Defense Mechanisms in Case of Repeat Offenders

Abstract

Recurrent crime in Russia over the years remains stable and is at least 50 %. With rare exceptions, rehabilitation programs do not have a significant impact on recidivism. After being released the professional criminals return to the previous criminal activity and everything goes in a vicious circle. It is assumed that the system of excessive or deficient functioning of defense psychological mechanisms, to a certain extent, interferes with corrective action and affects the psychological development of this type of offenders. Based on the concept of psychological defense mechanisms developed by Anna Freud, we understand the psychological defense mechanisms aimed at achieving the consistency of the inner world and the realistic adaptation of the subject to the surrounding world in order to avoid affect in a particular situation. The study involved males repeatedly convicted under various articles of the Criminal Code, i.e. convicted offenders who are in various correctional institutions of the penitentiary system of Russia. Sample size - 381 males (aged 25 to 55 years). The diagnostic questionnaire used was the Life Style Index (LSI) test, created by R. Plutchik and intended to measure the basic mechanisms of psychological defenses associated with the eight basic emotions in accordance with in the psycho-evolutionary theory of emotions. According to the theory, the defense mechanisms are understood as derivatives of the basic emotions, for the containment of which the defense mechanisms develop in the process of ontogenesis. The study identified the most primitive and the least recognized projective defense mechanism. A strategy of correction of this fixed defense based on the ideas of gestalt therapy is discussed in the article.