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The term dismantling, introduced by Donald Meltzer, refers to a very [[primitive ]] [[defense ]] [[mechanism ]] involving dissociation of the perceptual [[apparatus ]] "by a [[passive ]] [[process ]] that allows the various senses, specific and general, [[internal ]] and [[external]], to attach to whatever [[object ]] is most stimulating at the [[moment]]" (Meltzer, 1975/1991)—for example, a light, a sound, or an odor.

Meltzer used this term for the first [[time ]] in a paper delivered at a meeting of the British [[Psychoanalytical ]] [[Society ]] in June 1969, "The Origins of the [[Fetishistic ]] Plaything of [[Sexual ]] Perversions" later published in his second book, Sexual States of [[Mind ]] (1973, pp. 107-113). He took the [[idea ]] of the dismantled object from the [[psychoanalytic ]] [[treatment ]] of [[children ]] who had suffered from early [[infantile ]] [[autism]]. He defines dismantling as "the most primitive [[working ]] of [[obsessional ]] mechanisms" (p. 108). Unlike the [[splitting ]] [[processes ]] described by Melanie [[Klein]], which make use of the [[sadistic ]] [[drives]], dismantling, which is reversible at any time, instead relies on a relaxation of the attention function.

The [[author ]] invented this term with reference to the [[notion ]] of "consensual validation" defined by Harry Stack Sullivan, which is very close to Wilfred R. Bion's idea of the "common [[sense]]." Meltzer's proposed idea involves a [[dissolution ]] of such constructions, leading to the creation of a [[multitude ]] of unisensory [[objects]]. He emphasizes that the implementation of such a [[defense mechanism ]] suppresses genuine relational experiences and thus their [[introjection]]. In the first publication, he hypothesizes that dismantling is also seen in sexual perversions where the exciting objects (fetishes) are "dismantled objects" used in their purely sensorial aspect.

The notion of dismantling is then taken up in greater detail in Meltzer's 1975 book Explorations in Autism, where he shows the massive use of this defense mechanism in autism proper, explaining the stereotypes of sensory autostimulation under the influence of the [[repetition ]] [[compulsion]]. He demonstrates a more [[complex ]] use of this phenomenon in postautistic obsessionality and in obsessional states in general. Meltzer argues that dismantling, which is beyond consensuality or within its dissolution, does not belong to the spectrum of projective [[identification ]] but rather belongs within the notion of "adhesive [[identity]]" positing a two-dimensional [[space]], proposed by Esther Bick (1975).

Some [[French ]] authors (J. Bégoin, 1994; D. Ribas, 1994; D. Maldavsky, 1995) have compared dismantling to [[decathexis ]] in the [[Freudian ]] sense, and it is indeed possible to do so: The former can be considered as a very primitive [[form ]] of the latter. Dismantling also seems to be at [[work ]] in the [[self]]-soothing behaviors described by Claude Smadja (1993) and Gérard Szwec (1993). These authors compare this mechanism with the abnormal, destructive primary [[masochism ]] that Benno Rosenberg (1991) describes as "centered around excitement in and of itself . . . and the gradual abandonment of the object." Frances Tustin also shares this view in Autistic States in Children (1981), in which is described an autosensuality, differentiated from [[autoerotism]], in autistic maneuvers and its exacerbation into self-directed [[sadism ]] in certain cases.