Defenses
From Psychotherapedia
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Defenses are mental operations that serve to protect oneself. The elaboration of defenses was undertaken by Sigmund Freud and continued by many other pioneers. Many defenses have been operationalized and empirically founded. An understanding of defensive operation is an essential body of knowledge for psychotherapists as they help orient the clinical work and are useful to understand when making assessments. There are various categories of defenses:
- Psychotic Defenses
- Immature Defenses
- Neurotic Defenses
- Mature Defenses
