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“Splitting” is a popular concept in the ego-analytical literature, generally referring to a form of disorganization or fragmentation of an entity that is normally homogeneous in the intact ego. A comprehensive analysis of splitting is to be found in Guntrip,1 where various mechanisms and neurotic phenomena are examined in relation to ego organization as a whole. If we attempt to classify these phenomena from a dynamic orientation, three distinct foci emerge: (1) Splitting of objects into good and bad, resulting from an inability to maintain a unitary object possessing disparate attributes; this concept recurs in Melanie Klein's analytic writings on children. (2) Fragmentation of various affective attributes of object relations that are incompatible; Guntrip cites references in Fairbairn's work to document this phenomenon, but a clear analysis of it is to be found in Katan's2 orientation of ego mechanisms in his analysis of the Schreber case. (3) Beyond the above two mechanisms, there appears to be another “splitting” that is intrinsic to the cognitive mechanisms of schizoid disorders and schizophrenia and that is interwoven in the very dynamics of schizophrenic regression. It is suggested that this particular facet of splitting might be labeled “distancing,” because it involves a splitting off of the ego from contact with the external stimuli.
The failure of the ego to synthesize and organize is fear-producing. The schizoid personality results from an attempt to neutralize the chaos. To quote Guntrip:
The end product of these schizoid processes is the result of primitive fear, and out of the struggle to ward it off emerge schizophrenic and paranoid disorders.
… the process of withdrawal in successive stages through fear emerges as a major cause of what we have come to call “ego-splitting.”1
It is clear that Guntrip is referring to distancing as a mechanism of dynamically divorcing oneself from the outside world, and that the transition from a schizoid personality to sch