Defence
defence (dÈfense) From his earliest works, Freud situated the concept of
defence at the heart of his theory of neurosis. Defence refers to the reaction of
the ego to certain interior stimuli which the ego perceives as dangerous.
Although Freud later came to argue that there were different 'mechanisms
of defence' in addition tO REPRESSION (see Freud, 1926d), he makes it clear that
repression is unique in the sense that it is constitutive of the unconscious. Anna
Freud attempted to classify some of these mechanisms in her book The Ego
and the Mechanisms of Defence (1936).
Lacan is very critical of the way in which Anna Freud and ego-psychology
interpret the concept of defence. He argues that they confuse the concept of
defence with the concept of RESISTANCE (Ec, 335). For this reason, Lacan urges
caution when discussing the concept of defence, and prefers not to centre his
concept of psychoanalytic treatment around it. When he does discuss defence,
he opposes it to resistance; whereas resistances are transitory imaginary
responses to intrusions of the symbolic and are on the side of the object,
defences are more permanent symbolic structures of subjectivity (which
Lacan usually callS FANTASY rather than defence). This way of distinguishing
between resistance and defence is quite different from that of other schools of
psychoanalysis, which, if they have distinguished between defence and resis-
tance at all, have generally tended to regard defences as transitory phenomena
and resistances as more stable.
The opposition between desire and defence is, for Lacan, a dialectical one.
Thus he argues in 1960 that, like the neurotic, the pervert 'defends himself in
his desire', since 'desire is a defence (dÈfense), a prohibition (dÈfense) against
going beyond a certain limit in jouissance' (E, 322). In 1964 he goes on to
argue: 'To desire involves a defensive phase that makes it identical with not
wanting to desire' (Sll, 235).