ArticleFrontiers in psychology2021
The Hierarchy of Defense Mechanisms: Assessing Defensive Functioning With the Defense Mechanisms Rating Scales Q-Sort.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers.
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Who cites it
36 citing papers in PubMed, 105 citations in OpenAlex.
- Predicting Change in Brief Treatment for BPD: The Role of Defensive Functioning and Pervasiveness in Relationship Patterns.Journal of clinical psychology · 2026Trial
- How adults with cerebral palsy successfully confront and cope with ableism: a peer-led research project.International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being · 2026Article
- A perspective on shifting trends in paediatric behaviour management.European archives of paediatric dentistry : official journal of the European Academy of Paediatric Dentistry · 2026Review
- [The role of defense mechanisms in conflict and structure in the operationalized psychodynamic diagnosis].Psychotherapie, Psychosomatik, medizinische Psychologie · 2026Article
- The effort of maintaining the defensive wall: is there a link between defense mechanisms and vitality?BMC psychiatry · 2026Observational
- Article
- Personal and relational experiences on meditation journeys following developmental trauma: An IPA study of adults who experienced an inconsistent evolved developmental niche.Psychology and psychotherapy · 2026Article
- When a family physician grieves: Facing loss as a daughter who is a doctor.Malaysian family physician : the official journal of the Academy of Family Physicians of Malaysia · 2026Article
- The relationship between overall defensive functioning and the Personality Assessment Inventory borderline and treatment outcome scales.Research in psychotherapy (Milano) · 2025Article
- The relationship between defense mechanisms and attachment: a narrative review.Research in psychotherapy (Milano) · 2025Article
- Professional burnout in therapists working with LGBTQ+ patients: associations with defenses and reflective functioning.Research in psychotherapy (Milano) · 2025Article
- Applying the Defense Mechanisms Rating Scales Q-sort to assess patients' level of overall defensive functioning in interview data: validity and reliability.Research in psychotherapy (Milano) · 2025Article
- Clinical applications of the Defense Mechanisms Rating Scale-Self-Report-30: a systematic review of the first five years.Research in psychotherapy (Milano) · 2025Article
- Defense mechanisms and social mentalities in grandiose narcissism: an empirical investigation.Research in psychotherapy (Milano) · 2025Article
- Revisiting defense mechanisms in contemporary clinical practice: evidence and perspectives.Research in psychotherapy (Milano) · 2025Article
- Towards a better definition of nociplastic pain conditions: a psychological grounded study on fibromyalgia, chronic headache and vulvodynia.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2025Article
- Attachment Classification, Emotion Regulation, and Defense Mechanisms: An Integrative Narrative Review.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Role of Early Trauma on Defense Mechanisms and Coping Strategies in Personality Disorders.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2025Article
- Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms, Defense Mechanisms, and Mentalized Affectivity in Individuals with Myocardial Infarction: An Empirical Investigation.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Defense mechanisms and inflammatory bowel diseases: a narrative review.Research in psychotherapy (Milano) · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The psychodynamic concept of defense mechanisms is nowadays considered by professionals with various theoretical orientations of great importance in the understanding of human development and psychological functioning. More than half century of empirical research has demonstrated the impact of defensive functioning in psychological well-being, personality organization and treatment process-outcome. Despite the availability of a large number of measures for their evaluation, only a few instruments assess the whole hierarchy of defenses, based on the Defense Mechanisms Rating Scales (DMRS), which arguably offers an observer-rated gold standard of assessment. The present article illustrates the theoretical and methodological background of the DMRS-Q, the Q-sort version of the DMRS for clinical use. Starting from the definition and function of the 30 defense mechanisms included in the hierarchy, we extracted 150 items that captured a full range of defensive manifestations according to the DMRS theory. The DMRS-Q set is described in this paper with reference to the DMRS manual. Directions are also provided for using the DMRS-Q online software for the free and unlimited coding of defense mechanisms. After each coding, the DMRS-Q software provides a report including qualitative and quantitative scores reflecting the individual's defensive functioning. Qualitative scores are displayed as the
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