Spitting

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Splitting is a form of dissociation that results from a conflict that can affect the ego (splitting of the ego) or its objects (splitting of the object). It is a very general intrapsychic process to the extent that it also forms the basis of the capacity in the psychic apparatus for dividing itself into systems (cf. first topography: unconscious, preconscious, conscious) and into agencies (cf. second topography: id, ego, superego). The term "splitting" has some long-established uses in psychiatry and goes back to the general concept of a...


Splitting of the Ego

The term "splitting of the ego" refers to a division of the ego into two coexisting parts, one of which satisfies instinctual demands while the other heeds the objection, in the shape of a symptom, which reality raises to that satisfaction. This process, which Freud described as a "ruse," constitutes a temporary response to the conflict, but the price paid is an inner rent in the ego that can only get worse with time. For Freud the most striking instance of the splitting of the ego was to be observed in the perversion of fetishism, but it...

Splitting of the Subject

"Splitting" (in French, "refente") is one of the translations Jacques Lacan proposed for the German "Spaltung" when he discussed how the subject is divided in subordination to the signifier. In 1958, at the end of Les formations de l'inconscient (1998), book 5 of his seminar, Lacan introduced the written symbol to refer to the effects of the signifier on the subject. He proposed the French term "refente" some time later to translate the English term "splitting," itself a translation of the term employed by Freud, "Spaltung,"...