This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

V. The Relation of Choice of Ego Mechanisms of Defense to Adult Adjustment

George E. Vaillant, MD

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1976;33(5):535-545.

Abstract
• Ninety-five men, selected in college on the basis of health, have been prospectively followed up for 30 years. Their adaptive styles have been isolated, labeled by the ego mechanisms of defense that their behavior reflects, and studied by semiquantitative techniques. A hierarchy of ego mechanisms was devised that ordered defenses along a continuum that reflected the following two dimensions: (1) immaturity-maturity and (2) psychopathology-mental health. The most important finding was that despite blind assessment, a scale reflecting the maturity of a subject's defenses correlated with scales measuring his objective psychopathology (r = —.35) and his objective adaptation to the external environment (r =.65). Highly significant shifts in defensive style occurred as individuals matured. In order to conceptualize the continuum that underlies mental health, identification of a person's dominant defensive styles may be superior to our current scheme of static unitary diagnoses.

Author Affiliations
From the Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, the Harvard University Health Services, and the Cambridge Hospital, Cambridge, Mass (a central facility of the Cambridge-Somerville Mental Health and Retardation Program).

Footnotes
Accepted for publication June 20, 1975.

Read before the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Psychological Association, Boston, April 27, 1973.

Reprint requests to Department of Psychiatry, Cambridge Hospital, 1493 Cambridge St, Cambridge, MA 02139 (Dr Vaillant).

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Changes in Defensive Functioning in Completed Psychoanalyses: the Penn Psychoanalytic Treatment Collection
Roy et al.
J Am Psychoanal Assoc 2009;57:399-415.
ABSTRACT  

Long-Term Changes in Defense Styles With Psychodynamic Psychotherapy for Depressive, Anxiety, and Personality Disorders
Bond and Perry
Focus 2005;3:429-437.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Long-Term Changes in Defense Styles With Psychodynamic Psychotherapy for Depressive, Anxiety, and Personality Disorders
Bond and Perry
Am. J. Psychiatry 2004;161:1665-1671.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Sending Your Teenagers Away: Controlled Stress Decreases Neurotic Vulnerability
Andrews et al.
Arch Gen Psychiatry 1993;50:585-589.
ABSTRACT  

An Empirical Study of Defense Mechanisms: I. Clinical Interview and Life Vignette Ratings
Perry and Cooper
Arch Gen Psychiatry 1989;46:444-452.
ABSTRACT  

The Determination of Defense Style by Questionnaire
Andrews et al.
Arch Gen Psychiatry 1989;46:455-460.
ABSTRACT  

A Preliminary Report on Defenses and Conflicts Associated with Borderline Personality Disorder
Perry and Cooper
J Am Psychoanal Assoc 1986;34:863-893.
ABSTRACT  

An Empirically Validated Hierarchy of Defense Mechanisms
Vaillant et al.
Arch Gen Psychiatry 1986;43:786-794.
ABSTRACT  

An Empirical Study of the Relationship Between Diagnosis and Defense Style
Bond and Vaillant
Arch Gen Psychiatry 1986;43:285-288.
ABSTRACT  

Maturity of Ego Defenses in Relation to DSM-III Axis II Personality Disorder
Vaillant and Drake
Arch Gen Psychiatry 1985;42:597-601.
ABSTRACT  

Empirical Study of Self-rated Defense Styles
Bond et al.
Arch Gen Psychiatry 1983;40:333-338.
ABSTRACT  

A behavioral economic approach to the defense mechanisms: Freud's energy theory revisited
Ainslie
Social Science Information 1982;21:735-779.
 

The Goals of Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
McGlashan and Miller
Arch Gen Psychiatry 1982;39:377-388.
ABSTRACT  

Stress, Strain, Coping, and Defense
Stagner
Research on Aging 1981;3:3-32.
ABSTRACT