Defense mechanisms are not the problem—they are the solution the mind found when no better one was available.”
—Adapted from Otto Kernberg
You’re sitting with a client who just last week called you “the only person who gets it.” Today, they accuse you of “being just like the rest.” It feels jarring, even personal. But in Transference-Focused Psychotherapy (TFP), this isn’t just a rupture.
It’s a roadmap.
The behavior may feel provocative, but the underlying force is protection. Your client is not trying to manipulate you. They’re trying to survive.
In TFP[1], we learn to decode these behaviors—not as resistance, but as primitive defenses. When you understand them, the chaos becomes coherent. And when your client learns to name and outgrow them, healing begins.
Primitive Defenses and Personality Organization
According to Kernberg’s model, individuals with borderline personality organization experience a core difficulty in integrating internalized representations of self and others.[2] As a result, they rely on primitive defenses—psychological strategies that preserve the fragile sense of self by keeping intolerable feelings or representations split off.
These defenses[3] are not unique to borderline clients. All of us use defenses. What’s different in TFP is the degree of rigidity, pervasiveness, and developmental maturity of the defenses being used.
Key primitive defenses seen in TFP work include:
- Splitting – seeing self and others as all good or all bad[4]
- Projective Identification – projecting unwanted feelings onto others and then interacting in ways that evoke those feelings[5]
- Denial – refusing to acknowledge an aspect of internal or external reality[6]
- Devaluation – attributing exaggerated negative qualities to others to ward off disappointment or threat[7]
- Omnipotent Control – exerting dominance to ward off helplessness[8]
Each defense protects the self—but at a cost.
Why Splitting Is Central in TFP
Among all defenses, splitting is perhaps the most recognizable—and most misunderstood.
Splitting is not a dramatic personality quirk. It is a developmental necessity that never fully resolved. It reflects the client’s inability to hold contradictory representations of self or other at the same time.
In childhood, it served a function:
- “If the caregiver is sometimes cruel, I must believe they are all good—so I can feel safe.”
- Or, “If I am bad, I can explain why they hurt me—and I don’t have to feel powerless.”
But in adulthood, this split world leads to unstable relationships, rapid shifts in mood and judgment, and chronic fear of betrayal or abandonment.
TFP[9] works through the transference to help the client gradually integrate these split representations. The therapist becomes the battleground—and the bridge.
Intervening with Defense: Naming Without Shaming
The TFP therapist neither reinforces nor shames the defense. Instead, they observe, contain, and eventually interpret it.
For example:
“It sounds like part of you sees me as someone who really cares, and another part is convinced I’ll betray or abandon you. Maybe both can exist—and we can begin to make sense of that together.”
This intervention does two things:
- Names the split—bringing unconscious dynamics into the client’s awareness.
- Models integration—by holding opposing truths without collapsing into either.
Rather than attacking the defense, the therapist honors its origin while gently challenging its utility in the present.[10]
When You’re Caught in the Defense
As therapists, we often feel these defenses before we see them:
- You feel idealized and begin to overfunction.
- You feel devalued and start to defend your competence.
- You feel pulled to “prove” you’re not like those from the client’s past.
These reactions are signals. They point to what the client cannot yet hold in awareness. Your ability to recognize the enactment without acting it out is what transforms the moment from re-traumatization to growth.[11]
Growth Through Defense Integration
As therapy progresses, clients begin to:
- Name their defenses in real time
- Tolerate ambiguity in self and others
- Feel less overwhelmed by internal conflict
- Respond to triggers with reflection, not reaction
This doesn’t happen overnight. But every time a split is recognized, every time a projection is made conscious, every time the therapist holds opposing truths without retaliation—that’s integration.
That’s the work.
And it begins by seeing the defense not as the enemy—but as the trailhead of transformation.
[1] Kernberg, Otto F. “Transference focused psychotherapy (TFP).” The Psychoanalytic Therapy of Severe Disturbance. Routledge, 2018. 21-34.
[2] Kernberg, Otto. “Borderline personality organization.” Journal of the American psychoanalytic Association 15.3 (1967): 641-685.
[3] Cramer, Phebe. “Defense mechanisms: 40 years of empirical research.” Journal of Personality Assessment 97.2 (2015): 114-122.
[4] Kramer, Ueli, et al. “Beyond splitting: Observer-rated defense mechanisms in borderline personality disorder.” Psychoanalytic Psychology 30.1 (2013): 3.
[5] Meissner, William W. “A note on projective identification.” Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 28.1 (1980): 43-67.
[6] Costa, Rui Miguel. “Denial (defense mechanism).” Encyclopedia of personality and individual differences. Springer, Cham, 2020. 1045-1047.
[7] Robbins, Bill. “Under attack: devaluation and the challenge of tolerating the transference.” The Journal of Psychotherapy Practice and Research 9.3 (2000): 136.
[8] Kernberg, Otto F. “Omnipotence in the transference and in the countertransference.” The Scandinavian psychoanalytic review 18.1 (1995): 2-21.
[9] Clarkin, John F., Eve Caligor, and Julia Sowislo. “TFP extended: Development and recent advances.” Psychodynamic Psychiatry 49.2 (2021): 188-214.
[10] Tmej, Anna, et al. “Borderline patients before and after one year of transference-focused psychotherapy (TFP): A detailed analysis of change of attachment representations.” Psychoanalytic Psychology 38.1 (2021): 12.
[11] Steiner, Verónica, Daniela Saralegui, and Luis Valenciano. “Impact of Transference on the Training of TFP Therapist: A Proposal on the Affective Echo as a Foundation of Learning.” Affectivity and Learning: Bridging the Gap Between Neurosciences, Cultural and Cognitive Psychology. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland, 2023. 605-626.