ABSTRACT
As noted in the previous chapter, important and innovative changes are arising in the concept of defense. These modifications, in part, have been stimulated by the British school of object relations, beginning with the writings of Melanie Klein. While anchoring her views in several of Freud’s specific formulations, Klein nonetheless fundamentally reconceptualized defense by suggesting that such mechanisms not only regulate affects and drives, but are also related to the effects on intimacy and cognition of the experience, organization, and internalization of object relations. For Klein, defenses not only protect the ego from overwhelming sensations, but are also nondefensive organizing principles of infantile mental life.
