Being of Two Minds: The Vertical Split in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy

Abstract

ARNOLD GOLDBERG. Being of Two Minds: The Vertical Split Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, The Analytic Press, Hillsdale, NJ, 1999, 200 pp., $34.50, ISBN 0-88163-308-9. Arnold Goldberg, one of the original disciples of Heinz Kohut and proponents of self psychology, defines as a significant division of the organization of the personality into a divided pair (p. 3). This is the vertical split, in which side-by-side individuals seem to reside but one mind (p. 3). He does not dwell much on the traditional example, multiple personalities, although he concedes that these may be a version of vertical splitting, but rather on circumscribed dissociation and narcissistic personality and behavior disorders, much as they have been defined the work of Kohut and his followers. Goldberg maintains that the development of the vertical split occurs childhood in which such splitting was a necessary part of existence. The parental directions given to the child, both explicitly and implicitly, demanded a division of one's personality into these side-by-side sectors. One cannot, of course, prove this assumption, but the case examples support it and may convince the reader of its likelihood (p. 5). Indeed, one of the outstanding features of this book is the numerous brief illustrative case examples that make some of the theorizing come to life. Whether they will convince the reader that the interaction between the parent and the child produces this vertical split remains debatable; numerous other assumptions and hypotheses have been made from other psychoanalytic orientations that offer an alternative to self psychology. For Goldberg at any rate, the vertical split the personality the severed sector is often treated by the patient as offensive and is disavowed, but at the same time a place is reserved this segment so that it can be revived and used as the need arises (p. 31). Goldberg argues that the parents' inability to form and maintain an integrated image of the child and their lack of awareness that they are tolerating behavior that would seem to be at odds with their own moral code generates the vertical split the patient as a defense against anxiety and depression. Failure parental communication and parental deficiencies the complex interplay between parent and child during the latter's development is given the primary etiologic emphasis Goldberg's work, contrast to the more traditional explanations of disavowal using drive psychology. This has implications for psychotherapy, as Goldberg writes, It is certainly difficult for therapists intent on exposing the `sexual and aggressive' drives of their patients to move to a theory which they visualize themselves as selfobjects who function as psychological structures for their patients. Once this change perspective is achieved, however, one is able to ascertain the needs of the patient who asks for particular narcissistic sustenance (p. 125). So, underneath the concern that he has written an oldfashioned book, Goldberg has written a very new-fashioned book that emphasizes the intersubjectivity of the developmental period as etiological the formation of the vertical split and de-emphasizes the traditional concepts of drives, defenses, and compromises: Perhaps the mystery can be cleared up if we are able to clarify the degree and nature of the contribution of the parents what they communicate, how the messages are transmitted, and especially how capable the child is of assimilating this information (pp. …