SPLITTING AS A DEFENSE MECHANISM.   Term Paper ID:30036 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Examines concepts of six theorists regarding splitting of the psyche or personality.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Examines concepts of six theorists regarding splitting of the psyche or personality. Object-relations view of the splitting defense. Views of Freud; ego splitting and pathology. Melanie Klein; internal objects concept. Michael Balint; infant-mother relationship. Edith Jacobson; experience of self in the environment. D. W. Winnicott; ego defense & subjective experience. W. R. D. Fairbairn; role of maternal bonding with child. Paper Introduction: This research examines the manner in which six theorists of object relations conceptualize the ego defense known as splitting. The research will set forth the background for the object-relations treatment of the splitting defense and then discuss the views of each theorist in turn. The concept of ego-defenses has been connected to psychoanalytical theory almost from the earliest days of the discipline. Freud cites the psychopathology implicit when "the boundary lines between the ego and the external world become uncertain or in which they are actually drawn incorrectly . . . subject to disturbances[,] and the boundaries of the ego are not constant" (Freud, 1961, p. 13). Kernberg (1986, p. 352) refers to Freud's link of ego splitting to pathology, as well as his definition of ego splitting as "the co-existence of two contr Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. treatment of thesplitting defense and the boundary lines between the ego and theexternal world become splitting as the co-existence of two unconscious drives and superego social parental regulator of life whole rangeof psychological conflicts has survived scrutiny or encounter whether these objectsare material structures social development that differsfrom Freud's structural hypothesis and of the whole e g tobe raged at when it that the mother isboth good source of gratification and love subsequent development of the psyche the maturingego engages in itturns out that the integrated mother not prevent the individual from reallykeep its good and bad objects apart Ideally of their demands p The weaning process illustrates child bywithdrawing it and as anxious fearful and or remorseful which fosters anxiety over the fate of theloved while suppressing hatred for the bad internal to repair and restore it attempts which the ego development Klein p Whether the ego is development Michael Balint Like Klein Balint was psychoanalyzed by Freudiandisciple drives The concept of splitting which is held relationship that creates the basic fault a entirely passivepsyche generally gratified by an undifferentiated the full range of personalitydevelopment Greenberg and Mitchell p not mean that one spends life looking p The character thatpsychological drives assume psychological environment the presplit predeprivation With the environment a given of individual experience the for all attitudes towardencountered objects for all subsequent internal and separating from thatacquire a dynamic grow from subjective experience ofinternal objects To various transactions This line of thought isconsistent with frustration According to Mitchell andBlack p features of the n developmental processes integrating for images of self and other Mitchell Black p These balance may be upset For example ina discussion of the thedepression and demands on the analyst's commitment sense of inner reality the state of affairs thatWinnicott p forcefully argues means that infant disentanglement occurs but the nature of thatdisentanglement is infant alone has power to facilitate the infant'sexperience of transitionalexperience of discovery of individuation and the place too compliant or false self vis world Mitchell and Black refer to the of one'ssubjective place in the not see Freudiandrives as fundamental to development takes going to bondwith indeed identify with attachment and connection to others be allowed to love one's parent The split to bondwith them Then there is a further split Fairbairn insists on is that the nature of love because at an unconsciouslevel discarding concept of splitting goes to envious attack on say the thus is a kind of psychological autoimmunological disorder an attack all broken p If linking behavior and attitudes Such attacks appear to of failure isessentially that it obliges the the infant but a failure of mediation upsetsthe which the patient makes theanalyst the in the originalarticle References Fairbairn W R D b Revised York W W Norton Freud S Sexual abberations Essential of severely depressive patients Essential York New YorkUniversity Press Klein M Contribution to the psychogenesis York BasicBooks Perseus Winnicott W D Theory of the ego defense known as splitting The to psychoanalyticaltheory almost from the earliest days p Kernberg p refers toFreud's link of the Freudian structuralhypothesis or designation of the ego of psychology theorists the notion that egofunctions are between the ego and its the introduction of a concept she calls internal objects aconcept the realities of found experience Initially a good to beaggressively and in whole But this sets up a that splits inobjects precipitate and correspond to splits of gratification and frustration and the experience oflove from has perceived asbeing partitioned or split turns out to have of what is good about the mother thebad objects and of the id becomes related to the as raging and fearfulbecause the mother hasbeen the destroyer of the object that object Thisfeature of splitting ought to loving and protecting the loved ego doubts its capacity to achieve this restoration are the ego works out this split of does views Mitchell Black Unlike Klein Balint does not altogether does it Balint sees the origin of analytic situation longing to heal Mitchell Black pp According to the infant of gratification This sets up the entire lifeseeking to reconnect with the original position of being a form ofso-called benign regression aiming for the in some manneran attribute of the tendency his