SIGNAL ANXIETY, DEFENSE, AND THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE Merton A. Shill, PhD, LLM Wayne State University School of Medicine and University of Michigan Medical School Freud equivocated between 2 notions of defense: defense as directed against unpleasure and defense as the blocking of the energy or cathectic potential of the drive. This preserved the quantitative–energic–biological model of anxiety in defense in the 2nd theory of anxiety, rather than developing fully the experi- ential–qualitative–psychological model of anxiety introduced by the structural theory. The pleasure principle and not anxiety supplies the motive for defense. Signal anxiety, as the epitome of unpleasure, is the basic goal of defense and not the drives, ideas, other affects, or the superego. Defending against these is the means of accomplishing that goal. Signal anxiety is an ego function with ap- praisal, alarm, and defensive phases. There are metapsychological and technical implications of this approach. In the discussion of her book The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense, Anna Freud says, “I only wonder if we can take it for granted that the defense is always directed against the impulse or wish. One could also say that the defense is really directed against the anxiety or unpleasure aroused by the wish” (Sandler, 1985, p. 58). Sandler replies, “Yes, but does not the ego defend against the anxiety by operating against the content of the wish?” (p. 58). Anna Freud is suggesting that the object of defense is unpleasure, and Sandler then counters that defense operates against the content of the wish. There is a tension and basic contradiction between these two views and their implications, which these authors do not Merton A. Shill, PhD, LLM, Department of Family Medicine and Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, Wayne State University School of Medicine, and Department of Psy- chiatry, University of Michigan Medical School. Earlier versions of this article were presented to the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis, Southfield, Michigan, April 1994; the New York Freudian Society, Washington, DC, February 1995; and the Michigan Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology, Ann Arbor, Michi- gan, September 1995. I wish to thank Fred Busch, Helen Gediman, and Jack Novick for their thoughtful comments and suggestions. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Merton A. Shill, PhD, LLM, 924 Baldwin Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48104–3523. E-mail: mshill@med.wayne.edu Psychoanalytic Psychology Copyright 2004 by the Educational Publishing Foundation 2004, Vol. 21, No. 1, 116–133 0736-9735/04/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0736-9735.21.1.116 116 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.