ABSTRACT
Sigmund Freud openly stated that the ego resided in the cortex so the defence mechanisms consolidated the idea that the cortex and the ego were autonomous. When entirely non-conscious devices are employed to defer realities, human beings are in the realm of denial, a powerful and interesting defence which they will look at shortly. Freud’s daughter Anna, in her book on defences, saw sublimation as pertaining to the normal rather than to neurosis. One of the most fascinating defences of all is really a combination of two different processes, that of projection and introjections, it is called Identification with the aggressor. Some authors divide the mechanisms of defence into early and immature defences and later, more mature ones. Although a great deal more research is needed to understand the methods of defence that the brain employs, it does seem developmentally, that mental defences impose a useful buffer before physical defences are employed.
