Innate Defences

Abstract

This monograph deals with the origin and functioning of the most primitive levels of defence against anxiety. The phenomena which Freud treated as instinctive (and therefore not open to modification) are traced back to their source in the primal field. There is a clear description of the various mechanisms commonly employed to manage psychotic anxiety and the thesis is developed that such ‘normal’ behaviour is not instinctive but learned and therefore open to analysis and modification.