Conceptualizing splitting: On the different meanings of splitting and their implications for the understanding of the person and the analytic process

Abstract

While "splitting" is a familiar concept, its meaning is not as self-evident as is commonly assumed. In different contexts, it refers to different phenomena and is supported by different understandings of psychic dynamics. In this paper, the author presents four different conceptualizations of splitting, which capture the essential aspects of contemporary psychoanalytic discourse on the concept. There is a dissociative kind of splitting, which involves splitting off, in the face of trauma, whole personalities, which to some extent remain accessible to consciousness; there is a disavowal kind of splitting that splits off our awareness of disturbing realities or their meanings in our efforts to avoid the inner restraints imposed by repression; and there are two forms of splitting of the object into good and bad-one focusing on the splitting of representations of the object due to ego weakness and environmental determinants, and the other on the splitting of the mind itself in a primarily destructive act aimed at sparing the good from the destructiveness of our death instinct. All four conceptualizations have their origins in Freud's writing and then are further developed in the work of later analysts. The author argues that understanding the nature of these various conceptualizations of splitting can contribute to analytic theory and practice. It also sheds light on the essential nature of analytic approaches and how they offer different perspectives on the unity and disunity of man's basic nature.

Return of the Repressed: Revisiting Dissociation and the Psychoanalysis of the Traumatized Mind

“…There is an extensive literature within the North American interpersonal/relational school strongly influenced by Sullivan (1953) according dissociation special status, while drawing on attachment and trauma theory, as well as psychoeconomic and neuroscientific factors. For instance, Philip Bromberg ( , 2011 has played a pivotal role in expanding on Janet, Ferenczi, and Fairbairn by placing dissociation at the center of his clinical theory, Donnel Stern (1997) has helped return psychoanalysis to trauma theory, and three European analysts (Craparo, Ortu, and van der Hart 2019) have recently published the first comprehensive reassessment of Janet's complex relationship to Freud, Ferenczi, Fairbairn, and Bromberg. In addition, psychoanalytic infant researchers have explicitly used the concept of dissociation in presymbolic contexts (Beebe and Lachmann 2002;Lyons-Ruth 2003), while British neo-Kleinians and contemporary Bionians (Steiner 2000;Hinshelwood 2008; Bronstein 2016) discuss dissociation, though largely using it interchangeably with splitting, distinguishing the two only quantitatively (Grotstein 2009: Blass 2015. Still, as Bromberg (1995) noted twenty-five years ago, most major analytic schools "have become .…”

“…Apart from their frequently incompatible frames of reference within psychoanalysis, consider Ferenczi’s concept of trance states , Fairbairn’s endopsychic ego structures , Klein’s splitting of the self , Federn’s ego states , Steiner’s psychic retreats , and Kohut’s self states . While all of these concepts entail vertical splitting, including what Freud (1938) would call “splitting of the ego,” little distinction was made between the concepts of splitting and dissociation, especially by Klein and her followers (Brierly 1953; Blass 2015). In addition, confusing terms were used to depict pathological dissociation by two of the most significant twentieth-century analysts seeking to maintain the phenomenon’s significance.…”

“…In addition, psychoanalytic infant researchers have explicitly used the concept of dissociation in presymbolic contexts (Beebe and Lachmann 2002; Lyons-Ruth 2003), while British neo-Kleinians and contemporary Bionians (Steiner 2000; Hinshelwood 2008; Bronstein 2016) discuss dissociation, though largely using it interchangeably with splitting, distinguishing the two only quantitatively (Grotstein 2009: Blass 2015). Still, as Bromberg (1995) noted twenty-five years ago, most major analytic schools “have become .…”

“…Though the term dissociation and its ancestral term, splitting , have multiple meanings, dissociative splitting can be distinguished from other forms of splitting (Blass 2015). A useful distinction is that dissociation tends to be a discrete phenomenon that impacts mental processes or consciousness in relation to bodily experience per se, whereas splitting affects psychic structures more accessible to verbalization (e.g., splitting of the ego or splitting of internal objects) and is accompanied by severe distortions in object relations and other pathological defensive processes (Auchincloss and Samberg 2012).…”

The Specter of the Primitive

“…The Kleinian literature has produced ample clinical evidence of splitting (see recently, Feldman 2009; Hinshelwood 2008; Blass 2015). The question is whether splitting is infantile per se.…”