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Defence Mechanisms against Mathematics

Mathematical anxiety

Methodology
             Phantasy can be taken as the mental expression of instincts, but also as a means of escape - an escape from confronting external reality or the frustrated reality within
(Mental representation of mathematics).

             In this sense, it becomes a defence: according to Hannah Segal,

"The individual, producing a phantasy of wish-fulfillment, is not only avoiding frustration and the recognition of an unpleasant external reality, he is also, which is even more important, defending himself against the reality of his own hunger and anger - his internal reality. Phantasies, moreover may be used as a defence against other phantasies".

             The distinction between defence mechanism and phantasy depends, Segal claims, on "the différence between the actual process and its specific detailed mental representation". She gives a good example of this: repression, a defence mechanism, can be actually experienced and recounted by a patient as an inner dam which could burst under the pressure of a flood. "What an observer can describe as a mechanistn is experienced by the person himself as a detailed phantasy."

 

Two arguments can be put forward:

 1°)-either the anxiety and its "phantasmatic support" (support fantasmatique) are displaced into mathematics, and defences are directed against mathematics, so directly containing the anxiety;

2°)-or the anxiety is contained in some other way and defences can be seen to be mounted against this anxiety, mathematics serving as an instrument of this defence.

 

             Mathematics, then, through the phantasies that it calls forth, can be either that which you can defend yourself against, or - on the other hand - that which participates in a defence against anxiety. It can even sometimes, by splitting, serve as both.

 

Methodology

             I have tried to study some of the different defence mechanisms employed against mathematics by using a questionnaire with a group of 614 students from the public educational establishments of the Marne department.

             The questionnaire called for agreement or disagreement (on a five point scale) with representative statements covering those themes that came up most frequently in 64 preliminary interviews. These interviews, lasting 45 minutes, were recorded and later transcribed.

             The same survey was carried out in Québec, in Belgium, in U.S.A., in Ontario and in Gread Bretagne;

( National comparisons) the three samples amounted in all to 2000 students (about 45 % of these being girls). The results were statistically analysed in some detail. (My bibliography)

 

This revealed six main ways of grouping the statements; these may be linked with certain well-known defence mechanisms.

 

PHOBIC AVOIDANCE
REPRESSION
PROJECTION
REPARATION
INTROJECTION
NARCISSISM

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HOME PAGE
History of mathematics' didactic
What is the mental representation?
Matematical mental representation
Recording interview: René Thom, Dominique, Rosine...
Write to me
Author