Character and defense: relationships between oral, obsessive and hysterical character traits and defense mechanisms.

Abstract

The relationship between the Basic Character inventory (BCI) and Kragh's Defense Mechanism Test (DMT) was investigated. BCI is an inventory, measuring Oral, Obsessive and Hysterical character patterns, while DMT is a projective technique, measuring defense mechanisms by means of tachistoscopic exposures of pictures. Thirty‐three pregnant women participated in the study. The results showed that the Obsessive character pattern was significantly related to the defense mechanism of isolation, the Hysterical character pattern was significantly related to introjection of the opposite‐self role, and marginally to repression. The Oral character pattern was significantly related to sensitivity to oral stimulus themes in the DMT. The relevance of the findings for the psychoanalytic theory of phase specificity in charcter development is discussed.