ABSTRACT
The psychopathological basis of most defense mechanisms lies in the imperious need for anxiety reduction. Defense efforts are elicited even before anxiety appears, that is, as self-esteem first begins to be threatened; and when the threat becomes intense enough to evoke the affect of anxiety, the original need for defense becomes even more imperative. As a means of bringing together some of the scattered material in this chapter relating to defenses against anxiety, a brief cataloguing of the various types of defenses will be attempted below.
