ABSTRACT
In analytical psychology, the study and analysis of defenses is relatively undeveloped, in part because Jung himself rarely wrote about defenses. In many Jungian training programs, specific emphasis on understanding the function of defense mechanisms in the overall psychic system is often lacking and little guidance is offered in how to engage defenses effectively in the service of the patient's analysis. The lack of emphasis on defenses in analytical psychology is somewhat paradoxical because Jung’s model of the psyche is fundamentally built around the process of dissociation. In general, Jung’s conceptualization of psychopathology is primarily rooted in his ideas of the movement of psychic energy and an underlying interplay of opposites in psychological experience. For Jung, psychopathology or maladaptation arises from rigidity or one-sidedness in the conscious attitude of the individual, “One could say that the function of the unconscious in mental disturbances is essentially a compensation of the conscious content”.
