autodifensivo

Italian

Etymology

From autodifesa +‎ -ivo.

Adjective

autodifensivo (feminine autodifensiva, masculine plural autodifensivi, feminine plural autodifensive)

1. (relational) self-defense
   • 2007, David Foster Wallace, “La persona depressa [The Depressed Person]”, in Ottavio Fatica, Giovanna Granato, transl., Brevi interviste con uomini schifosi [Brief Interviews with Hideous Men], Einaudi:

     ... gli squilibri della personalità acuti e cronici della persona depressa andavano in realtà visti come un meccanismo autodifensivo: cioè, finché la persona depressa aveva il disagio affettivo acuto della depressione a preoccuparla e ad assorbire la sua attenzione emotiva, poteva evitare di sentire o di stabilire un contatto con le profonde ferite residuali infantili che lei (cioè la persona depressa) sembrava ancora determinata a tenere represse.

     ... a chronic mood disorder could itself be seen as constituting an emotionally manipulative defense mechanism: i.e., as long as the depressed person had the depression's affective discomfort to preoccupy her, she could avoid feeling the deep vestigial childhood wounds which she was apparently determined to keep repressed at all costs.

     (literally, “... the depressed person's acute and chronic personality imbalances were in reality seen as a self-defense mechanism: that is to say, as long a the depressed person had the acute affective discomfort of depression to preoccupy her and to absorb her emotional attention, she could avoid feeling or establishing a contact with the deep residual wounds from childhood that she (that is, the depressed person) seemed still determined to keep repressed.”)