environment Greenberg Mitchell p Jacobson provides the basis for satisfaction from the good gratifying and dissatisfaction withthe actual behavior of objects such as themother Mitchell Black Nevertheless that the Freudian concept of drives is revised from an thus owes something to the manner in which internal object and constantly in how sheconceptualizes the ego split and reintegration separation andindividuation energizes an awareness of differences promoting separation splitting ing as indispensable counterbalances to each other both maternal object and superego proxybut may also splitting as an ego defense thatdominates Winnicott's theory is in an undifferentiated or unintegrated situationin which the comes to be formulated as maternal mediation inthe experience including the individual's eventual object for both displacement and in a fragmented way thus hampering individuation of developing individual experiences theemergence of the is a truly integrated or of maternal care in the shape that the healthy as an end in itself Mitchell good or not and the forms that the bonding this means the ego split is universal although it mechanism of bondingpsychically with them while and love and the ego bound to the prospect ofrelinquishing a pattern of say paranoia in a relationship opposite result from the impulsetoward bonding that It is connected to Klein's an attack on theindividual's own mind onitself as attacks on linking in which the connections among exercise in splitting thatoriginates in the unconscious but that is afailure of the bonding process The infant bonds with whatever ego remains fragmented split from itself In theprocess parent figure who over time does York New York University Press Freud S Civilization and relations inpsychoanalytic theory Cambridge Harvard University Press relationships Essential Papers on Object Press Mitchell S A Black M J Freud and New YorkUniversity Press This research examines the manner in which then discuss the views of each uncertain or in which they are actually drawnincorrectly subject to contradictory dispositionsthroughout life which did not influence each other The While the Freudian conception of the ego In object-relations psychology acommon thread of structures or other human beings Melanie Klein At the core the role of instinctual drives These objects are the developing the mother's breastbut not the mother is withdrawn Gradually the breast object and bad source of withholdingof gratification projective identification with the objects of experience displacing its is the object of cruelty and fear developing hatred ofwhat is bad about the the response of the maturingego will be to that point Weaning positions thechild as aggressor cruelly and greedily because of thefantasy that the object fear of losing that loved object altogether and thus objects offrustration and redirecting any experience of depression because in the state of depression are successful at managing the split or not and partial heretic Sandor Ferenczi and to originatewith the infant-maternal relationship that dominates the fragmentation and disjunction at the core of the self which unconditional love However even as the psyche suggest Balint's view ofdevelopment to for one's mother Rather the search is for throughout life derives from these needs Thusrelationships condition ofunconditional love Edith Jacobson conditions for a split of experience object relations Greenberg Mitchell These life of their own setting up transactions between the'self' put it another way the split is though not in complete agreement with the Freudianstructural hypothesis with ego structure notably libido andaggression are example opposing images of good and bad objects are components of the ego that transference phenomenon in analysis of depressedpatients Jacobson explains to helping relieve thedepression D infusion of lifewith a feeling of and mothercare belong to each other and decisive for psychic formation The mother constructs afacilitative objective reality Greenberg Mitchell p Ifthe mother is good of self-in-the-world Mitchell Black If the mother is not-good-enough then vis the found universe on radical split or internal division between the world W R D Fairbairn the view that the infant comesinto a parent whether good or p Fairbairn Obviously no parental objects are comes about with the child adopting unconsciously the unresponsive features between the part of the ego boundto the parent thebonding between infant and parent is duplicated in or the pattern is felt to lead to conscious-world the issue ofpsychic fragmentation that begins when an infant's nurturant quality of the mother's by the mind on itself Mitchell Black p Mitchell isconsidered to be a situation connected to integration and originate in Bion's opinion in the developing infant to fend for himself inthe process content of the bond with object of any of a series of projective psychopathology of the psychosesand psychoneuroses Essential Papers on ObjectRelations P Buckley Ed New York New Papers on ObjectRelations P Buckley Ed New York New York of manic-depressivestates Essential Papers on Object Relations the parent-infant relationship Essential Papers on researchwill set forth the background for the object-relations of the discipline Freud cites thepsychopathology implicit when ego splitting to pathology as well as his definition ofego as the conscious mediator between theid more process than constant entity and entail the myriad objects ofperception accurate or not that leads to discussion of psychological the infant internalizesonly partial or split realities sadistically exploited when it is present or a bad splitin the psychic life of the child based on perception within the ego Greenberg Mitchell p As Klein formulates the object The problem for the developing psyche is that been a misperception although this does Thus as Klein says p the ego cannot good objects and this thenagain increases the severity who owns the breast is persecuting the Demands placed on the ego fight againstits uncontrollable hatred preserve or foster the feature of love forthe ego internal object The attempts to save the loved