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Protecting the Self: Defense Mechanisms in Action

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Protecting The Self: Defense Mechanisms In Action by Phebe Cramer (clinical psychologist and Professor of Psychology at Williams College) is an in-depth reference and resource about the mental defense mechanisms that ordinary people use upon themselves every day of their lives to deal with unpleasantness, criticism of the self, stress, and other psychologically jarring effects. When taken to extremes defense mechanisms can play a key role in violent or even sadistic behavior, yet they are a routine and daily occurrence among nearly all people everywhere. Chapters particularly focus upon the defense mechanisms of denial, projection, and identification; other topics include how the mechanisms are used between genders, how they are used in childhood versus adulthood, and how to recognize and deal with them in psychotherapy. An authoritative resource especially recommended for medical school libraries, social workers, clinical and personality psychologists, psychiatrists, and other practitioners or students in the field.