Running away from phonological ambiguity, we stumble upon our words: Laboratory induced slips show differences between highly and lowly defensive people.

Introduction: Freud proposed that slips of the tongue, including apparently simple ones, always have a sense and constitute « a half-success and a half-failure » compromise resulting from defensive mechanisms.

Material And Methods: A total of 55 subjects participated in a French adaptation of the or SLIP-technique including 32 "neutral" and 32 taboo spoonerisms and measures of defensiveness. In accordance with a psychoanalytical and empirically supported distinction, we considered two kinds of defenses: elaborative or primary process and inhibitory or secondary process defenses, which were operationalized with the GeoCat and the Phonological-Nothing (PN) WordList, respectively.