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With renewed attention being paid the psychoanalytic concept of splitting, particularly as it relates to narcissistic personality disorders, this paper engages our interest in the relationship between an old psychoanalytic concern and one of its more recent areas of application. The author attempts to demonstrate that certain aspects of splitting found in multiple personality are qualitatively similar to the situation in ego splitting. An important corollary of the main
thesis is that the roots of multiple personality are to be found in the preoedipal phase of development. This is in contrast to the usual classification of this syndrome as a subcategory of hysteria. In the structural model, ego splitting is seen as a defense against conflict and unbearable anxiety and as an alternative to normal synthesis of the "good" and "bad" parts of the self-object representation. This defense is not confined to any specific diagnostic category. As in narcissistic character disorders, splitting, as an active defense in multiple personality, is directed to the management of incompatible perceptions and identifications, unintegrated object representations, and the stress of overwhelming anxiety engendered by conflict among structures and drives not integrated into the cohesive self. Vertical and horizontal splitting occur in both clinical conditions. In the case of multiple personality, the overt emergence of the disorder represents a regressive defense predicated on a significant fixation at the narcissistic stage of development. Three cases are presented by the author to demonstrate the continuity of narcissistic character disorder and multiple personality.