Sci Forschen Open HUB for Scientific Research Journal of Psychiatry and Mental Health Open Access Copyright: © 2017 Jaan U, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Volume: 3.1 Research Article Defence Mechanisms of Fertile and Infertile Women Jaan U 1 * and Sultan A 2 1 Department of Psychology, Jammu and Kashmir Higher Education, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India 2 Department of Psychology, University of Kashmir, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India Received date: 08 Aug 2017; Accepted date: 26 Sep 2017; Published date: 03 Oct 2017. Citation: Jaan U, Sultan A (2017) Defence Mechanisms of Fertile and Infertile Women. J Psychiatry Ment Health 3(1): doi http://dx.doi.org/10.16966/2474-7769.122 Copyright: © 2017 Jaan U, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. *Corresponding author: Jaan U, Department of Psychology, Jammu and Kashmir Higher Education, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India, E-mail: amir695489@gmail.com Introduction Infertility is defned as the inability to achieve live birth afer one year of unprotected intercourse [1]. However in case of age more than 35 years, the time period changes to the six months of unprotected intercourse on the basis of primary prevention [2]. Infertility can be primary or secondary in nature. Primary infertility is defned as not being able to give a live birth or bear a child ever and secondary infertility is defned as not being able to give birth afer a previous successful birth [3]. Female infertility can be the result of ovulation problems, polycystic ovarian syndrome, Endometriosis, blocked fallopian tubes and other causes [4]. Psychologists devoted to infertility gathered crucial information for the understanding of this problem. Infertile women wishing to reproduce present higher levels of psychological sufering in comparison to normal women [5]. Among infertile couples passive coping and dissatisfaction with social support are associated with increasing health complaints and higher anxiety and depression levels [6]; infertile women present high levels of social stigma [7]; psychological consequences due to infertility persist for decades, with negative marital, sexual and social impacts [8]; however many studies negate dissatisfaction among infertile couples [9]; quality of the relationship and communication with the partner seems to impact on the emotional status of infertile women [10]. Unravelling unconscious of chronic patients, in our case infertile women is a novel endeavour and research in this particular area mostly focuses on surface level problems. However, nature of problems - likes of which are mentioned above- with infertility tells us that it also features itself at deeper levels. However, these are ignored from psychological discussion and research [11]. Defence mechanisms are the variables which explain ones unconscious, particularly ones personal mental unconscious [12]. Tus, defence mechanism should be brought forth in the form of research problems and its nature should be elucidated. Abstract The act of bearing the children is one of the most important factors that make marriages satisfactory and successful. However, some women are unable to ever bear a child either due to the inability to become pregnant or the inability to carry a pregnancy to a live birth. This becomes a turning point, which lead to various psychological consequences which can be social psychological or existential. This study was undertaken to examine these consequences and for that defence mechanisms among fertile and infertile women (primary and secondary infertile). A sample of 177 females was taken for the purpose of this study from various hospitals of district Srinagar of Kashmir Valley. Out of 177 women 55 females were fertile, 55 females had primary infertility and 67 had secondary infertility. The tools used in the study were Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ) by Thygesen, Drapeau, Trijsburg, Lecours, & de Roten. Data was analysed using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and 30 dimensions or defence mechanisms were attained. Our results were three fold in nature: one these establish new fndings in the area by explaining precise usage of defence mechanisms by infertile population; second these confrm the factorial design and their majority of loadings as set by Bond et al. in there factor analysis of DSQ; and third these also confrm theoretical perspective given by Thygesen et al. in conceptualization of nature of defence mechanisms. Moreover post hoc tests detailed and pointed the exact difference between the fertile, primary and secondary infertile couples. Keywords: Defence mechanisms; Infertility; Global Defence Functioning (GDF) Defence mechanisms are the forms of unconscious processes that form the mental group operations that are responsible for protecting the individual from experiencing excessive anxiety and protecting self and self-esteem [13]. Tese are involuntary in nature and shield us from various changes in mood, reality, relationship or conscience [14]. Tere are almost 44 diferent types of defence mechanisms, categorized under diferent hierarchies and theoretical perspectives [13,15-18]. Some of them are: compensation, denial, displacement, identifcation, intellectualization, interjection, minimization, projection, rationalization, reaction formation, regression, repression, sublimation, substitution and undoing etc., among these, sublimation is considered to be the highest level of defence mechanism that runs civilizations [19]. Defence mechanisms are related to ones physical and psychological problems. It seems that the understanding of psychological mechanisms used by persons treated for infertility may be helpful in the diagnosis of various problems [20]. Previous literature [12] has stated role of defence mechanisms in predicting the level of individual adaptation to signifcant psychological problems. Similarly, increased use of defence mechanisms by infertile couples with respect to fertile couples have been also reported by researchers [21]. Research also suggests stifness in utility of defence mechanisms in infertile male and female couples with respect to normal couples [11]. Purpose of the Study It is an endeavour, which is fundamental in nature and quantitative in method. Its purpose is to provide research based data about nature of defence mechanisms deployment of infertile women and provide theoretical data for the generation of various intervention strategies for mental health practitioners. Beside the study will contribute data available on the issue. ISSN 2474-7769