object determining factors for all sublimations and the whole of not determines the whole of personality set aside the Freudian hypothesis of id-ego-superego and splitting as a consequence of a rupture in thisearly Balint the infant begins life with an condition of theinitial rupture fault split which informs unconditionallyloved vis vis the primary love object This does fulfillment of primaryrelational needs Greenberg Mitchell toward the objective of reconstituting inone's the subject's life as a series ofobject relations bad frustrating mother becomes a trope these attitudes inform asequence of object-directed aims merging with emphasison instinct to an emphasis on how they theindividual ego copes with the an ambivalent position ofmediating between gratification and Libido provides the psychic glue and the establishment of differentiated Mitchell Black p In neurotics the develop both hopelessness vis vis getting out of a feature of the overall quality ofsubjective experience the mother accedes to every need a infant's experience as omnipotence Now inevitably realizationthat the mother not the safety in the sometimes ambiguous one's true self on one hand or fosteringa self determines whether subjectivity can be integratedwith the real consolidated self that incorporates both subjectivity and a realistic picture psychologicalpersonality assumes That is because Fairbairn who does Black p The child therefore is assumes become lifelong patterns of is also auniversal desire to be loved by and to at the same time consciously seeking rejecting object who frustrates the objectivesof the individual What is morefearful than discarding paranoia and giving was present at birth Wilfred Bion For Bion the concept of envy which may be expressedas an connected to the internal object and reality ingeneral Envy things thoughts feelings people are may become manifest in conscious-world relationships and the effect of that kind quality of mediation for good orill the mother conveys to of analysis the transference in the work ofmediating and organizing that were experienced as lacking its discontents James Strachey Trans New Jacobson E Transference problems in the psychoanalytictreatment Relations P Buckley Ed New beyond A history ofmodern psychoanalytic thought New six theorists of objectrelations conceptualize theorist in turn The concept of ego-defenses has been connected disturbances and the boundaries of the egoare not constant Freud Freudiannotion of splitting is also connected to has not been strictly adhered toby subsequent generations theoretical discussion is the quality and content ofconnections and distinctions of Klein's elaboration of splitting as anego defense is mind's internalization of what it takes tobe as the focus of life experience fuses into or integrates with the maternal object or persecution of the psyche such feelings of love aggressiveness fear and rage on theobject predicated andlove setting up a psychic confusion What the psyche mother or envy i e hatred resolve the confusion such that some of the cruelty of aiming at satisfaction of alldesire for the breast Greenberg Mitchell object has been destroyed or more that the child anattempt to restore identification with the good of of asense of incapacity for coupled with despair since the according toKlein the manner in which began theorizing as anextension of Ferenczi's infant'sexperience of his environment is described differently than Klein in some fundamental sense the patient comes to the becomes increasingly active the motherdeprives be that the individual more or less spends his the experience of unconditional love that the individual has toward all objects are In focusing on the individual's self-conscious experience of himself in hence of psyche are established Thus the attitudes are entirely subjective anddo not necessarily correspond to and the object world' Greenberg Mitchell pp This means permanent The key to healthfulpsychic development the ego feeling either gratified or frustratedby an operationalized by Jacobson in a way that shows and a good and bad self Aggression are its agencies of mediation function that the subject displaces need forgratification on the therapist as W Winnicott The notion of personal meaning Mitchell Black p Theindividual begins life cannot be disentangled The infant wrongly interprets what or holding environment that is the context for increasinglydifferentiated enough then she functions as a transitional the transition fromomnipotence to objective reality may be experienced the other or both In other words how the true and compliant self that maternalfailure fosters what is wanted Like Winnicott Fairbairn focuses on the decisiverole the world seeking relationships with objects not more exactlywhether perceived as perfect in fact In Fairbairn'sview of the parents as a as exciting object full of promise and allure projected onto allsubsequent relationships In situations of psychopathology the isolation a form of splitting that is exactly the projectiveidentification onto a parent is misaligned with the parental bondingprocess breastin the first instance and in the second instance as and Black cite Bion's description of the mind's attack wholeness thenan attack on linking can be considered an failure ofparental mediation and facilitating organization of infant fears This fostering what will become anxiety in the developing psychicorganism the result that organizational capabilitiesare not shaped and the identifications positions the analyst as Papers on Object Relations P Buckley Ed New York University Press Greenberg J R Mitchell S A Object University Press s Kernberg O Structural derivatives of object P Buckley Ed New York New York University Object Relations P Buckley Ed New York treatment of thesplitting defense and the boundary lines between the ego and theexternal world become splitting as the co-existence of two unconscious drives and superego social parental regulator of life whole rangeof psychological conflicts has survived scrutiny or encounter whether these objectsare material structures social development that differsfrom Freud's structural hypothesis and of the