What is 'manic defence'?

[elroot]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

I had this 20 + girl who came with feature so a manic episode (over activity, irritability, increased energy etc) 1 year following the sudden demise of her father. I thought it was clear case of mania, buy my consultant asked me whether i knew about the concept known as "manic defense". I have not been able to find any good reading material on the subject.

Have any of you know about this form of defense and could you suggest some place where i could read more about it. Have you seen people who are having Manic defence?

Thanks in advance.

 

[VMSmith]

It's a psychodynamic concept. I think Melanie Klein developed it as a way to explain manic-depression...nowadays I think most people just formulate bipolar patients as being...bipolar. But I have seen the manic defense evoked in patients who exhibit hypomanic behavior in the setting of depressive triggers (like your patient) - the idea (which I'm likely oversimplifying) is that in response to something that is depressing someone reacts to it in a radical way with euphoria, overactivity, etc in order to defend against becoming depressed. Kind of like a reaction formation.

http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=ijp.016.0145a
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/pdf_extract/148/4/468

 

[loveoforganic]

The concept of a disorder forming as a defense mechanism against another forming I've seen multiple times. Do you treat the supposed underlying issues, the primary disorder, both, etc?

 

[billypilgrim37]

Do you treat the supposed underlying issues, the primary disorder, both, etc?

Umm, whatever Abilify does? 🙄

 

[VMSmith]

The concept of a disorder forming as a defense mechanism against another forming I've seen multiple times. Do you treat the supposed underlying issues, the primary disorder, both, etc?

All, none, or some subset of the above. It depends on who you ask.