EGO MECHANISMS OF DEFENSE AND PERSONALITY PSYCHOPATHOLOGY

It is often not just life stress but also a person's idiosyncratic res ponse to life stress that leads to psychopathology. Thus, despite prob lems in reliability, the validity of defenses makes them a valuable di agnostic axis for understanding psychopathology. By including a patien t's defensive style as part of the diagnostic formulation, the clinici an is better able to comprehend what seems initially most unreasonable about the patient and to appreciate what is adaptive as well as malad aptive about the patient's defensive distortions of inner and outer re ality. Clinical appreciation of the immature defenses (e.g., hypochond riasis. fantasy, dissociation, acting out, projection, and passive agg ression) is particularly useful in classifying and caring for individu als with personality disorders.