Investigating the mediating roles of defense mechanisms between childhood traumas and psychological symptoms

In this thesis, the relationships between childhood traumas, defense mechanisms and psychological symptoms, which have an important place in clinical practice, are examined with hypotheses created from a theoretical and clinical perspective and for specific purposes. The sample of the study consisted of 610 participants between the ages of 20-45, of whom 503 (82.5%) were women, 101 (16.6%) were men, and 6 (1%) were not specified. Demographic Information Form, Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, The Defense Style Questionnaire-40, Symptom Check List (SCL-90-R) were applied to the participants, respectively. SPSS 25.0 was used to analyze the data. Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient Analysis, Hierarchical Multiple Linear Regression Analysis and Hayes' (2018) PROCESS Macro Model 4 analysis were used to analyze the data. According to the results of the analysis; emotional abuse, emotional neglect, and sexual abuse were found to predict psychological symptoms when demographic characteristics and other types of abuse and neglect were controlled. Physical abuse and physical neglect, on the other hand, predicted psychological symptoms when demographic characteristics were controlled, but lost statistical significance when other types of abuse and neglect were controlled. When demographic characteristics and other defense mechanisms are controlled; it has been observed that immature, neurotic and mature defense mechanisms predict depressive symptoms. In terms of individual defense mechanisms; projection, autistic fantasy, passive aggression, isolation, somatization, humor, displacement, and undoing predicted depressive symptoms. Obsessive compulsive symptoms, on the other hand, are predicted by immature, neurotic and mature defense mechanisms, while in terms of individual defense mechanisms, isolation, undoing, passive aggression, autistic fantasy, somatization and humor have been found to be predictors of obsessive compulsive symptoms. While the mediating role of immature defense mechanisms in the relationship between childhood traumas and psychological symptoms was found to be significant, it was observed that neurotic and mature defense mechanisms did not mediate this relationship. The findings were discussed in the light of the literature. Finally, the limitations of the study and suggestions for future studies were evaluated and the clinical implications of the study were discussed. Keywords: Childhood traumas, child maltreatment, defense mechanism, psychological symptoms, depressive symptoms, obsessive compulsive symptoms