Mature and immature defenses. A study of repressors and trait anxiety groups

Summary, in English

To investigate defense mechanisms, repressors (n= 14), highly anxious (n = 37) and low anxious (n = 7) groups were tested with the Meta Contrast Technique (Smith, Johnson, Almgren & Johanson, 2001). The division into repressors and anxiety groups was made on a larger group (N = 140), which was also investigated with respect to experienced access to preconscious processes, here operationalized as memory for dreams.

Results: The repressors got higher scores on immature defense mechanisms than the highly or low anxious groups (p = .04 versus p < .05). The repressors as well as the highly anxious group were higher on a measure of overall defense than the low anxious group (p < .05 in both comparisons). Regarding the separate defense categories, a significant difference was found for repression, which was more frequent in the highly anxious than in the low anxious group (p = .003). Memory for dreams differed only in the men. The male repressors scored significantly lower on dream memory than the highly anxious men (p < .02).

The immature defensive structure in the repressors was discussed in terms of regressive reactions, speculatively due to a lack of symbolic functioning concerning anxiety-arousing areas, i.e. alexithymia.

• Author: Ingegerd Carlsson; Fredrik Neuman
• Editor: Gudmund Smith; Ingegerd Carlsson
• Department/s: Department of Psychology
• Publishing year: 2008
• Language: English
• Pages: 127-142
• Publication/Series: Process and Personality. Actualization of the personal world with process-oriented methods
• Full text: - 281 kB; Download statistics
• Document type: Book chapter
• Publisher: Ontos Verlag
• Topic: Psychology
• Status: Published
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISBN: 978-3-938793-89-3