These distinctions, which predate Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety (1926d), were later probably instrumental in Freud's ascribing a more important function to this "old concept of defence" and restricting the role of repression, to the extent that he suggested making defense "a general designation for all the techniques which the ego makes use of in conflicts which may lead to a neurosis, while we retain the [[word ]] 'repression' for the special method of defence which the line of approach taken by our investigations made us better acquainted with in the first [[instance]]" (p. 163).

In furthering her [[father]]'s work, [[Anna Freud ]] sought to develop a [[theory ]] that would demonstrate how the [[three ]] [[agencies ]] of the [[structural ]] theory functioned. In [[particular]], she described how the ego becomes "suspicious" in the face of the onslaught of the [[drives ]] and "proceeds to counter-attack and to invade the territory of the id. Its [[purpose ]] is to put the [[instincts ]] permanently out of [[action ]] by means of appropriate defensive measures, designed to secure its own boundaries" (1936, p. 8). Thus, Anna Freud's account of psychic functioning attributes some force to the adaptive functions of the ego.

Her works were often quoted by the ego-[[psychology ]] movement that formed in the 1950s in the [[United States]]. Within the [[ego-psychology ]] movement, Heinz [[Hartmann ]] developed his theory of the ego in connection with the problem of [[adaptation]], which he described in [[terms ]] of the [[development ]] of a "conflict-free ego sphere" (1958, p. 3 ) or [[autonomous ]] ego. In this movement, psychic functioning in general is considered in terms of defense and its quest for equilibrium.

Along similar lines, René Spitz, who located the first defense in the emergence of the second organizer (the so-called eight-month or stranger anxiety), explained that these defenses initially "serve primarily adaptation rather than defense in the strict sense of the term" (p. 164). It is when the [[object ]] is established and ideation starts that their function changes. With the fusion of the [[aggressive ]] and [[libidinal ]] drives, some [[defense mechanisms]], in particular [[identification]], "acquire the function that they will serve in the [[adult]]" (p. 164).

When Anna Freud was publishing her first [[psychoanalytic ]] works, [[Melanie Klein]], while breaking with [[Freudian ]] orthodoxy by asserting that the agencies of the [[psyche ]] begin functioning much earlier, introduced a perspective that restored to anxiety and psychic conflict a fundamental role in psychic functioning. Drawing on Freud's second theory of the drives, she attributed a central role to the [[death ]] drive and the conflicts between [[love ]] and [[hatred]]. She thus developed her [[ideas ]] on early [[Defense Mechanisms|defense mechanisms ]] that were already present, in her view, in the earliest months of [[life ]] during the [[paranoid]]-schizoid [[position]].

The concept of defense, as it has developed and been used since Freud, has become somewhat common in both [[clinical ]] psychology and [[psychoanalysis]]. There it refers either to a relatively conscious [[behavior ]] that rejects [[Psychic Reality|psychic reality ]] (a definition that makes the concept more akin to the concept of [[resistance]]) or to a psychic impulse that seeks to avoid anxiety and unpleasure in the quest to [[adapt ]] and achieve a state of equilibrium. As a result, the function of defense as a mechanism necessary for psychic growth is often overlooked.

See also: [[Actual neurosis/defense neurosis]]; Autistic defenses; Conflict; Defense mechanisms; Ego; Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense, The; Manic defenses; [[Narcissistic ]] defenses; Negation; [[Neurotic ]] defenses; Paranoid-schizoid position; [[Psychoneurosis ]] (or neuro-[[psychosis]]) of defense; [[Psychotic ]] defenses; Repression; "[[Splitting ]] of the Ego in the Process of Defence, The."[[Bibliography]]