A Scientific Meeting presented by Dr. Joseph Fernando, MDCM. In this presentation Dr. Fernando will differentiate two defenses that are important clinically but that are often confused with each other: projective identification and identification with the aggressor. He will show that differentiating these two defenses at the conceptual level can be helpful clinically.

Dr. Fernando will demonstrate that by differentiating defenses relating to different forms of the unconscious – the id versus the unconscious part of the ego, the unconscious primary process versus the unconscious secondary process – we can come to a deeper understanding of these two defenses, as well as of defensive processes more generally. These defenses, and especially projective identification, are now usually understood in terms of inner object relations.

Dr. Fernando will present a view of them which does not necessarily contradict an object relations description, but that supplements it by approaching the two defensive processes discussed from the point of view of Freud’s original distinction between the primary and secondary modes of mental functioning.