Guest Editors
Mariagrazia Di Giuseppe, Ph.D., Department of History, Humanities and Society, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy
Vera Békés, Ph.D., Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University, USA
John Christopher Perry, M.P.H. M.D., Department of Psychiatry, McGill University at the Institute of Community & Family Psychiatry, Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, QC, Canada

Introduction

Defense mechanisms are automatic psychological processes that protect individuals from anxiety related to internal conflicts and internal and external stressors. Defense mechanisms are relevant indicators of psychological functioning across the lifespan and play an important role in adaptation to distress and to external reality. The importance of defenses has been extensively studied, with a general agreement on the association between adaptive defensive functioning and well-being. Maladaptive or inadequate defenses are associated with increased psychiatric symptoms, personality disorders, impairment in occupational functioning, problematic relationships, passivity in psychotherapy, and poorer physical health outcomes.  Examining defense mechanisms in action within clinical settings has the potential to help identify patients’ defensive profiles and detect changes that underlie successful treatment outcomes. There are now well-established measures of defense mechanisms that reflect the empirically validated hierarchy of defensive functioning and adaptiveness: changes in defense mechanisms during psychotherapy provide information about patient responses to treatment and may be used as outcome indicators of patient adjustment.