ABSTRACT
The architecture and adaptive resources of the emotion-processing mind are such that there is an in-built communicative defensive alignment that supports the maintenance of undecoded derivatives and opposes their proper decoding. Communicative defences are universal by design, but under the added influence of psychodynamic factors. The selection of particular communicative defences is, however, an individual characteristic. Clinical experience has shown that the selected alignment of communicative defences adopted by a given patient is an attribute that is rather fixed and characteristic of the individual. Given the model of open communicative expression and of the steps from an origination narrative to deep insight, it is possible to create a dictionary of communicative defences. In addition to the psychological and communicative types, there is a third group of defences that are products of human thought and reflexive responsiveness, but, rather than being primarily mental, they entail action and behaviour.
