Splitting Of Self Research Articles

The Good Shepherd. On Endre Bálint’s late photomontages

In this paper I analyse the photomontages of Endre Bálint (1914–1986) in the context of the cultural politics of the Iron Curtain period in Eastern Europe and Hungary. First, the study takes a diachronic, historical approach to photomontage as a creative method that maintained continuity between the avant-garde generations of artists, a way of thinking and a creative process accordingly, cultivated in the circles of persecuted, banned or silenced artists experimenting during the decades from the 1920s to 1970s. Second, by placing Endre Bálint’s late photomontages (made after his 1963 return from his “exodus” to Paris) in the context of contemporary artistic phenomena (e.g. Brecht’s photobook, Jean-Luc Godard’s work, David Hockney’s montages or bricoleur punk artists), I argue that, in contrast to the generally held view, they are not the withering signs of renunciation, but rather a way out of renunciation, that is, a solution. “We breathe in fragments,” Bálint wrote, and the pictorial form to fittingly reflect a fragmented way of existence (together with the psychological burdens, shadows of the past, and the social and cultural-political determinations) was the montage-technique that had flourished from the 1920s, and whose Eastern European, distinctively Hungarian variant found its guardian, its good shepherd in Bálint, in his creative practice. Bálint’s late photomontages also deserve attention from the point of view of a silent narrative of art history, which does not focus on middle-aged artists’ major works, but on the profuse production by the old masters, the masters of sprezzatura, which is characterised by an aesthetic lightness, a kind of aesthetic liberation and swiftness, and the ability to allow memories a free influx into the creative work. One of the conclusions of this study is that Hungarian photomontage, and especially the late work of Endre Bálint, can be instructively read in conjunction with the equally restrained psychoanalytic literature of the period, in which the splitting of Self as a traumatic consequence of shocking events and also a means to survive those events is a key concept. A critically productive artistic construction that is based on fragments can be seen and read as the visual counterpart of a psychological notion of Self-splitting.

Divine and Demonic in the Poetic Mythology of the Zohar: The "Other Side" of Kabbalah by Nathaniel Berman (review)

Reviewed by: Divine and Demonic in the Poetic Mythology of the Zohar: The "Other Side" of Kabbalah by Nathaniel Berman Joel Hecker Nathaniel Berman. Divine and Demonic in the Poetic Mythology of the Zohar: The "Other Side" of Kabbalah. Leiden: Brill, 2018. xiv + 312 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009420000240 Evil is the theological scandal that won't go away. In Zohar scholarship, Isaiah Tishby's twofold approach to the problem of evil has largely been a settled matter. Tishby proffered two options—the Neoplatonic and the dualistic (so-called gnostic) approaches—and argued that these two paths existed in tension on account of unresolved inclinations in the kabbalistic tradition. With literary verve, fresh readings, and compelling argumentation, Nathaniel Berman unsettles this familiar territory in his groundbreaking new book. The effectiveness of Berman's approach, in the first book-length treatment of evil in Zoharic Kabbalah, derives from his operating on both the microlevel of literary style and the macrolevel of the Zohar's mythical dualism. Berman applies two different methodological tacks that force a reconsideration of the Zohar's thinking about evil. First, using the psychoanalytic framework of the constitution of subjectivity as articulated by Julia Kristeva, he reexamines the nature of the Divine Self. Second, he analyzes the distinctive rhetorical tropes that construct the Zohar's descriptions of the binary dominions of holy and demonic. Wielding these two methods, Berman demonstrates how the iotas of indicatives, conjunctions, and prepositions problematize the erstwhile hoped-for perfection of Divinity. In reconsidering divine subjectivity in chapter 1, Berman employs Kristeva's psychoanalytic conception of the processes of "ambivalence, splitting, and abjection" in the development of a child's subjectivity. To construct her or his identity, a child must undertake the painful task of identifying the mother as an external entity and, ultimately, cast her as an Other that must be rejected on the path to identifying a coherent self. Applying this approach to the Godhead, Berman argues that in order for the bounded identity of the Holy Ancient One itself to emerge, a similar process of splitting of Self from Self occurs first: identifying and crystallizing the bounded Self that is holy and the bounded Self that is demonic. [End Page 437] Lower reaches of Divinity can then emanate from the contours of a stable, now-perfected Deity. In chapter 2, using the tools of rhetorical analysis, Berman shows how the Zoharic authorship expresses ambivalence about the realms of the holy even before the texts settle into the binaries that allow for more clearly demarcated identities of the holy and demonic domains. As a result, the literary expressions of the text itself construct the Zohar's dialectical vision of demonic and holy realms. One key device that Berman exposes is "anaphora," namely, "the production of a textual effect through repetition of the first word or phrase in contiguous sentences or clauses" (76). Throughout the Zohar this device appears as the viral meme "There is x … and there is x." Berman trains our gaze upon the rhetorical parallelism, and thus the near identity of the two terms—holy and demonic—under comparison. To be sure, another reader might contend that these orderly patterns communicate a message to its pious audience; every step is fraught with the potential for holy or wicked behavior. Thus, where Berman emphasizes the epistemological potential for confusion, one might also see the pietistic concern with moral and religious slippage. Where Tishby had used the descriptor "catharsis" to describe Divinity's first acts of expelling dross, Berman contends that the Zohar denies the presupposition of a demarcated subject performing the expulsion, and that indeed, the unnamed subject is nameless precisely because it is still in formation. This is his explanation of Divinity's self-creating narratives that begin with actions that have no subjects. Berman views the dualistic ontology constructed through techniques of rhetorical parallelism as an act of "splitting," in which a protosubject that has traits from both sides of the nascent divide produces a demonic Other through the "crystallization of elements that the subject finds incompatible with a coherent self and that become dissociated from, and antagonistic to, that self" (39). In chapter 3, Berman explores the ways...

