ABSTRACT
Resistance and defences can be understood as the person’s psychological immune system: they prevent the person from feeling the pain of a threat or from developing unpleasant insight, and at the same time provide clues to the origins of their questions and problems. Defences develop as healthy and creative adaptations that serve the purpose of protecting the self against powerful negative feelings such as anxiety, grief and other disorganising emotions, or maintaining self-esteem. When dealing with the boundary of the self and the outer-world, defences are referred to as primitive or immature, whereas the higher order defences deal with internal boundaries between the various intrapsychic instances such as Ego, Id and Superego. The objective of dealing with a client’s defences is to unblock the person from an unhelpful or even destructive reaction pattern and allow them the freedom to choose a suitable response instead of falling into an automated reaction-trap.
