Defense Styles in Eating Disorders

Abstract

Defense and coping are important for the perception of reality and for dealing with internal conflicts and with everyday problems. How do we react to unwanted events, to unacceptable wishes, to threatening situations and feelings, and how can we deal with problems without an explicit system of coping and defense mechanisms? Defensive operations are—first of all —protective processes that exert control over the interaction between the internal and external world. Social and cultural effects are always intertwined with incompatible ideas. Whether we consider defense mechanisms to be functions of the mind (like memory or consciousness) or adopt a dynamic energy concept of defense or conceive of it as part of the ego organization, socialization constitutes one of the most import determinants for the development of defense mechanisms and defense organization. Specifically, defenses have been accorded a central role in the currently prominent and intrinsically important category of eating disorders.