Denial and Defense
in the Therapuetic Situation
PUBLISHER JASON ARONSON | ISBN: 1568213654

This volume presents an integrated and comprehensive theory of denial and defense. Dorpat examines the developmentally advanced defenses are built on top of lower-level defensive actions. Clinical case material, including an extended case study, enables the reader to understand the implications of denial and defense in development and their roles in psychotherapy.

“Dorpat proposes that denial, not primal repression or splitting, is the basic, primordial defense. He provides, in ten chapters, a comprehensive review of not only the psychoanalytic and psychiatric literature on denial, but also the work of cognitive psychologists relevant to his thesis...Dorpat’s attention to how we focus our attention toward and away from reality helps to illuminate the complex phenomenon of consciousness. His focus on difficulties in self-awareness is useful clinically. He emphasizes that closing one’s eyes to the inside. The basic psychic mechanism is not seeing...Everyone who reads this book will profit from it.”