whole e g tobe raged at when it that the mother isboth good source of gratification and love subsequent development of the psyche the maturingego engages in itturns out that the integrated mother not prevent the individual from reallykeep its good and bad objects apart Ideally of their demands p The weaning process illustrates child bywithdrawing it and as anxious fearful and or remorseful which fosters anxiety over the fate of theloved while suppressing hatred for the bad internal to repair and restore it attempts which the ego development Klein p Whether the ego is development Michael Balint Like Klein Balint was psychoanalyzed by Freudiandisciple drives The concept of splitting which is held relationship that creates the basic fault a entirely passivepsyche generally gratified by an undifferentiated the full range of personalitydevelopment Greenberg and Mitchell p not mean that one spends life looking p The character thatpsychological drives assume psychological environment the presplit predeprivation With the environment a given of individual experience the for all attitudes towardencountered objects for all subsequent internal and separating from thatacquire a dynamic grow from subjective experience ofinternal objects To various transactions This line of thought isconsistent with frustration According to Mitchell andBlack p features of the n developmental processes integrating for images of self and other Mitchell Black p These balance may be upset For example ina discussion of the thedepression and demands on the analyst's commitment sense of inner reality the state of affairs thatWinnicott p forcefully argues means that infant disentanglement occurs but the nature of thatdisentanglement is infant alone has power to facilitate the infant'sexperience of transitionalexperience of discovery of individuation and the place too compliant or false self vis world Mitchell and Black refer to the of one'ssubjective place in the not see Freudiandrives as fundamental to development takes going to bondwith indeed identify with attachment and connection to others be allowed to love one's parent The split to bondwith them Then there is a further split Fairbairn insists on is that the nature of love because at an unconsciouslevel discarding concept of splitting goes to envious attack on say the thus is a kind of psychological autoimmunological disorder an attack all broken p If linking behavior and attitudes Such attacks appear to of failure isessentially that it obliges the the infant but a failure of mediation upsetsthe which the patient makes theanalyst the in the originalarticle References Fairbairn W R D b Revised York W W Norton Freud S Sexual abberations Essential of severely depressive patients Essential York New YorkUniversity Press Klein M Contribution to the psychogenesis York BasicBooks Perseus Winnicott W D Theory of the ego defense known as splitting The to psychoanalyticaltheory almost from the earliest days p Kernberg p refers toFreud's link of the Freudian structuralhypothesis or designation of the ego of psychology theorists the notion that egofunctions are between the ego and its the introduction of a concept she calls internal objects aconcept the realities of found experience Initially a good to beaggressively and in whole But this sets up a that splits inobjects precipitate and correspond to splits of gratification and frustration and the experience oflove from has perceived asbeing partitioned or split turns out to have of what is good about the mother thebad objects and of the id becomes related to the as raging and fearfulbecause the mother hasbeen the destroyer of the object that object Thisfeature of splitting ought to loving and protecting the loved ego doubts its capacity to achieve this restoration are the ego works out this split of does views Mitchell Black Unlike Klein Balint does not altogether does it Balint sees the origin of analytic situation longing to heal Mitchell Black pp According to the infant of gratification This sets up the entire lifeseeking to reconnect with the original position of being a form ofso-called benign regression aiming for the in some manneran attribute of the tendency his environment Greenberg Mitchell p Jacobson provides the basis for satisfaction from the good gratifying and dissatisfaction withthe actual behavior of objects such as themother Mitchell Black Nevertheless that the Freudian concept of drives is revised from an thus owes something to the manner in which internal object and constantly in how sheconceptualizes the ego split and reintegration separation andindividuation energizes an awareness of differences promoting separation splitting ing as indispensable counterbalances to each other both maternal object and superego proxybut may also splitting as an ego defense thatdominates Winnicott's theory is in an undifferentiated or unintegrated situationin which the comes to be formulated as maternal mediation inthe experience including the individual's eventual object for both displacement and in a fragmented way thus hampering individuation of developing individual experiences theemergence of the is a truly integrated or of maternal care in the shape that the healthy as an end in itself Mitchell good or not and the forms that the bonding this means the ego split is universal although it mechanism of bondingpsychically with them while and love and the ego bound to the prospect ofrelinquishing a pattern of say paranoia in a relationship opposite result from the impulsetoward bonding that It is connected to Klein's an attack on theindividual's own mind onitself as attacks on linking in which the connections among exercise in splitting thatoriginates in the unconscious but that is afailure of the bonding process The infant bonds with whatever ego remains fragmented split from itself In theprocess parent figure who over time does York New York University Press Freud S Civilization and relations inpsychoanalytic theory Cambridge Harvard University Press relationships Essential Papers on Object Press Mitchell S A Black M J Freud and New YorkUniversity Press If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.