Defense mechanisms, remembered parental caregiving, and adult attachment style.

Abstract

The empirical study of defense mechanisms has taken place in relative isolation, with few connections to other fields deriving from psychodynamic theories, including attachment. This study aimed to explore the associations of remembered childhood caregiving and defense mechanisms with adult attachment styles in a nonclinical sample. Furthermore, we investigated which defenses are associated with specific insecure attachment styles. Participants were 238 university students (mean age ϭ 28.11 years, SD ϭ 9.42; 24.4% male) who volunteered to complete a set of questionnaires including the Response Evaluation Measure-71, the Attachment Style Questionnaire, and the Measure of Parenting Style. The main contribution to adult attachment style is given by immature defenses, which are associated with all dimensions of insecure attachment, and inversely related to secure attachment. Mature defenses seemed to play a secondary role because they predicted only secure attachment significantly. Maternal and paternal rearing style showed no significant effect on attachment scores, with the only exception of paternal abuse on need for approval and maternal overprotection on preoccupation with relationships and relationships as secondary. Splitting and repression emerged as mechanisms that characterized the avoidant dimension of insecure attachment, whereas the anxious dimension of attachment showed associations with projection and fantasy. The results support the hypothesis that immature defenses are a correlate of insecure attachment in adults and that specific defense configurations are associated with the avoidant and anxious components of attachment.

Mentalization, attachment, and defense mechanisms: a Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual-2-oriented empirical investigation

“…These defensive mechanisms protect the individual from awareness of internal conflict and external stressors by attributing his or her own unacknowledged feelings, impulses, or thought to others (projection), by failing to integrate the positive and negative qualities of the self into cohesive image (splitting of self-image), and by expressing of intolerable feelings in impulsive behaviors without prior thought (acting out). These findings add empirical evidences to previously reported correlation between secure/insecure attachment and mature/primitive defense mechanisms (Besharat & Khajavi, 2013;Ciocca et al, 2020;Cramer & Kelly, 2010;Kobak & Bosmans, 2019;McMahon et al, 2005;Prunas et al, 2019).…”

“…Consistent with this study, Laczkovics and colleagues (2018) supported the mediating role of immature defenses on the association between insecure attachment and psychopathology, suggesting that attachment had a direct impact on defense mechanisms, which in turn conveys the effects of insecure attachment on psychopathology. A recent research pointed out that insecure attachment is related to primitive defenses of denial, splitting, and projection (Prunas, Di Pierro, Huemer, & Tagini, 2019). Another study highlighted that secure attachment and adaptive defenses have a crucial impact in providing individuals exposed as children to intimate partner violence (IPV) with ways to survive their traumatic environments (Bain & Durbach, 2018).…”

The impact of attachment styles and defense mechanisms on psychological distress in a non-clinical young adult sample: A path analysis

“…Laczkovics et al investigated, in a considerably large sample of adolescents, a path model in which immature defenses mediated the effect of insecure attachment on psychopathology, suggesting that attachment style directly affects defense mechanisms, which in turn conveys the effects of insecure attachment on psychopathology (Laczkovics, 2018). In a study on healthy adults, the relationship between parental bonding, adult attachment and defense mechanisms was explored, with adult attachment style as dependent variable (Prunas, 2019). In this work, immature defenses were correlated with all dimensions of insecure attachment and inversely correlated to secure attachment, while secure attachment was found to be associated with mature defenses.…”

Psychological Aspects Associated With Fertility Preservation in Oncology: An Exploratory Study

“…Second, the cross-sectional design of the study did not allow testing the stability of the results nor the determination of the causal relations among variables. Nevertheless, longitudinal data about TCI-R (Martinotti et al, 2008) and REM-71 (Prunas et al, 2019) support a good stability of the scores over time. Third, the lack of a control group prevents drawing conclusions concerning the features of patients who refuse to inquire about fertility preservation.…”

“…The overall Cronbach’s alpha values for the two factors are 0.84 for F1 and 0.69 for F2 ( Steiner et al, 2001 ). Test–retest reliability ranged from 0.93 for F1 to 0.95 for F2 ( Prunas et al, 2019 ). The Italian version of the questionnaire was used in this study ( Prunas et al, 2009 ).…”