Defensive technique

Defensive technique is a concept developed by the Scottish psychoanalyst Ronald Fairbain to explain the process of personality development inobject relations terms. Following the splitting of the object, (the mother or breast) he considered a matrix of possibilities where the good and bad objects are internally or externally located.

These positions then lead to particular problems in normal development or to particular patterns of mental disorder when the process is disturbed.

This lead him to identify four basic defensive techniques:


 * Hysterical technique
 * Obsessional technique
 * Paranoid technique
 * Phobic technique