Journal

Defense mechanisms used by sexually abused children

Children Today, Jan-Feb, 1985 by Christine Adams-Tucker

Studies of groups of sexually molested children have described the immediate and long-term effects of their abuse--symptoms, diagnosis and problem areas projected into their future adult lives. Findings from groups convey valuable descriptive data on molested children, particularly on how much and for how long they suffer psychological harm from sexual abuse during childhood. Individual case reports of sexually victimized children deepen our perspective by constructing an unfolding scenario of the coping strategies employed by each child. In such reports, inferences are made about psychic defenses that aid or obstruct children in grappling with their abuse. Defenses are ordinarily studied as part of a larger motivational or psychodynamic exploration, but taken by themselves, defenses make a good beginning toward the dynamic assessment of a child.

This article discusses the psychic defense strategies used by a group of 27 children, ranging in age from 2-1/2 to 15-1/2, who were sexually molested. By looking at them both individually and as a group, we may be helped to understand not only what sexually abused children usffer but also how they internally defend against their unhappiness.

Reaction

Defense Mechanism, in psychoanalysis, any of a variety of unconscious personality reactions which the ego uses to protect the conscious mind from threatening feelings and perceptions. Sigmund Freud first used defense as a psychoanalytic term (1894), but he did not break the notion into categories, viewing it as a singular phenomenon of repression. His daughter, Anna Freud, expanded on his theories in the 1930s, distinguishing some of the major defense mechanisms recognized today. Primary defense mechanisms include repression and denial, which serve to prevent unacceptable ideas or impulses from entering the conscience. Secondary defense mechanisms--generally appearing as an outgrowth of the primary defense mechanisms--include projection, reaction formation, displacement, sublimation, and isolation.

Denial Is Just Another Defense Mechanism

Defenses operate to protect us from uncomfortable or unacceptable self-awareness."

Almost everyone nowadays knows what it means to say an alcoholic is "in denial." This is the alcoholic who tells himself and the world "I can quit any time I want to." He doesn't quit, though, and doesn't recognize the impact of his drinking on himself or on those who care about him. Denial operates in other circumstances as well; after the death of a loved one, we often find ourselves thinking temporarily as if that person is still a part of our lives. Denial is a complex process whereby we admit conscious knowledge of events but somehow fail to feel their emotional impact or see their logical consequences.

It might surprise some AA members, who have conquered their own denial but usually have not been helped by traditional psychotherapy, to realize that the concept of denial comes from Freud himself. Whatever we may think of Freudian psychoanalysis in the light of current understanding of mind-body functioning, denial and the other defense mechanisms are concepts articulated by the Freudian school that have proven to be so useful and intuitive that they are unlikely ever to be discarded.

To review other defense mechanisms: all of us know a rationalization when we see one, especially when the other guy does it. Intellectualization is denial that's been to college--"I understand why I drink but I choose to continue." Everyone who has ever kicked the dog or yelled at the kids when he's really angry at the boss is guilty of displacement. Introjection and incorporation are ways we have of minimizing the impact of death or separation, and most of us have had the experience of suddenly realizing we are acting "just like" the person we cared about who is gone. Reaction formation and undoing are ways of doing the opposite of the wished-for behavior, which sometimes appear superstitious. Most of us know someone who hates our guts, but always acts like our best friend. That is reaction formation. Projection is a powerful and often destructive tool whereby we take unacceptable parts of ourselves and attribute them to others. Projection is often the fuel for divorce: "It's not my fault, it's your fault, that I'm unhappy, unsuccessful... ( you fill in the blank)." Splitting is a complex defense mechanism in which others are seen as either all good (and thus caring, rescuing sources of strength) or all bad (and thus to blame for all one's own misery). To be in a close relationship with a splitter is extremely confusing (but rarely dull), because the roles frequently reverse, often several times a day, so one is never quite sure where one stands. Splitters can wreak havoc in groups because they tend to get others to play out their assigned roles; no one is permitted to be merely human, a combination of good and bad.

These defenses are all sensible observations of human behavior patterns; where Freudian theory gets in trouble nowadays, however, is when one asks what is being defended against. Freud developed a psychology based on instinctual drives as the foundation for all human behavior. This does not feel acceptable to current theorists; it leaves out too much of human behavior that seems motivated by desires for self-fulfillment, intimacy, or mastery over the environment. Because the defenses were explained in terms of drives, there is a temptation to minimize their importance or abandon the concepts altogether.

But this would clearly be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The concept of defense explains a great deal of what we see every day in character and personality, in interpersonal relations, in why people get into self-defeating behavior patterns that lead to the therapist's office. For instance, some people's whole lives seem determined by denial, others by projection, others by reaction formation. Let us say that the defenses operate to protect us from uncomfortable or unacceptable self-awareness, and leave it at that until a new comprehensive theory of human behavior is developed.

Reaction

Denial is a defense mechanism in which a person is faced with a fact that is too painful to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence. The subject may deny the reality of the unpleasant fact altogether (simple denial), admit