title: Defense Mechanisms in "Pure" Anxiety and "Pure" Depressive Disorders.
abstract: Our study was intended to test whether there are any differences in the way defense mechanisms are used by patients suffering from pure anxiety and those with pure depressive disorders. The sample size was as follows: depressive disorders without psychotic symptoms 30, anxiety disorders 30, and the healthy control group 30. The assessment of defense mechanisms was made using the DSQ-40 questionnaire. Our findings show that "pure" anxiety disorders differ from "pure" depressive disorders only in the use of immature defense mechanisms. The group with depressive disorders was significantly more prone to use immature defense mechanisms than the group with anxiety disorders (p = 0.005), primarily projection (p = 0.001) and devaluation (p = 0.003). These defense mechanisms may therefore be used both to differentiate between anxiety and depressive disorders and also to determine which symptoms (anxiety or depressive disorders) are dominant at any given stage of treatment.
authors.affiliation: *Institute of Mental Health; †Psychology Department, Faculty for Media and Communication, University of Singidunum; ‡Medical Faculty, University of Belgrade; and §Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade, Serbia.
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Colovic
authors.forename: Dusica
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lecic Tosevski
authors.forename: Ivana
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Perunicic Mladenovic
authors.forename: Maja
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Milosavljevic
authors.forename: Ana
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Munjiza
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged