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This study investigated the defensive strategies of male repressers and sensitizers in counseling when objective self-discrepant information (low maturity scores) was presented. Cognitive and affective counseling approaches were used to present self-discrepant information, permitting a 2 X 2 factorial ANOVA design (defensive orientation by treatment). Galvanic skin response (GSR) and heart-rate measurements confirmed stress in subjects when self-discrepant information was presented. Repressers used projection as a preferred defense and sensitizers passively changed their self-perception. The cognitive treatment was more successful in reducing self-maturity ratings in both groups, while the affective treatment gave more equivocal results. Defensive strategies of subjects in conjunction with the counseling approach determined the extent to which self-discrepant information was accepted.Coping with threat to the self-structure is a process confronting everyone. However, by maturity, most adults have developed a repertoire of mechanisms of defense against self-discrepant stimuli (Sarnoff, 1962). In addition to specific defense mechanisms, a more basic defensive orientation is also learned. Blocher (1966) stated that "each individual acquires both a set of coping behaviors and a general style of coping that he learns to use [p. 49]."Research on defensive orientations began in relation to perceptual adaptation to threat (Lazarus, Erikson, & Fonda, 1951). Gordon (1957) defined these defensive tendencies as the "repression-sensitization" dimension. Byrne (Byrne, 1961; Byrne, Barry, & Nelson, 1963), extending the work of others (Altrocci, Parsons, & Dickoff, 1960), developed a scale to measure individual repressing or sensitizing tendencies. Subsequent research has shown repressionsensitization to be a stable personality di-*This article is based on the first author's doctoral dissertation from