THE DEFENSE STYLE QUESTIONNAIRE

The Defense Style Questionnaire has proven of interest as the first qu estionnaire to reliably describe defense styles. The 72-item DSM-III-R -labeled Defense Style Questionnaire was administered to 388 controls and 324 patients. Eight statistical and two a priori criteria were use d in choosing two items to represent each of the 20 defenses. A new 40 -item Defense Style Questionnaire is published together with normative and reliability data on a normal population, patients with anxiety di sorders, and child-abusing parents. The scores are unaffected by the s ex of the respondent, but the endorsement of immature defense styles d ecreases with age.