Counter-narratives in context: The role of the organisation and broader culture in psychic splitting among South African survivors of intimate partner violence

Chronic trauma, shame and psychopathology, as well as the association between them, are acutely understudied, both in South African and internationally. The focus of this article is on chronic trauma of a particular kind, intimate partner violence (IPV) and the development of a specific form or shame-related psychopathology, the splitting of self and how this splitting may be further facilitated or exacerbated by the contexts in which people live. The (counter) narratives of three women are presented. These (counter) narratives demonstrate the presence of both a concealed and shameful authentic self, and the socially conforming projected false self, two polarised parts of the psyche. It is argued that the organisational context, a shelter for survivors of IPV, which has a strong ethos centred around advocacy and human rights and which promotes a strong message of personal empowerment and agency, may unintentionally exacerbate the psychic split in women who have been subjugated at a broader (predominantly patriarchal) cultural level their whole lives. Participants’ resistance narratives were often characterised by inconsistencies and contradictions which oscillated between supporting mainstream cultural narratives and organisationally driven, active resistance against the cultural context from which they came. However, resistance narratives often felt thinly veiled and inauthentic, which is one of the problems with interventions in resource constrained settings which are necessarily time-limited. To fully and completely counter the cultural message that has been the focus of participants’ lifelong gendered socialisation, long-term and in depth interventions at organisational level are needed. These ideas are not only relevant to the South African setting, but have wider application internationally.

Defense Mechanisms in Schizotypal, Borderline, Antisocial, and Narcissistic Personality Disorders

Numerous authors have theorized that defense mechanisms play a role in personality disorders. We reviewed theoretical writings and empirical studies about defenses in schizotypal, borderline, antisocial, and narcissistic personality disorders, developing hypotheses about these differential relationships. We then examined these hypotheses using dynamic interview data rated for defenses in a study of participants (n = 107) diagnosed with these four personality disorder types. Overall, the prevalence of immature defenses was substantial, and all four disorders fit within the broad borderline personality organization construct. Defenses predicted the most variance in borderline and the least variance in schizotypal personality disorder, suggesting that dynamic factors played the largest role in borderline and the least in schizotypal personality. Central to borderline personality were strong associations with major image-distorting defenses, primarily splitting of self and other's images, and the hysterical level defenses, dissociation and repression. Narcissistic and antisocial personality disorders shared minor image-distorting defenses, such as omnipotence or devaluation, while narcissistic also used splitting of self-images and antisocial used disavowal defenses like denial. Overall, differential relationships between specific defenses and personality disorder types were largely consistent with the literature, and consistent with the importance that the treatment literature ascribes to working with defenses.

