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Using the Defense Mechanism Manual (Cramer, 1991), Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) stories of 29 sexually abused female subjects and 28 non-abused female clinical control subjects were rated for the frequency of use of denial, projection, and identification.

Although the importance of Attachment in the normal development of a child has repeatedly been shown (Bowlby, 1961; 1979) there is a limited amount of research into its relationships with the usage of defense mechanisms and emotions. This research, therefore, investigated the relationships between attachment type, defense mechanisms and emotions during middle childhood (8-12 years) in 64 children from 4 children’s homes and 1 hospital in the Gauteng area. The children completed the Deferential Emotions Scale IV (DES-IV), the Attachment Story Completion Test (ASCT) and the Attachment Security Scale (ASS). The legal guardians of the children completed the Comprehensive Assessment of Defense Scale (CADS). Significant correlations were found to exist between the usage defense mechanisms and emotions. The results obtained from the analyses therefore suggest a complex interplay of relationships between attachment, defense mechanisms and emotion during middle childhood for the children in these institutions. For example, the research found that certain defense mechanisms and emotions were found to be correlated in a complex and interrelated system of interactions. Similarly, although no significant associations were found between attachment, defense mechanisms and emotions were found, the frequency distributions provided detailed information suggesting that attachment does influence the defenses used and emotion during middle childhood. These finding suggest that further research needs to be conducted in this area to further this knowledge base and to inform the caregivers and staff at institutions such as those included in the study.

This study attempted to provide validation for Lerner and Lerner's Rorschach Defense Scale by investigating the relationship between primitive defenses as measured by the Rorschach Defense Scale, level of object relations as measured by the Developmental Analysis of the Concept of the Object Scale, and characteristic defensive operations as assessed by the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. One hundred and twenty undergraduates completed the Rorschach and MMPI, and the RDS and DACOS were applied to their Rorschach responses. The results show a significant positive correlation between use of primitive defenses and level of object relations development -and a significant negative correlation between the defense Projective Identification and MMPI scale 6 (Paranoia) elevation. Overall, these results did not support the validity of the RDS.

O ser humano continua sendo a espécie diferenciada em meio a uma natureza tão vasta. Seu destaque lhe advém da sua capacidade de abstrair-se do dado imediato, de refletir sobre o mesmo e de lhe conferir significados. Esta sua posição, no entanto, não lhe coloca num lugar privilegiado de centralidade, ou ainda de primazia frente aos outros seres com os quais convive. Impõe-lhe, ao contrário, uma responsabilidade de cuidado sobre todo o cosmos. Por isso, ele está sempre buscando sentidos para o que lhe está em derredor. Entre os inúmeros caminhos trilhados pelo homem nesta busca de significação do mundo, tem sobressaído na contemporaneidade, como um elemento cada vez mais presente e atuante na vida das pessoas, a dimensão religiosa espiritual. Para além de todas as profecias de sua gradativa, mas inexorável, superação/eliminação da história humana e, também, contradizendo as muitas afirmativas feitas a seu respeito pelos vários processos de secularização, ela se encontra em nosso meio com nuances algumas vezes mais intensos e, em outros momentos, menos significativos. No entanto, sempre está presente. Nosso trabalho se apresenta como uma proposta de releitura psicanalítica deste fenômeno, a Religião, que ocupou na construção teórica de Sigmund Freud um lugar bastante significativo, revelando-se como uma realidade que lhe era verdadeiramente inquietante, o que se demonstra pelo número de suas aparições desde os seus primeiros construtos psicanalíticos até às vésperas de sua morte. Ainda que, declarando-se um ateu convicto, S. Freud sempre buscou uma compreensão mais acurada do fenômeno religioso e suas implicações na vida dos sujeitos humanos. Será possível à Religião constituir-se ao ser humano contemporâneo como um caminho sublimatório, em meio a tantos outros, que lhe auxilie na construção de sua subjetividade? O presente estudo foi realizado através de uma pesquisa de cunho bibliográfico dos principais textos de Sigmund Freud referentes à sublimação e ao fenômeno religioso, bem como de estudos realizados por importantes psicanalistas atuais e alguns sociólogos da religião. Nossa pesquisa pretendeu alcançar uma maior compreensão do conceito de sublimação na metapsicologia freudiana tendo em vista sua aplicação na releitura da experiência religiosa nos escritos de Sigmund Freud, superando, desta forma impasses entre as áreas da Psicanálise e da Religião e construindo, ao mesmo tempo, espaços de diálogo e mútuo enriquecimento entre os referidos campos de conhecimento do sujeito humano. / The human being remains as the differentiated species among such a vast nature. Its distinction comes from its ability to abstract itself from the immediate data, to reflect about it and give it meanings. This position, however, does not place him in a privileged place of centrality, or even of primacy over other beings with whom he coexists. It imposes, on the contrary, a responsibility of care over the whole cosmos. Therefore, he is always searching for meanings to what is around him. Among the countless paths that men have gone through during this search for meaning of the world, nowadays there is an element that is getting more and more present and active on the daily lives of people: the religious spiritual dimension. In addition to all the prophecies of its gradual but inexorable overcoming/elimination from human history, and also contradicting the many affirmations made about it by the various processes of secularization, it finds itself in our midst with nuances sometimes more intense and, at other times, less significant. However, it is always present. Our work is presented as a proposal of psychoanalytic re-reading, based on the concept of sublimation, of the religious phenomenon, which occupied very significant place in the theoretical construction of Sigmund S. Freud, revealing itself as a reality that was truly disturbing to him, which is demonstrated by the number of appearances since his first psychoanalytic constructs until the eve of his death. Even declaring himself a "convicted atheist," Freud has always sought a more accurate understanding of the religious phenomenon and its implications in the lives of human subjects. Is it possible for Religion to constitute the contemporary human being as a sublimatory way, among so many others, to assist it in the construction of its subjectivity? The present study was carried out through a bibliographical research of Sigmund Freud's main texts referring to sublimation and religious phenomena, as well as studies carried out by important current psychoanalysts and some sociologists of religion. Our research aimed to reach a greater understanding of the concept of sublimation in Freudian metapsychology in view of its application in re-reading religious experience in Sigmund Freud's writings, thus overcoming impasses between the areas of Psychoanalysis and Religion and, at the same time, Spaces of dialogue and mutual enrichment between the mentioned fields of knowledge of the human subject.