P. Sammallahti et al., PSYCHOLOGICAL DEFENSES AND PSYCHIATRIC-SYMPTOMS IN ADULTS WITH PEDIATRIC SPINAL-CORD INJURIES, Spinal cord, 34(11), 1996, pp. 669-672
The psychological defenses and psychiatric morbidity of 30 adults with
pediatric spinal cord injury and of 235 community controls were compa
red several years after the occurence of the injury. The patient group
did not report more symptoms when measured with the Symptom Checklist
-90 than the control group, but there were some characteristic feature
s in their use of defenses as measured with the Defense Style Question
naire. The adaptation process seems to follow a pattern: the greater t
he length of time since the injury, the less likely were the immature
defenses omnipotence-devaluation and regression and the higher were th
e scores on the mature defense anticipation. It appears that the same
result-symptom free adaptation-is first achieved by more immature mean
s but as the adaptation process evolves, the psychological equilibrium
can be maintained by mature defenses which do not distort reality. Fu
rthermore, the results that patients with pediatric spinal cord injury
scored higher on fantasy (daydreaming) and passive aggression (silent
resistance) suggest that being injured very young may leave some fain
t, yet permanent psychodynamic traces.