Psychotic Defenses

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....