Splitting Of The Ego Psypath.docx 2u723k

Splitting (Millon, 2004, p. 27) Opposite qualities of a single object are held apart, left in deliberately unintegrated opposition, resulting in cycles of idealization and devaluation as either extreme is project onto self and others. EXAMPLE: A student vacillates between worship and contempt for a professor, sometimes seeing her as intelligent and powerful and himself as ignorant and weak, and then switching roles, depending on their interactions (Millon et al., 2004, p. 27).1 Those clients whose personality is organized at the borderline level make use of splitting as a defense against narcissistic injuries. This type of splitting refers to actively keeping apart of good and bad internal representations of objects as it relates to significant others (Millon, 2004, p. 492). Thoughts such as, “Mommy has some good things about her and some bad things about her,” are simply not possible (Millon, 2004, p. 492). Kernberg (1975) states that these good and bad object representations form two separate identification systems, either of which may be projected onto the self or outside world. Thus, borderline clients when under stress may switch between idealizing others (a projection of the good image) and completely devaluing them (a projection of the bad image). Understanding the relationship of splitting to the wider constellation of borderline symptoms requires an understanding of its role in normal development (Millon, 2004, p. 492). Borderlines are fixated at the separation-individuation phase (rapprochement subphase) which occurs between 16 and 30 months of age. Separation-individuation precedes object constancy, the future borderline cannot distinguish between self and other before an image of the nurturing figure (as a permanent presence) is internalized (Millon, 2004, p. 492). The fear is that when MOMMY LEAVES, she will be gone forever, never to return. This appears in a clinical setting whenever a client “has no internalized, stable image of his or her father or mother, therefore, has no cognitive or emotional appreciation of a love that might endure across time and circumstance – as in the oft saying of the borderline: “I don’t know why I bother with love because everyone I ever cared about leaves me” (Millon, 2004, p. 492). Millon (2004) relates the a lack of stable internalized images of attachment figures creates considerable anxiety and the concomitant possibility of regression to more primitive ego states” (pp. 492-493). Kernberg (1975, location 2570) defines object constancy as “the capacity for establishing total object relationships.” According to McDevitt (1975)2 and Mahler (1963),3 object constancy begins when a young child (between 25 and 36 months of age) demonstrates the ability to tolerate brief separations from the mother. This ability stems from the “emergence of stable inner representations of the mother as these become [cognitively] available to child” (McDevitt, 1975, p. 714).

1

Millon, T., Grossman, S., Millon, C., Meagher, S., & Ramnath, R. (2004). Personality disorders in modern life (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley & Sons. 2

McDevitt, J. B. (1975). Separation-individuation and object constancy. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 23(4), 713-742. 3

Mahler, M. S. (1963). Thoughts about development and individuation. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 18, 307-324.