![Sample our Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing & Allied Health journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5944/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Medicine-Dentistry-Nursing-Allied-Health.jpg"})
Abstract
People use psychological defenses to prevent anxiety from forcing its way to consciousness. In normal maturation, the previously developmentally immature defenses tend to decrease. Increase in immature defense style has been found to predict mental disturbance among young adults, but the association of life events with this increase is unknown. We investigated whether increase in immature defenses in transition to young adulthood would associate with life events occurring during that time period. The subjects comprised 636 high school adolescents:young adults (408 females, 228 males), who completed questionnaires in 1990 and 1995. Subjects (27% of females and 21% of males) reporting increase in immature defense style as assessed with the Defense Style Questionnaire were compared with the other subjects in terms of life events. No associations were found, except the marginal association of serious illness of a close person among females. Among these high school students the development of immature defense style tended to be independent of life events during transition to adulthood.