Splitting
- Jul 12
- 6 min read
Updated: Jul 13
(Where he/she, I will use he; where caregiver, I shall use mother; where patient, I shall use client).
To some degree or another people are a mixture of good and bad qualities; loving and hateful feelings. This might seem a statement of the bleedin’ obvious that said, when suffering the pressures of living, objectivity to this point often breaks down.
When our anxiety is overwhelming, we might split. We might divide the world into good and bad experiences. “I hate bus drivers! They are the reason I’m late for this life changing interview,” (or we might say to ourselves) “Typical, I always screw things up!”
Splitting is often the only psychological strategy available, when access to all others fails us.
“If you don’t read the newspapers you’re uninformed, if you do read them you’re misinformed.”
This is a misattributed quote to Mark Twain, popularised by actor Denzel Washington where he critiques the goal of journalists rather to be first with a story, than to ensure its accuracy. An alternative interpretation of the A listers conceit could be that journalists are simply not to be trusted and for perhaps his reasoning alone, but not for any other we might consider.
On the whole we broadly trust as benign, the physical and emotional space immediately surrounding us. To some extent we can depend on our families and local communities. The wider world beyond this, we are generally less sure about. Consequently and typically, we often imagine the world as either being benign and safe or unstable or threatening - only confident of our senses being a mixture of both when we actually experience it for ourselves or are informed of such, accurately and impartially.
Mainstream newspapers, news media and TV news regardless of their eagerness to be first, tout their stories most successfully when their reporting is presented in simple black and white terms. A bad criminal jailed - their victim suffering in hospital. A courageous national campaign by our forces - fighting an evil tyrannical nation. An untrustworthy politician - maligning a member of the opposition. A determined sportswoman - overcoming the suffering of a degenerative disease. A football team who have been underdogs for many seasons - fight the league leaders for promotion.
For reasons which may become clear, The News is widely presented to us in such a way as to echo the unconscious divided picture we have of the unknown and unknowable aspects of ourselves and the world beyond. It is split into a safe, nourishing and enjoyable place, or an aggressive deceptive, persecuting threat. The team we support is imbued with goodness, our opponents we denigrate. Should we really blame the news media for painting such a picture, as perhaps this picture is the one we wish to see? Our outrage and disgust is what sells the story, not our curiosity for greater understanding.
The theory
Splitting comprises various psychological actions
Projection is when we consciously push our feelings into someone or something else. Introjection, when we take on the feelings of others. Projective identification is when we treat the other person as if they actually are the reason why we feel the way we feel. This identification can be nurturing and necessary (for young infants) or disordered and destructive (for some adults).
The primitive defence of splitting occurs in early life when the infant is faced with a new and confusing world. He requires blunt, simple strategies to cope with the frustrations of living outside of the womb and its attempts to organise the satisfaction of its needs - needs it is obviously unable to meet by itself.
This infant experiences the world in parts. What psychoanalysts call part-objects. Infants haven’t yet understood that the feeding breast or bottle, is also a part of mother. It’s just a breast (or a bottle). It’s either good when it produces milk or bad when it doesn’t. A loving caring bottle or a bad depriving bottle (suggesting a link with the mother). The infant isn’t able to comprehend that bottle or indeed the mother could be one and the same thing. It also doesn’t yet retain the mental apparatus to comprehend that if the bottle doesn’t have milk now, it will in the future.
The peekaboo game might be another example of what is termed object consistency. It’s as if the carer disappears behind their hands and the child then giggles hysterically when the hands drop and carer appears again. The infant doesn’t yet have object consistency. It can’t hold in mind states and objects, beyond the present.
When the breast disappears or stops feeding the baby genuinely thinks the mother has also disappeared. The mother is not yet whole in the child’s mind. She is not yet understood to be both good and bad, and incorporating different parts, qualities, characteristics, thoughts and feelings along with a capacity to meet - as best she can - the basic needs of the infant.
“The urge to make sense of the chaos leads the baby to order his experience by splitting or dividing it into what he feels is good and what he feels is bad experience.” Keeping these experiences apart from each other the baby ensures consistency in his experience of the world. The mother becomes as it were the wicked witch or the fairy god mother in her attempts to meet the needs of the child.” (1)
This is what Melanie Klein termed the paranoid-schizoid position (as opposed to the depressive position, which I will discuss in later articles). It is schizoid (meaning split), as good and bad experiences are separated. The infant experiences either a good mother who is in supply or a bad mother who is depriving. When he is experiencing goodness he attempts to take the feeling in - introjecting. When deprived he cries attempting to push the bad feeling he experiences out of himself, into the mother - projecting. She in turn identifies with his discomfort, feels responsible and soothes the infant.
The paranoid element arises from the central fear of the growing infant, that the destructive hateful feelings he directs towards the depriving mother will illicit reprisal or punishment from the mother whom he has aggravated. Klein termed this persecutory anxiety - which is a common psychological reference in psychotherapeutic work.
Overtime this process of introjecting and projecting good and bad feelings muddies the waters between the two experiences. However, if the mother can contain these feelings on the infants behalf, the infant will gradually begin to recognise her (and indeed himself) as a whole person, comprising both good and bad qualities and not split part-objects - two separate people - when these anxieties arise.
Conclusion.
The Newspapers rarely ever tell the whole story. Editorial pieces perhaps offer some nuance, but is this ever really enough? Newspapers and their owners are under a kind of pressure. A commercial pressure. A pressure to meet the expectations of their stakeholders and customers.
We all interpret the world and our relationships differently when we are under pressure. When confronted by our worst fears, we can resort to quite infantile ways of interpreting what’s right in front of us. The primitive defence of splitting ensures that our overall sense of the world remains in tact. While this might provide a coherent perception, it may necessarily not entirely correspond to reality.
A mother’s job is to contain, hold and digest the feelings intolerable to the infant - feelings he might have about her and her care. His experience might be that his only source of nourishment has totally disappeared - but in fact Mum has simply gone to grab another bottle and while briefly absent, she has to tolerate the infant’s distress. In a similar way, a psychotherapist is charged with the same. To take in, but not to react to distress; to absorb the pressure and to encourage a moment of pause. To think and redescribe what is being experienced - helping the client face the reality of their situation. A reality that whilst his demands are not being met, this doesn’t mean the target of his frustrations are all bad (or all good) as a consequence.
Disclaimer: The material provided in this post is for informational purposes only and not intended to diagnose, treat, or prevent any illness in readers. The information should not replace personalised care from your provider or formal supervision if you’re a practitioner or student.
References:
1 Gomez, L (1997) An Introduction to Object Relations UK. Free Association Books. (1997). p37.