The Psychoanalytic Quarterly 25, 1956, No. I: Gustav Bychowski. 'The Ego and the Introjects.'

This is a condensation of three papers delivered to the American Psychoanalytic Association. The first deals with 'The Origins and Precursors of Splitting'. In the conflict of oral dependency and the destructive rage which arises when the object does not comply, the result is often withdrawal of erotic energy and decathexis of the object. This is achieved by neutralizing the libido with the aggression which has not been permitted to achieve its aim. The aggressive energy further strengthens the countercathexis and isolation of the introjected object. At the same time some of the libido cathects substitute objects, which are thereby idealized, or rendered omnipotent, and which continue to be reached out for. This is the primary basis of cleavage, and it opens the possibility of further repetitions of the same mechanism. When the process is sufficiently advanced the split-off primary identifications may seem to be non-existent both to the ego and to the observer. That such splitting is not always maintained, and that the introjects are readily projected, is easily understandable, since they also tend to retain some of their original instinctual charge, and there is therefore always the potentiality of restoring the original experiences and discharging some of the original cathexes. It is also understandable that such a transformation of relations within the ego and superego into relations between the ego and external objects has as its counterpart both libidinal and destructive acting out.

The second and third papers are concerned with the vicissitudes of such introjects, and their effect on the mental economy in 'The Construction of Male Homosexuality' and 'Advanced Stages of Splitting in Schizophrenia'.