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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 capacity for psychic splitting in the [[human ]] [[being]]. These usages are precursors of the concept of splitting as defined by [[Freud]]. They are found in the nineteenth century in relation to [[hysteria ]] and [[hypnosis ]] (splitting of the [[personality]], multiple personalities, dissociation) and in Pierre Janet's [[work]], in which the concept of a deficiency of [[psychological ]] [[synthesis ]] plays an important [[role]]. Freud and [[Breuer ]] [[return ]] to the concept of splitting in relation to "splitting of [[consciousness]]" and from 1894 ("The [[Psycho]]-[[Neuroses ]] of [[Defence]]"), Freud provides a [[causality ]] for this process: "For these [[patients ]] whom I analysed had enjoyed [[good ]] [[mental ]] health until the [[moment ]] at which an occurrence of incompatibility took [[place ]] in their ideational life—that is to say, until their ego was faced with such an [[experience]], an [[idea ]] or a [[feeling ]] which aroused such a distressing affect that the [[subject ]] decided to forget [[about ]] it because he had no confidence in his [[power ]] to resolve the [[contradiction ]] between that incompatible idea and his ego by means of [[thought]]-[[activity]]" (1894a, p. 47).However, the splitting mentioned here goes back to [[neurotic ]] [[repression]]. Now, Freud, writes, "There is, however, a much more energetic and successful kind of defence. Here, the ego rejects the incompatible idea together with its affect and behaves as if the idea had never occurred to the ego at all" (1894a, p. 58). This describes [[another ]] form of splitting, that which Jacques [[Lacan ]] later translates as [[foreclosure ]] (forclusion—Verwerfungforclusion—[[Verwerfung]]), which is characteristic of the [[psychoses ]] and results in the [[foreclosed ]] element returning in the [[real ]] in the form of a [[hallucination]]. With the concept of "[[denial ]] of [[reality]]," Freud introduces another form of splitting that demonstrates the proximity of the mechanisms of perversion to [[psychotic ]] mechanisms without actually conflating [[them]], as is evident from the creation of a [[substitute ]] for the [[absent ]] reality (the [[female ]] [[penis]]) that occurs in the [[fetish]], which differs from a hallucination.The concept of splitting does not only concern this possibility of dissociation from reality or [[internal ]] rift in the ego, but also relates to the object of the [[drive]]. Based on Freud's hypotheses concerning the [[life ]] drive and the [[death ]] drive, Melanie [[Klein ]] demonstrated the force with which the latter operates in generating [[infantile ]] [[anxiety ]] when confronted with [[frustration]]. The splitting between a "loved good [[breast]]" and a "hated bad breast" therefore constitutes a way of simultaneously preserving a good object and constructing a bad object as the receptacle of the destructive [[drives]]. This [[situation ]] corresponds to what the [[author ]] [[terms ]] the [[paranoid]]-schizoid [[phase]]. The support that the ego draws from the good object and the process of repairing the destroyed object subsequently allow this splitting to be partly overcome. However, the splitting of the object is inextricable from a splitting of the ego into a "good" and a "bad" ego, according to the [[introjection ]] of the corresponding [[split ]] objects. Splitting can prove difficult to overcome when it is established between a very bad object and an idealized object. The entire [[pathology ]] of [[idealization ]] opens up here with its multiple [[clinical ]] facets.[[Melanie Klein]]'s successors, Wilfred Bion and Donald [[Winnicott]], amplified and deepened the concept of splitting. For Bion, splitting in the form of dissociation precedes the work of elaboration in [[loss]]. For Winnicott, who takes up Helene Deutsch's concept of "[[false ]] [[self]]," a [[distortion ]] in the initial [[relationship ]] between the [[mother]]-[[environment ]] and the [[baby ]] creates a false self that protects the [[true ]] self but also isolates it from contact with reality. For Winnicott, splitting can also take the form of dissociation or disintegration as responses to being confronted with a psychotic [[fear ]] of disintegration.

# Bion, Wilfred. (1962). Learning from experience. [[London]]: Heinemann.# Klein, Melanie. (1935). A contribution to the psychogenesis of [[manic-depressive ]] states. International Journal of Psycho-[[Analysis]], 16, 145-174. Reprinted 1975 in The writings of Melanie Klein, vol. 1, 262-289.# ——. (1952). The mutual influences in the [[development ]] of ego and id. [[Psychoanalytic ]] Study of the [[Child]], 7, 51-53.# [[Lacan, Jacques]]. (1966). Commentaires sur la Verwerfung. In [[Écrits]]. [[Paris]]: Le Seuil. (Original work published 1956)# Winnicott, Donald W. (1953 [1951]). Transitional objects and transitional phenomena. A study of the first not-me possession. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 34, 89-97. Additional [[material ]] was added to the paper in Playing and reality. London: Tavistock, 1971: 1-30.