He also cited the case of a chess champion, who refused to play unless his opponent would accept ''pawn and move'' - a one piece advantage, plus the first move. If the champion lost he could claim it was because of the disadvantage; if he won, his triumph was all the greater. Such a handicap is in fact beneficial because it excuses any defeat.

In Dr. Berglas' view, people with ''favorable but fragile competence images'' are most prone to handicapping themselves in this way. They use the strategy to protect their sense of worth - a formulation similar to Alfred Adler's theory that neurotics used their symptoms to protect a sense of superiority. Roots in Childhood

One root of the tendency, according to Dr. Berglas, is a childhood in which parents impose grandiose expectations and praise the child profusely and often undeservedly. Such children grow up with an inflated image of themselves that they feel they must protect against realistic tests. They protect it by taking on a handicapping excuse.

''A child who is praised even before he performs can learn to find a handicap that will keep him from the performance, thus avoiding the risk of failure,'' said Dr. Berglas.

Others vulnerable to self-defeating handicaps are people whose success has been meteoric and early, such as rock stars, actors or investment bankers. It can also occur in those whose success has nothing to do with abilities such as intelligence or tenacity, but comes from factors such as beauty or being born into the ''right'' family.

The difference between a useful handicap and a pathological one, Dr. Berglas holds, comes with the fine line between a transient and a lasting condition. Being hung over can explain a one-time failure while leaving one's image of ability unscathed; being an alcoholic, though, does not. The pattern of self-defeating handicaps is particularly common among alcoholics, Dr. Berglas' research has found. Many Kinds of Self-Defeat

But the adoption of a handicap as an alibi for failure is only one of many varieties of self-defeat that psychologists are studying. Others range from problems like extreme shyness - in which a person avoids feared rejection by sacrificing intimacy and friendship - to simple counterproductive strategies such as ingratiation.