ABSTRACT
Bernstein invokes the notion of ‘psychic defences’ in relation to the principle of classification, that which constitutes distinctions between discourses or categories of knowledge. He suggests that the basis of differentiation is always related to power, acting to naturalise arbitrary power relations. In its function of disguise, the principle of classification relates not only to external social relations but also to ‘relations within individuals’ that Bernstein describes as ‘a system of psychic defences’:
externally, the classificatory principle creates order, and the contradictions, cleavages and dilemmas which necessarily inhere in the principle of a classification are suppressed by the insulation. Within the individual, the insulation becomes a system of psychic defences against the possibility of the weakening of the insulation, which would then reveal the suppressed contradictions, cleavages and dilemmas. So the internal reality of insulation is a system of psychic defences to maintain the integrity of a category.
