Psychological Alienation: Isolation and Self-Estrangement*

The term alienation is currently used to describe objectively observable states of separateness occurring in human groups. An older usage viewed alienation as a subjective, individual condition. Until early in this century the term was used within psychiatry as a loose generic category describing various states of pathological isolation and madness. In this essay alienation will be reviewed in these latter connections as it contributes to the understanding of certain clinical states of disturbance. Some factors which make the experience of introspection threatening will be reviewed. Clinical conditions will be discussed in which a malignant self-absorption is conspicuous—notably the schizoid personality. Some of the formulations and explanations of these conditions will also be included. Even in the title of this article, the unfortunate although conventional dichotomy between subjective self and objective social reality is perpetuated. Distinctions concerning “inside-outside,” “subjective-objective,” and “psychological-social,” are only phenomenological, but these pseudo-polarities will be used here because they are central to the alienated person's explanation of himself as an object in the social universe. The immense problems posed by the use of these polarities as ontological realities are beyond the scope of this presentation. Fairbairn's conception of an “object-relations” personality partly cuts through this dilemma.11