The ego, in thinking, language, and symptom-formation can make use of either multivalent or univalent mental representations. The former are organized in the primary process and the latter, in the secondary process mode.

The phobia contains both forms of representation concurrently. The object is apprehended as wholly identified with the self (multivalent mental representation) at the same time that it is comprehended as sharing attributes with the self, but being not-self (univalent mental representation). This is accomplished by a splitting of function similar to that which has been described in fetishism. In the phobia, splitting makes possible displacement of the unwanted impulse, and gives the symptom its facultative value.