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On Freud's ‘Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defence’, edited by Thierry Bokanowski and Sergio Lewkowicz, covers multiple views on the notion of splitting. Despite its frequent use in psychoanalytic literature, the concept of splitting still causes much confusion given the variety of meanings ascribed
to it. One of the definitions mentioned in the book is Klein's (1946) formulation of splitting as part of normal development - an initial stage of partitioning when in an undifferentiated state of frustration and gratification to allow for a second stage of cohesion and integration (Hartke, 2009; Mallet da Rocha Barros, 2009). On Freud's ‘Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defence’ captures the richness and importance of the various interpretations of splitting but fails to reach the subsequent stage of integration to which the authors refer.
In accord with the aim of the Contemporary Freud Turning Points and Critical Issues Series, Bokanowski and Lewkowicz try to reclaim Freud's ideas through contemporary psychoanalytic understanding. The book comprises ten chapters some of which are more theoretically oriented and others more clinical. They cover various topics ranging from splitting in the process of loss, perversion, historicization, to virtual reality and psychosomatics. They also offer extensive clinical examples presented by authors of different backgrounds that show how Freud's concept of splitting of the ego remains essential but, at the same time, may be used and understood in a variety of different ways.
One of the difficulties in reading On Freud's ‘Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defence’ is the lack of differentiation between Freud's concept of ‘splitting of the ego’ and the various other definitions of ‘splitting’. In his unfinished and posthumously published paper, Splitting of the ego in the process of defence, Freud (1938) referred to a specific phenomenon and raised important issues regarding the nature and function of the ego, a new