Signs Without Name

This paper argues that Chris Marker's 1982 film Sans Soleil derives its affective force from doublings and ‘faces’ of horror and beauty that reveal a twofold synthesis of actual and virtual. While a focus upon the material, ever in relation to transient yet lingering sensations, cannot discharge the power and force of the film, this paper endeavours nevertheless to assess and evoke Marker and Deleuze's own interrogative methods that thoroughly explore, in the manner of a revelatory ‘schizoanalysis’ or empiricism, molecular and variable operations beneath our ‘molar’ structures and organisations. As Sans Soleil's voiceover states, ‘If they don't see happiness in the picture, at least they'll see the black’, a provocative remark that invokes indefinable singularities and the darkness of a wound, cracking of time and splitting of self in film, life and death. Considerations of death, consciousness and subjectivity extend this paper's examinations.

The Splitting Index: construction of a scale measuring the defense mechanism of splitting.

The Splitting Index (SI), a self-report scale based on the writings of Kernberg (e.g., 1976) on self and object representations and the defense mechanism of splitting, was constructed. After development over the course of 6 pilot studies, the SI was validated through 2 further studies. Factor analyses revealed a 24-item scale with three 8-item subscales, measuring the splitting of self, family, and others' images. The SI and its subscales were demonstrated to be internally consistent and stable over a 4-week period. Convergent validity was supported by significant correlations with measures of borderline and narcissistic personality disorders, self-image stability, self-esteem, depression, and negative affectivity. Discriminant validity was demonstrated by near-zero correlations with two measures of cognitive complexity. Contrary to predictions, the SI was significantly correlated with the Dogmatism Scale (Rokeach, 1960), a third measure of cognitive complexity. Research and clinical applications of the SI are discussed.

Splitting as A Consequence of Severe Abuse in Childhood

Clinical data suggest that Kernberg's description of splitting as a defense mechanism is useful in conceptualizing the psychological consequences of abuse in childhood in certain patients. The splitting in these patients is similar to his description of splitting in borderline patients in that it compartmentalizes and sequesters certain overwhelming and painful ego states accompanying negative introjects of the betraying primary object and the betrayed self. These sequestered introjects, furthermore, act as automatons, generating behaviors that arbitrarily re-enact their content even though the patient remains consciously unaware of their historical meaning. Another consequence of the sequestration of these traumatic introjects is that their affects retain their initial power and primitive quality, unmodulated by the usual homogenizing process that is a part of the synthesis of part-object introjects into whole-object introjects; the sequestration, therefore, often painful in itself, must nevertheless be rigidly maintained lest traumatic anxiety in the face of overwhelming affects be re-experienced. Shengold calls the sequence of events that results in this brittle but stubborn painful constriction of the personality "soul murder." He borrowed the phrase from Freud who used it to refer to what Schreber had suffered at the hands of his sadistic father. That phrase--"soul murder"--may sound melodramatic, but it powerfully conveys what these patients communicate of their experience of themselves. As with Kernberg's patients, the defensive splitting serves to protect the positive introjects. These patients fear their negative introjects, even more than they feel uncomfortable about the split. They fear their desperate rage will destroy their love objects, and leave them feeling abandoned and hating themselves. As one of my patients put it: "I fear that my destructive anger will leave me all alone in a sea of rubble of my own making." In the transference, he feared destroying me and our positive bond. In these cases it would seem that the turning to splitting occurred at a later age than it does with Kernberg's borderline patients. His proposition is that the developmentally normal "splitting," related to the undifferentiation of the infantile ego, persists as a defensive splitting, perhaps as a consequence of a consistently derailed mother-child dialogue; whereas in my patients it would seem that the normal developmental splitting had waned as ego differentiation proceeded, but that in the face of overwhelming traumata at perhaps 3 or 4 years of age, the primitive defense was invoked regressively.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)