101 Defenses

In this book, Blackman catalogs 101defenses with descriptions practical for use in everyday assessment and treatment of patients. Defenses are mental operations that restore or maintain psychic equilibrium when people feel that they cannot manage emotions that stem form conflict; they remove componenets of unpleasant emotions from conscious awareness. In this book, an overview of defenses covering detection and interpretation preceded each entry, all of which are organized in developmental sequence. An original source reference is included with each definition. Short commentaries that follow each entry discuss general concepts about defenses, how they are used in diagnosis of psychopathology, dynamic techniques for the therapist, differential diagnosis and treatment choice, supportive therapy techniques, and defenses in the assessment of suicide risk. Jerome S. Blackman, MD, PC, is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at Eastern Virginia Medical School and a training civilian supervisor and consultant to the faculty at the Naval

"The book is fun. Friendly, capacious, tongue-in-cheek, a bit condescending, it’s the sort of volume one might keep next to the bed to dip into now and again, not only amusing to pick up and easy to put down, like mail-order catalogues, but also richly diverse, like the lists and catalogues of Whitman, the Ten Commandments or the Seven Deadly Sins. I would recommend it to students—residents in psychiatry, psychology, graduate students, perhaps even beginning psychoanalytic trainees—and, in the same spirit as Blackman, to anyone who likes a lively read and is drawn to the special relaxations and intermittent rewards of a rich catalogue." ---Ellen Pinsky, Psy.D., Cambridge, MA

Jerome S. Blackman, M.D., is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at Eastern Virginia Medical School and a training civilian supervisor and consultant to the faculty at the Naval Medical Center Department of Psychiatry in Portsmouth, Virginia.