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The objective of this paper is to introduce the concept of `destructive idealization' and to describe the process by which, given certain conditions, the future is destructively idealized. 1 outline the ways in which the human mind, once the here-and-now becomes intolerably frightening or painful, escapes into another time, another place, and idealizes it, a process in which the splitting of positive and negative feelings is inherent. As far as I am aware, this particular correlate of splitting has not yet been closely studied, nor the term `destructive idealization' used to designate it. The concept is defined and illustrated with contemporary examples.

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