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.